JANUARY 18-FEBRUARY 10: DEFINING HEALTH AND DISEASE

FEBRUARY 12-MARCH 19: MEDICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE

MARCH 22-APRIL 2: PUBLIC HEALTH

APRIL 4-APRIL 12: CASE STUDY:RACE AND MEDICINE

APRIL 14-MAY 5: ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE

Index of Book Synopses

Class Chatrooms

Students should check the Table of Assignments for a concise list of assignment due dates.

Essay 1, revised due date - February 10

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Articles designated **(SHA)** can be found in Leavitt and Numbers, Sickness and Health in America (3rd edition).

DEFINING HEALTH AND DISEASE

Jan. 18: Introduction : History of Medicine in Cyberspace

Jan. 20: What is History of Medicine and What is Health?

"Sickness and Health in America: an Overview" (SHA, pp. 3-10)
Pressman and Risse, "Is History Relevant to Medical Education Today?"
Kaplan, "The Relationship between the Concepts of Health and Disease"
Short History of Medicine

Notes from class: Vocabulary Lesson
Assignments:

Clip or draw a picture of "health." What does "health" look like in today's culture?

Before class email the instructor (kjwj@vt.edu - be sure to sign your name) a short (no more than 3-sentence) summary of Kaplan's definition of health.

Jan. 22: What are the Causes of Disease? (Look at the questions before you begin the readings for this class)

Condran, Williams, and Cheney, "The Decline of Mortality in Philadelphia from 1870-1930" (SHA)
Frank and Mustard (no joke!), "The Determinants of Health from a Historical Perspective"
Report: Infectious Disease Deaths Up" (Roanoke Times)
Age at which People Die in the US (from "America's Lifeline")

Assignment: Respond to online questions about these readings

Jan. 25: How Disease Affects Culture

Access readings and questions from The Columbian Exchange

Jan. 27: Class Presentation: Bushnell, The Gifts of Civilization

Access the summary and discussion questions from the Book Index

Jan. 29: No Class

Feb. 1:How Culture Affects Health--Framing Disease

Rosenberg, "Introduction" from Framing Disease
Kleinman, "Neurasthenia: Weakness and Exhaustion in the United States and Canada"
"A Physician's Lament"
Study Questions to complete and submit online

Feb. 3:Medicalization of Behavior: Presentation of Brumberg, Fasting Girls

Access the summary and discussion questions from the Book Index
McDonald, "The Medicalization of Suicide in England"
Study Questions to complete and submit online

Feb. 5:How Culture Affects Health--Occupational Diseases

Presentation of Cherniack, The Hawk's Nest Incident
Access the summary and discussion questions from the Book Index
Fox and Stone, "Black Lung: Miners' Militancy and Medical Uncertainty, 1968-1972" (SHA)

Feb. 8: Online Discussion of Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You, and You Fall Down

Feb. 10:ESSAY #1 DUE

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MEDICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE

Feb 12: Heroic Medicine: The Practice of Benjamin Rush

Christianson, "Medicine in New England" (SHA)
History of Bloodletting(From UCLA Medical Archives)
B. Rush, "On the Causes of Death in Diseases that are Not Incurable" (1793)
Study Questions for these Readings

Feb. 15: Medicine in an Age of Therapeutic Despair

Warner,"From Specificity to Universalism in Medical Therapeutics"(SHA)
"Medicine Becomes Scientific"
Medical School Catalog (1850)
Jacob Bigelow on Self-Limiting Diseases (1835)
Study Questions for these readings.

Feb. 17: Doctors at Work

Leavitt, "'A Worrying Profession' (SHA)
Morantz-Sanchez, "The 'Connecting Link'" (SHA)
Home Remedies

Feb. 19: "Strange Sleep"

Visit the Virtual Museum of Anasthesiology and explore, or go directly to the assignment: an 1846 description of Morton's use of ether.

Feb. 22: The Bacteriological Revolution

Neuland, "'To Tend the Fleshly Tabernacle of the Immortal Spirit': Joseph Lister's Antiseptic Surgery," from Doctors: the Biography of Medicine, pp. 343-386.
Robert F. Weir on Antisepsis (1877)
Tomes, "Apostles of the Germ," from The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women and the Microbe in American Life, pp.23-47.

