Course Description
The history of medicine in Western society. The impact of epidemic disease, concepts of illness, medical therapies, types of practitioners and their education, and public health.
Athena Title
History of Medicine
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 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 about history of premodern medicine in Europe and America. 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 the history of medicine has shaped diverse social and cultural attitudes toward science, medicine, and health, 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.
Topical Outline
- I. Early Modern Medicine
Medicine and Modernity
Living and Dying in the Ancien Regime
Medicine in the Enlightenment
Medical Theory and Practice
Epidemics and Medical Police
Medical Geographies
Transatlantic Commerce in Health and Disease
Body, Place, Health, and Race
- II. Medicine and Society in the Early 19th Century
Clinic, Hospital, Asylum
Birth of the Clinic
The Hospital and the Asylum
Medicine and the Marketplace
Practitioners and Patients
Profession of Medicine
Sciences of Difference
Medical Science and the Production of Race
Gender in the Clinic
Public Health and the State
Cholera and 19th Century Public Health Reforms
- III. The Consolidation of Biomedicine
Therapeutic Revolutions
Anesthesia, Antisepsis, and the Transformation of Surgery
Bacteriology and the New Public Health
Laboratory Medicine
The Laboratory and the Clinic
The Normal and the Pathological
Institutional Reforms
Modernizing the Hospital
Educational Reform and Professional Control
- IV. Biomedicine in Context
Biomedical Research and its Subjects
Clinical Research and its Consequences
Evidence, Policy, and Practice
Biomedical Practice and its Critics
Risk, Behavior, and Diseases of Civilization
Illness, Identity, and Citizenship
Global Formations
Legacies of Colonial Medicine
The Globalization of Health
Institutional Competencies Learning Outcomes
Analytical Thinking
The ability to reason, interpret, analyze, and solve problems from a wide array of authentic contexts.
Communication
The ability to effectively develop, express, and exchange ideas in written, oral, interpersonal, or visual form.
Critical Thinking
The ability to pursue and comprehensively evaluate information before accepting or establishing a conclusion, decision, or action.
Social Awareness & Responsibility
The capacity to understand the interdependence of people, communities, and self in a global society.
