On the misuses of medical history
Helen King2018, Lancet (London, England)
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CRAFTING MEDICAL HISTORY: NEW TRENDS AND PRACTITIONERS
2019
Like most scholars, historians dealing with the medical past periodically explore and comment on the shifting contours of their distinctive field of studies. 1 While favoring particular theoretical approaches, historiographical reviews also aim at uncovering neglected areas of research and identify new communities of scholarship. 2 Predictably, such explorations are based on individual academic credentials and pedagogical exposures. With the help of specific examples and abundant references, the objective of this essay was to collect and update previous schemes, stressing the fact that the field is currently witnessing a dramatic expansion of subjects, approaches, practitioners, and audiences. From a narrow pursuit of professional roots, a multidisciplinary history of medicine now includes among its subjects the shifting ecology of human health and disease, cultural factors of illness causation and prevention, as well as economic burdens of poverty and pharmacological intervention. 3
A comprehensive approach to the medical history
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how to appruach and present medical history
Locating Medical History
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teaches science studies and history of medicine at the University of Amsterdam. She has published articles o n the history of the biomedical sciences, especially o n the relations between the laboratory and the clinic in microbiology and biochemistry. Her current research centers o n the history of British and American epidemiology and the changing notions of what makes epidemiology a science. '.varwick Anderson is the Robert Turell Professor of Medical History and Population Health and chair of the Department of Medical History and Bioethics at the University of iVisconsln, Madison. When he wrote this essay he was director of the history of the health sciences program at the University of California at San Francisco. In 2003, Basic Books published his study of race science in Australia, The Cultivation of Whiteness: Science, Health, arid Racial Destiny. He is currently worhng o n what he hopes is a postcolonial study of kuru investigations In the highlands of New Guinea and in Bethesda, Maryland. Allan hi. Brandt is the Kass Professor of the History of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, where he directs the Program in the History of Medicine. He holds a joint appointment in the Department of the History of Science, where he is currently chair. His work focuses o n the social history of medicine, disease, and p u b l~c health policy in the twentieth-century United States. He is the author of No Magic Bullet: A Social History of Venereal Diseate in the Unitedstates since 1880 (1987) and editor of MoralifyandHealth (1997).
A Clinician's Rationale for the Study of History of Medicine
Journal of Education in Perioperative Medicine, 2014
History of medicine does not receive the coverage it deserves in medical school curricula, or during graduate medical training, in part, because of its lack of impact on direct clinical care. This is particularly disturbing for the specialty of anesthesiology not only due to its colorful history, but also because ours is the only major medical discipline to have developed entirely in the United States. We examine four commonly cited reasons for the study of history in general, and comment on whether these lessons are applicable to medicine and anesthesiology. We provide compelling reasons why studying history is important to clinicians. Background: Humans are the only species to be aware of their past. Our future is largely unknown, and the present is fleeting. Thus, almost everything that is known with certainty falls within the realm of history. Thus one would expect society at large, and physicians and anesthesiologists in particular, to be history enthusiasts. As the facts suggest otherwise, one wonders whether history is regarded much like art, music, and fine cuisine-more adornment than an essential and integral part of education in any discipline, especially medicine.
The Medical Narrative from a Diachronic Perspective (1840-2009): Titling Practices and Authorship
2013
Appropriateness ofPediatricsCase Reports Citations
Pediatrics
Dr Collins and Ms Dillenbeck have indicated they have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose. BACKGROUND: We determined types of peer-reviewed articles that cited Pediatrics case reports and whether citations were "appropriate" or "inappropriate." METHODS: The 20 most highly cited Pediatrics case reports published between January 2011 and April 2016 were identified. All articles referencing these 20 case reports were analyzed for appropriateness of the citation. Appropriate citations referred to the original article specifically as a case report or cited the case report in support of general knowledge. Inappropriate citations used case reports to infer causation, support proof of mechanism, or were deemed irrelevant to claims being supported. Two authors independently coded all citations. RESULTS: These 20 case reports were cited in 479 articles (median: 24 citations per case report). In most articles (83.6%, n = 367), case reports were cited appropriately; in 53.4% (n = 196) of articles, a case report was specifically referred to, and in 46.6% (n = 171) of articles, the case report was used to support general knowledge. For inappropriate citations, in 63.3% (n = 50) of articles, case reports were used to infer causation; in 15.2% (n = 12) of articles, they were used as proof of mechanism of pathogenesis or treatment; and in 21.5% (n = 17) of articles, they were irrelevant. Case reports were most commonly cited in review articles (38.7%, n = 170) and original studies (31%, n = 136). "Original studies" were articles in which authors reported original data, excluding case reports. CONCLUSIONS: These results reveal that most citations of Pediatrics case reports are appropriate.
Comments on the Diversity of Medical Histories
European Journal for the History of Medicine and Health, 2021
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.
HISTORY OF MEDICINE (syllabus)
Catalogue Description: Worldwide survey of medicine, disease, and health from prehistoric times to the present. Course Description: The study of medicine is a currently expanding field, but one that took a long time to form. Modern ideas about what medicine is, and about what premodern eras were, have often been at odds. Moreover, particularly in the modern period, class, race, and gender have all affected how medicine is conceptualized and accessed. We will be examining these tensions, and attempting to resolve them in our own work.
