“FROM THE RISE OF MEDICINE TO BIOMEDICALIZATION:

U.S. HEALTHSCAPES AND ICONOGRAPHY c1890-PRESENT,

WITH GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS”

Adele E. Clarke, UC San Francisco

Clarke extends Appadurai's concept of scape to construct "healthscapes" --- historical view of the roots of biomedicalization looking at three eras: the rise of medicine c1890-1945; the era of medicalization c1940-1990; and the era of biomedicalization c1985-present. It is focused through an iconography of “things medical” allowing us to see the shifts across these healthscapes through changing patterns of visual cultural representations–from advertisements to movies to books and television programs. While a broad array of health and medical elements are represented in each era, during the rise of medicine era the visuals particular featured physicians, surgeries and hospitals; during the medicalization era they featured patients, providers as people and drugs; and today in the biomedicalization era, various modes of technoscientific intervention and complex teams to execute them are often center stage.