Examining the complex dynamics of medical treatment options and the variable character of surgical technologies, this volume broadens and transcends the notion of technological innovation.Surgery is an ideal field for examining the processes of technological change in medicine. The contributors to this book go beyond the concept of innovation, with its focus on a single technology and its sharp dichotomy of acceptance versus rejection. Instead they explore the historical contexts of change in surgery, looking at the complex dynamics of the various treatment options available — old and new, surgical and nonsurgical — as well as the variable character of the new technologies themselves, thus broadening and transcending the notion of technological innovation. CONTRIBUTORS: Christopher Crenner, Sally Frampton, Delia Gavrus, Lisa Haushofer, David S. Jones, Beth Linker, Shelley Mc Kellar, Thomas Schlich Thomas Schlich is the James Mc Gill Professor of the History of Medicine at the Department of Social Studies of Medicine at Mc Gill University. Christopher Crenner is the Ralph Major and Robert Hudson Professor and chair of the Department of History and Philosophy of Medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center.