HIST3368: AMERICAN MEDICINE: Health, Disease, and Healing in an American Context

Instructor: Kimberley Weathers

Web: www.uh.edu/~web04

Email: bwkw@ev1.net

Office: Classroom Medical 217

Phone: 481-6898

Office Hours: T/Th 12:30-1:20 or by appointment

Course Description:

This course examines the history of medicine in America. This course is intended

to analyze medicine in a broad context that includes the history of health, disease, and healing. This means that we shall examine such topics as the role of practitioners, the effect of disease and epidemics, the meaning of science and the effect of biomedical science on American culture, the distribution of health care, and the interaction of race, class and gender.

This small seminar-style class will be conducted mainly in an interactive discussion format. Classes will be student-led, and it is crucial that students do the readings ahead of time and attend class regularly. Part of the course grade, as detailed below, will depend upon regular class participation.

Books: (all at campus bookstore):

John H. Warner and Janet A. Tighe, Major Problems in the History of American Medicine. [Houghton Mifflin Co, Nov. 2000, ISBN 0-395-95435-5]. Paperback.

Charles E. Rosenberg, The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866. [University of Chicago Press, November 1990. ISBN: 0226726770, paperback.]

Judith Walzer Leavitt, Typhoid Mary : Captive to the Public's Health. [Beacon Pr, August 1997. ISBN: 0807021032]. Paperback.

Sinclair Lewis Arrowsmith (E. L. Doctorow Afterword) [Penguin USA, May 1998. ISBN: 0451526910, Paperback].

James H. Jones Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment [Basic Books, 1984. Paperback]

Margaret Charles Smith and Linda Janet Holmes, Listen to Me Good : The Life Story of an Alabama Midwife. [Ohio State Univ Pr, July 1996. ISBN: 0814207014, paperback].

Elizabeth Siegel Watkins, On the Pill : A Social History of Oral Contraceptives, 1950-1970. [Johns Hopkins Univ Pr, October 1998, ISBN: 0801858763, Hardcover].

Packet of Articles:

M.H. Jordan, “Cholera At Birmingham, Ala., in 1873”; "Segregation and Desegregation of the Medical Center at the University of Alabama," to be read with Charlotte G. Borst, "Gender, Race, and Indigent Medical Care in Birmingham, Alabama, 1950-1964". Articles TBA: on ancient and early modern medicine; and on black plague. also article by Susan Reverby, “Neither for the drawing Room nor the kitchen”; also Borst, "Will the Country Doctors Please Sit in the Back?: Changing Epistemologies of Science and the Practice of Medicine in Rural America, 1880-1930,” and Borst, “Choosing the Student Body: Masculinity, Culture, and the Crisis of Medical School Admissions;”; article about federal funding of biomedical research.

Grades:

There will be a midterm (worth 20%) and a final exam, given during final exam week (worth 30%). In addition, students will write a total of 5 short papers that use some of the documents in the Warner and Tighe volume.(a total of 50%)

Papers:

The first short paper will consist of your analysis of a contemporary health issue (see syllabus).

The remaining four short papers will consist of taking one set of the primary documents in a chapter of Warner and Tighe. Your job, in a paper of about 2-3 pages, is to provide a larger context for these documents. Explain what the document tells you as an historian? Who is the author? What is the time period of the document? What issue is the author discussing, and how does this issue fit into a larger issue of that time period? Why is this particular document important (or not)? What more would you like to have known that was not provided in this section?

Note on Makeup exams: Makeup exams will not be given except under extraordinary circumstances. If a serious illness or other problem prohibits a student from taking an exam, it is the responsibility of the student to contact the instructor before the exam.

Lectures and Reading Assignments:

Week 1: Introduction. The place of history of medicine as American history. What is the role of science in American history? And what do we mean by interpretation when science is objective? Begin reading Warner and Tighe, chapter 1: “What is the history of medicine and public health?”

Week 2: European background: health, disease, and healing in Europe. Ancient medicine and changes to the Renaissance. Readings: handouts TBA.

