Health and Healing in America

Brandeis history professor Michael Willrich‘s book about smallpox traces the complex interactions between medicine, public health, government and politics in the Progressive Era. We will read this book over several weeks, from March 6 to March 27. Please bring the book to class on the days we’re discussing the assigned chapters. Continue reading →

Brandeis history professor Michael Willrich‘s book about smallpox traces the complex interactions between medicine, public health, government and politics in the Progressive Era. We will read this book over several weeks, from March 6 to March 27. Please bring the book to class on the days we’re discussing the assigned chapters. Continue reading →

On your own, enjoy exploring some of these links to give you a flavor for the Progressive Era and the interwoven public health, women’s rights and labor reform movements. Continue reading →

Our next three class sessions all bring us up through the 19th century to the early 20th century in medical / health practices, professionalization, and technological and scientific progress. Continue reading →

Update: Class is cancelled on Monday, Feb 13 due to snow. This week’s readings will BOTH be discussed in Wednesday’s class (Foucault, “Birth of the Clinic” and Burnham, Ch 3). Reminder: Diagnosis: History paper is due on Wednesday, Feb 15. Continue reading →

UPDATE: NO Class Today, Wed 2/8 – Dr. Hangen is sick

This week we look at another late 18th/early 19th century context of frontier medicine, medical care in the Lewis and Clark expedition (1803-1806). Continue reading →

Reading: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “1787: Exceeding Dangerously Ill” from A Midwife’s Tale (1991) – it’s posted as a PDF on Blackboard under “Readings”

Links for Today:
DoHistory.org
Guidelines and search term suggestions for the Diagosis: History project (due Wed Feb 15)

Bring laptops on Wednesday 2/1 to work with the Ballard diary

For Monday, Feb 6 – Reading is Volney Steele, “Lewis and Clark: Keelboat Physicians” posted as a PDF on Blackboard under “Readings.”

Reading for Today: Burnham, Health Care in America, Ch 1-2

Links for Today, re: Smallpox Inoculation in Boston
Dramatization of a Smallpox Inoculation / HBO’s John Adams (2008)
Interview with Stephen Coss, author of The Fever of 1821
The Fight Over Inoculation During the 1721 Boston Smallpox Epidemic (Harvard Science in the News)
The Boston Smallpox Epidemic (Contagion: Harvard Open Collections) – with original sources

For Monday:
Read Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “1787: Exceeding Dangerously Ill” from A Midwife’s Tale (1991) – it’s posted as a PDF on Blackboard under “Readings”

Please bring laptops to class on Monday, as we’ll be exploring a digital version of the diary Ulrich used to write this essay.