Cargando…

Revisionist or simply wrong? A response to Armstrong's article on chronic illness

This article is a response to David Armstrong's recent, revisionist account of the epidemiological transition which he claims replaced earlier discourses of ageing with new discourses of chronic disease. We argue (i) that he misrepresents a key element in Omran's account of the epidemiolog...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Gilleard, Chris, Higgs, Paul
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BlackWell Publishing Ltd 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4255747/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25155775
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12181
_version_ 1782347482241433600
author Gilleard, Chris
Higgs, Paul
author_facet Gilleard, Chris
Higgs, Paul
author_sort Gilleard, Chris
collection PubMed
description This article is a response to David Armstrong's recent, revisionist account of the epidemiological transition which he claims replaced earlier discourses of ageing with new discourses of chronic disease. We argue (i) that he misrepresents a key element in Omran's account of the epidemiological transition, namely the decline in infant, child and maternal mortality; (ii) that he fails to acknowledge debates going back centuries in Western medicine over the distinctions between natural and accidental death and between endogenous and extrinsic causes of ageing and (iii) that he misrepresents the growth of medical interest in the everyday illnesses of old age over the course of the 20th century as a discourse of suppression rather than a process of inclusion. While we would acknowledge that the chronic illnesses of today are different from those of the past, this amounts to something more than the changing semantics of senility.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-4255747
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2014
publisher BlackWell Publishing Ltd
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-42557472014-12-08 Revisionist or simply wrong? A response to Armstrong's article on chronic illness Gilleard, Chris Higgs, Paul Sociol Health Illn Original Articles This article is a response to David Armstrong's recent, revisionist account of the epidemiological transition which he claims replaced earlier discourses of ageing with new discourses of chronic disease. We argue (i) that he misrepresents a key element in Omran's account of the epidemiological transition, namely the decline in infant, child and maternal mortality; (ii) that he fails to acknowledge debates going back centuries in Western medicine over the distinctions between natural and accidental death and between endogenous and extrinsic causes of ageing and (iii) that he misrepresents the growth of medical interest in the everyday illnesses of old age over the course of the 20th century as a discourse of suppression rather than a process of inclusion. While we would acknowledge that the chronic illnesses of today are different from those of the past, this amounts to something more than the changing semantics of senility. BlackWell Publishing Ltd 2014-09 2014-08-26 /pmc/articles/PMC4255747/ /pubmed/25155775 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12181 Text en © 2014 The Authors. Sociology of Health & Illness published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Foundation for Sociology of Health and Illness (SHIL). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
spellingShingle Original Articles
Gilleard, Chris
Higgs, Paul
Revisionist or simply wrong? A response to Armstrong's article on chronic illness
title Revisionist or simply wrong? A response to Armstrong's article on chronic illness
title_full Revisionist or simply wrong? A response to Armstrong's article on chronic illness
title_fullStr Revisionist or simply wrong? A response to Armstrong's article on chronic illness
title_full_unstemmed Revisionist or simply wrong? A response to Armstrong's article on chronic illness
title_short Revisionist or simply wrong? A response to Armstrong's article on chronic illness
title_sort revisionist or simply wrong? a response to armstrong's article on chronic illness
topic Original Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4255747/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25155775
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12181
work_keys_str_mv AT gilleardchris revisionistorsimplywrongaresponsetoarmstrongsarticleonchronicillness
AT higgspaul revisionistorsimplywrongaresponsetoarmstrongsarticleonchronicillness