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The importance to health of customs of diet, dress, types of settlement and housing and of physical environmental factors such as climate, vegetation, altitude, and topography have been widely recognized since the time of Hippo crates' Airs, Waters, and Places. Geographical variation has been studied as geographic pathology, medical ecology, medical topography, geographical epidemiology, geomedicine, and other rubrics, but only in the past 30 years has the discipline of geography itself applied its perspective and methodology to the study of health, disease, and care. After presenting an introduction to the field, I address some of the major geographic questions as they apply to medical geography and offer an explanation and critique of the methodology and theory currently being used to answer them.
Melinda S. Meade (Thu,) studied this question.