History of Clinical Research and Ethics
Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics, 2013
The aim of clinical research is to congregate useful knowledge about the human biology. Benefits to the participants are not the purpose of research, although it does secondarily. Therefore, exploitation of human subjects occurred in clinical research. Many people were harmed and basic human rights were violated as a result of their unwillingness participation in research. There have been many tragedies throughout the history of research involving human subjects. Every period of research scandals have been followed by attempt to initiate some ethical codes to protect the human from clinical research. First of such codes is the Nuremberg Code. Thereafter, Helsinky Declaration, Belmont Report and lastly Obama Commission on Guatemala syphilis study. To remember history is essential so that it's not repeated again. Knowledge of the history will provide a better understanding to handle the research fairly. Researchers and the healthcare providers have no awareness of the history of e...
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MEDICINE IN THE ARCHIVES: RESOURCES FOR RESEARCHING MEDICAL HISTORY TOPICS (2005/6)
The full citation is: Monica H. Green, "Medicine in the Archives: Resources for Researching Medical History Topics," Medieval Feminist Forum 40 (2005–6), 60–67 and 83–86. This piece was written to offer a brief and basic introduction to researching topics in medieval medical history to students and non-specialist scholars in Medieval Studies. The essay is particularly concerned to provide guidance in two areas where specialized knowledge of sources and methods are needed: (1) the history of medical ideas, which usually involves examination of medical texts; and (2) the history of medical practices and practitioners, which can be researched both through medical texts and a variety of other sources. A more general overview of the state of the field can be found in my later essay: Monica H. Green, “Integrative Medicine: Incorporating Medicine and Health into the Canon of Medieval European History,” History Compass 7, no. 4 (June 2009), 1218-45, doi: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2009.00618.x. Note that these two essays only address at an elementary level two areas of research that have veritably exploded in the 2010's: the increasing availability of openly-accessible digitized copies of medieval manuscripts (allowing access to a host of medieval medical texts that have never been critically edited or previously published in any form); and bioarchaeological and genetics work, that is now transforming our ability to study the history of disease in the Middle Ages. Both of these topics are subjects of my on-going research.
review of Making Medical History: The Life and Times of Henry E. Sigerist, ed. Elizabeth Fee andTheodore M. Brown
British Journal for the History of Science, 32/1, , pp. 111-112, 1999
I was sorry to criticize this collection edited by two whose work I respect, but I feel that we should face Stalinism as resolutely as w e face Nazism..
Looking for trouble: medical science and clinical practice in the historiography of modern medicine
The relationship between the pursuit of science and the practice of medicine has been a theme of abiding interest among medical historians. For the past 30 years or so, historians have characterised that relationship largely in terms of divergence, tension and conflict. My contention is that that tension has been over-stated. In this paper, I show how the narrative of conflict came to dominate historians' accounts of science–medicine relations, and suggest some reasons why that narrative, rather than a more mutualistic understanding of science and medicine, enjoys such credibility among historians of medicine.
Monica H. Green, “‘History of Medicine’ or ‘History of Health’?,” Past and Future, issue 9 (Spring/Summer 2011), 7-9
An excerpt: "A history of medicine as a history of medical science, pharmaceutics or institutions will never be irrelevant. But it is not the only history we need now. Humans have been ‘global’ for millennia and ‘emerging diseases’ are not a new phenomenon. Genomicists are reconstructing the histories that pathogens have left in their genomes, while palaeopathologists reconstruct their effects on human bodies. Historians’ skills as weavers of the fabric of historical narrative have never been more necessary if we are to make these fragile remnants of the past tell their full stories." A note on the illustrations: The illustrations accompanying this essay were chosen by the editors, without consulting me. Shockingly, they included a "plague" illustration that in fact depicts leprosy! The mislabeling and misuse of this image is a classic example of what's wrong with "retrospective diagnosis" in the old sense of using human cultural products (texts, works of art) as if they were direct windows onto the material realities of the past. For more on this "misdiagnosed plague image," see Green, Walker-Meikle, and Müller, "Diagnosis of a ‘Plague’ Image: A Digital Cautionary Tale" (2014).
The New Culture of Medical History
European Journal for the History of Medicine and Health
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.
History of science providing better understanding of some current issues of medical education and practice: a brief report on the controversies about evidence-based medicine
International Journal of Health Education
A Reader's Guide to 200 Years of the New England Journal of Medicine
New England Journal of Medicine, 2012
History lessons in medical education
2013
Aim: To explore and discuss the necessity of integrating the history of medicine within the medical curriculum. Methods: International peer-reviewed academic journals, PubMed and MedLine databases and secondary sources were explored to review historical events that revolutionalized the practice of medicine, surgery, pharmaceuticals and robotics, among others. Results: Numerous case studies have been presented in chronological order, which have made a sustainable impact on clinical practice. The profiles of pioneers and the historical events that led to a chain reaction of advancement in the history of medicine have been discussed, with a view to their impact on future achievements. History should still play an integral role within undergraduate and postgraduate medical education.
Making the Case for History in Medical Education
Historians of medicine have struggled for centuries to make the case for history in medical education. They have developed many arguments about the value of historical perspective, but their efforts have faced persistent obstacles, from limited resources to curricular time constraints and skepticism about whether history actually is essential for physicians. Recent proposals have suggested that history should ally itself with the other medical humanities and make the case that together they can foster medical professionalism. We articulate a different approach and make the case for history as an essential component of medical knowledge, reasoning, and practice. History offers essential insights about the causes of disease (e.g., the nonreductionistic mechanisms needed to account for changes in the burden of disease over time), the nature of efficacy (e.g., why doctors think that their treatments work, and how have their assessments changed over time), and the contingency of medical knowledge and practice amid the social, economic, and political contexts of medicine. These are all things that physicians must know in order to be effective diagnosticians and caregivers, just as they must learn anatomy or pathophysiology. The specific arguments we make can be fit, as needed, into the prevailing language of competencies in medical education.
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