Feb. 24:Impact on Clinicians and the Public

Hudson, "Abraham Flexner in Perspective: American Medical Education, 1865-1910" (SHA)
PLUS
Tomes, "The Private Side of Public Health" (SHA)
OR
Rogers, "Dirt, Flies, and Immigrants: Explaining the Epidemiology of Poliomyelitis, 1900-1916" (SHA)

Feb. 26: Presentation of Rothman, Living in the Shadow of Death

Access the summary and discussion questions from the Book Index
You might want to watch "The People's Plague: Tuberculosis in America," a 2-hour video available through the Media Center

Mar 1: Presentation of Howell, Technology in the Hospital; Transforming Patient Care in the Early Twentieth Century

Access the summary and discussion questions from the Book Index
Gamble, "Roots of the Black Hospital Reform Movement" (SHA)

Mar. 3:"Sentimental Women Need Not Apply"

Reverby, "'Neither for the Drawing Room Nor for the Kitchen': Private Duty Nursing in Boston, 1873-1920" (SHA)

Mar. 5: Help sessions for Webwork; please arrange with instructor

Mar. 8-10-12: Spring Break

Mar. 15: Modern Medicine: Big Government and Biomedical Research

Parascondola, "The Introduction of Antibiotics into Therapeutics" (SHA)
If you missed class: Victoria Harden, Brief History of the National Institutes of Health (from the NIH website)

Mar. 17:The Golden Age of Medicine

OnLine Discussion of Lewis Thomas, The Youngest Science

Mar. 19: Essay #2 Due

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PUBLIC HEALTH

Mar. 22: Introduction

Explore the history of the U.S. Public Health Service through a Photograph Exhibit

Mar. 24: Public Health before Germs: Presentation of Rosenberg,The Cholera Years

Access the summary and discussion questions from the Book Index
John Snow's Map of Cholera in London
Access additional readings and study questions from the Cholera Index

Mar. 26: Progressive Public Health Campaigns: Typhoid Mary

Access all readings and study questions from the Typhoid Mary Index

Mar. 29: Eugenics and Sterilization: Public Health Measures?

Access all readings from "Why was Carrie Buck Sterilized?"

Mar. 31: Presentation of Proctor, Racial Hygiene

Access the summary, discussion questions, and timeline from the Book Index
The close connection between the American eugenics movement and the Nazi sterilization programs is discussed in this brief excerpt, "Eugenics in Germany," from Diane B. Paul's book, Controlling Human Heredity (1995).

Apr. 2: Contemporary Public Health Issues: Alcohol, Cigarettes, and AIDS--Online Discussion

Alcohol on Campus Readings (this is a PDF file; you will need a copy of Adobe Acrobat to read it)

Newspaper Articles from Washington Post, November, 1998

"U-Va. Takes Aim at Alcohol-Based Tradition."

"Va. Tech to Begin Notifying Parents."

Brandt, "The Cigarette, Risk, and American Culture" (SHA)
Brandt, "AIDS in Historical Perspective: Four Lessons from the History of Sexually Transmitted Diseases" (SHA)
NOTE: on the evening of April 1, there will be a showing of the film "And the Band Played On." If you've seen it, no need to watch again. If you can't make the showing, try to watch it at a more convenient time, before the class discussion.

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CASE STUDY: RACE AND MEDICINE

Apr. 5: Slave Health/Slave Medicine

Savitt, "Black Health on the Plantation," (SHA)
Access additional readings through course Slave Health Index

Apr. 7: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment: Jones, Bad Blood

Access the summary and discussion questions from the Book Index
From the Public Health Service, images of rural health in the South

Apr. 9: Civil Rights Medicine

Access all readings through the course Civil Rights Index--this class canceled, spring 1999.

Apr. 12: IN-CLASS QUIZ (public health and race and medicine units)

Study Questions

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ALTERNATIVE OR COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE

Apr. 14: Introduction, QUACKERY V. ALTERNATIVE HEALING

Young, "The Development of the Office of Alternative Medicine within the National Institutes of Health, 1991-1996."

Alternative site for "The Development of the Office of Alternative Medicine"

More information can be found at the website for NIH's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Apr.16: Homeopathy:

Guest Lecture: Naomi de Wolf, homeopathic educator and practitioner

The following Alternative Medicine Web Pages were constructed by students in History 3724.

All webpages must be ONLINE BY APRIL 16. STUDENTS MUST ATTEND ALL PRESENTATIONS. Evaluations of pages are due on the day of the presentation.

Apr. 19: Botanical Healing

Apr. 21: Nutrition

Apr. 23: Hydropathy and Hydrotherapy

Apr. 26: Christian Science

Apr. 28: Chiropractic Medicine

Apr. 30: Acupuncture

May 3: Midwifery

May 5-8: Final ESSAY #3 Due

Essay MUST be handed in before 11:00AM on Saturday May 8; students who turn in essays after that time will receive an "incomplete' for the semester.

DO NOT send final essay as an attachment. Deliver a paper copy to the history department (Wednesday - Friday) or to Sarah Mitchell (Saturday AM, Room 428, Major Williams).