Course Description
Major transformation in American medicine from the late nineteenth century to the present. Topics may include public reactions to epidemic diseases, medical experimentation on human subjects, alternative medical approaches, the economics of health care, technology in medicine, and the experiences of health care providers.
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 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 Since 1865
Equivalent Courses
Not open to students with credit in HIST 4066H
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
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student Learning Outcomes
- By the end of this course, students will be able to arrive at conclusions about the post-Civil War history of American medicine 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. Viewing Disease and Medicine Historically
- 2. Defining Mental Illness: The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau
- 3. Epidemics and Public Health: Typhoid Mary
- 4. Race and Medicine: The Tuskegee Study
- 5. Alternative Medicine
- 6. In the Shadow of Polio
- 7. The Wounded Healer
- 8. The Morality of Health and Illness
