This is for chrisbenjamin
shenmegui
hist2613.week02.history_of_medicine_1.pptThe History of Medicine – Its Sources, Questions and Challenges
What is the History of Medicine? How are History and Medicine Different?
- There is a need for skepticism when examining scientific ‘dogma’ (as a generalization one must question the notions of ‘progress’, ‘objectivity’, ‘truth’, and ‘benefits’)
- Traditionally the field was dominated by writing that glorified the past, and which portrayed doctors as ‘heroes’. The reality is that even many of the ‘great’ figures of the past can also be viewed as ‘villains’—it just depends of what criteria you use, and through whose eyes you view the past.
- One does need to be wary of value judgments—can lead to ‘Presentism’, or ‘Whig’ views of the past.
- History, like medicine and good science is about questions and answers, evidence and interpretations.
Approaches to the History of Medicine 1
- There exists a great variety of methodological and thematic approaches to the field of medical history, including:
- 1) biography (‘Great Men’)
- 2) scientific (emphasis on disease history, technologies, pharmaceuticals, architecture of hospitals)
- 3) social (urban (city) studies, population/ demographic studies, various components of daily life)
- 4) cultural (constructions of the ‘body’, ‘modern’ science, and disease, literary approaches, studies of art, the media and advertising)
Approaches to the History of Medicine 2
- 5) institutional (the histories of hospitals, asylums, laboratories)
- 6) political (public health, sanitation and poor laws)
- 7) economic (the financing of public health and healthcare infrastructures, quarantine and international trade)
- 8) military (diseases [epidemics, surgical complications, battle readiness], the development of new techniques [battlefield surgery, plastic surgery, inoculations], relations with civilian medicine, and weapons research [germ and chemical warfare])
Primary vs Secondary
Sources
- With both types of sources you must be aware of:
- 1) Biases (whose perception of the past?: doctors, patients, others)
- 2) Context: What period was it written in? What else was going on?
- 3) Sources can potentially fit both categories.
- Overall you must critically examine all sources and evidence.
- You must look past narrative and try to understand the analysis.
- Good writing requires a thesis or argument.
Voices from the Past: Types of Primary Sources
- Textual: manuscripts, doctor and patient records, reports (institutional and government), medical and health journals, newspapers, magazines, diaries and private papers, older books (including autobiographies and biographies), military and census records
- Images: illustrations, engravings, paintings, blueprints, maps, x-rays, photographs
- Statistical: demographic data, morbidity and mortality data
- Oral Histories: interviews with physicians, nurses, researchers, staff, administrators, and of course patients
