Medicine in America from the late 1400s to the end of the Civil War. Topics include the exchange of diseases between the Old and New Worlds, medical theories and therapies, medical education and institutions, epidemics and public health, women as patients and practitioners, and medicine on the plantation and battlefield.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students: Graduate students in this course will complete all of the reading selections that are divided up among individual undergraduates. Regular meetings of graduate students and the instructor will be held outside of class time to discuss aspects of the reading material that go beyond the scope of undergraduate instruction. In addition, for each topic covered in the course as well as additional topics selected by the instructor, graduate students will prepare bibliographical essays on the historiography of the topic, identifying scholars and works that have been central to its development, the contributions of the most recent literature, and gaps where further research is still needed. Building on these investigations, graduate students will select one area as the basis for a major research paper that includes the identification and analysis of a substantial body of primary source material.
Athena Title
American Medicine to 1865
Prerequisite
Any HIST course or ENGL 1101 or ENGL 1101E or ENGL 1101S or ENGL 1102 or ENGL 1102E or ENGL 1102S or POLS 1101 or POLS 1101E or POLS 1101H or POLS 1101S
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, students will be able to arrive at conclusions about the history of American medicine to 1865 by gathering and weighing evidence, logical argument, and listening to counter argument.
By the end of this course, students will be able to write stylistically appropriate papers and essays. Students will be able to analyze ideas and evidence, organize their thoughts, and revise and edit their finished essays.
By the end of this course, students will be able to identify how American medical history shaped diverse social and cultural attitudes toward race and slavery, gender and sexuality, and labor and class, encouraging them to understand diverse worldviews and experiences.
By the end of this course, students will be able to apply appropriate methodological approaches to their analysis of primary sources and to organize their evidence to show historical continuities and discontinuities.
By the end of this course, students will be able to generate their own research question or topic, locate suitable primary and secondary sources, and synthesize their ideas in novel ways.
By the end of this course, students will be able to initiate, manage, complete, and evaluate their independent research projects in stages and to give and receive constructive feedback through the peer review process.
Topical Outline
1. The Columbian Exchange: Old World Diseases in the New World: New World Diseases in the Old World
2. Colonial Society and Disease: Malaria and Smallpox
3. The Colonial Physician: Education and Practice
4. Domestic Medicine: Medicine without Doctors
5. Heroic Medicine: Was George Washington Killed by His Doctors?
6. Medicine and Slavery
7. Nineteenth-Century Scourges: Yellow Fever and Cholera
8. American Medicine, 1820-1860: The Best and Worst of Times
9. The Rise of Alternative Medicine
10. Medical Institutions: Hospitals and Dispensaries
