New Books in Intellectual History Vanessa Rampton, "Making Medical Progress: History of a Contested Idea" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Feb 15, 2026
Vanessa Rampton, historian and philosopher of medicine at the University of St. Gallen and McGill, explores how the idea of medical progress has been shaped by religion, war, bioethics and politics. She traces shifts from Enlightenment hopes to postwar innovation, tensions between high-tech care and public health, and contemporary drivers like AI and genomics. The conversation ends with futures centered on justice and sustainability.
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Progress Is Historically Contingent
- Medicine lacked a single stable standard for progress across centuries and contexts.
- A decisive shift toward modern ideas of medical progress began in the Enlightenment when limits imposed by religion loosened.
War And Tech Fueled Medical Optimism
- World War II and the nuclear era catalyzed public hopes that technological breakthroughs would translate to medical breakthroughs.
- Military and political priorities channeled funding and prestige into biomedical science in the postwar period.
Moral Weight Accompanies New Techniques
- As biomedicine advanced, researchers recognized the moral weight and potential harms of their innovations.
- This spurred debates about when to proceed with new techniques and how to protect patients.