Week 3: Colonial beginnings. Disease in the old world and the encounters with indigenous peoples. Read: Warner and Tighe, chapter 2, documents 1 and 7; essay by Calloway.

and

Disease in colonial America: the example of smallpox. Read: Warner and Tighe,

chapter 2, documents 2-6, and essay by Blake.

Week 4: Other healers in early America: midwives. Read: Warner and Tighe, chapter 3, documents 2, 6; essay by Ulrich. Movie in class: “A Midwife’s Tale.”

and

Medical marketplace in early America: making a living as a physician. Read:

Warner and Tighe, Chapter 3, documents 3,4,5,7; essay by Rosner. Finish movie

“A Midwife’s Tale.”.

Week 5: Antebellum medical knowledge: defining therapeutics. Warner and Tighe: Chapter 4, documents 1-5; essays by Rosenberg and Pernick.

and

Medicine and medical practice in the mid 19 th century: therapeutics and sectarian medicine. Read: Warner and Tighe: Chapter 5, documents 1, 4, 5 and essay by Warner. Begin reading Rosenberg's Cholera Years.

Warner and Tighe, chapter 5: documents 2, 3, 6, 7 and essay by Morantz-Sanchez.

Week 6: The disease environment of mid-19th century America--the example of cholera. Discussion of Rosenberg’s Cholera Years.

and

The effect of the civil war on American medicine. The sanitary movement. Read:

Warner and Tighe: chapter 6, documents: 1, 2, 4, 6, 7 and essay by Blustein.

and

The effect of the civil war on American medicine--nursing becomes a profession.

Read: Warner and Tighe, chapter 6, documents: 3, 5 and essay by Hoy; also in

packet: article by Reverby, “Neither for the drawing room nor the kitchen, Private duty nursing in Boston, 1873-1920.”

Week 7: Reconfiguring scientific medicine--European laboratory medicine and the effect of the laboratory. Read: Warner and Tighe, chapter 7: documents 1-3 and essay by Warner.

and

Reconfiguring scientifc medicine--the effect of the new therapeutics in the US.

Read: Warner and Tighe, chapter 7, documents 4-5 and essay by Hansen.

Week 8: The Gospel of Germs--changes in public health policy. Read: Warner and Tighe, chapter 8, documents 1, 2, 5, 7 and essay by Tomes. Begin reading Leavitt, Typhoid Mary.

and

The Gospel of Germs--African American health issues. Read: Warner and Tighe,.chapter 8, documents 4, 6 and essay by Risse; continue reading Typhoid Mary.

MIDTERM EXAM

SPRING BREAK

Week 9: Institutions, science, and standardization 1870-1930--medical licensing and related issues. Read: Warner and Tighe: chapter 9, document 1, 3, 5 and essay by Numbers. Also, article in packet, Borst, “Will the country doctors please sit in the back?”; Begin reading Arrowsmith.

and

Institutions, science, and standardization 1870-1930--the effect of reform on

medical education for women and African Americans. Read: Warner and Tighe,

chapter 9, document 2 and essay by Tighe; also article in packet, Borst, "Choosing the Student Body;" Continue reading Arrowsmith

and

Institutions, science, and standardization 1870-1930. Read: Warner and Tighe,

chapter 9, document 3, 4 and essay by Ludmerer. Discussion of Arrowsmith in

class.

Week 10: Medicalizing everyday life: expert advice. Read: Warner and Tighe, chapter 10, documents 2, 6, and essay by Apple, chapter 11, documents 3, 4 and essay by Leavitt.

and

Medicalizing everyday life--social control and definitions of "deviancy." Read: Warner and Tighe, chapter 10, documents 1, 3, 4, 5 and essay by Lunbeck.

Week 11: Technology: patients and practitioners--high touch versus high tech. Read: Warner and Tighe, chaper 11, documents 1, 2, 5, 6, and essay by Howell.

and

Biomedical research as a national good: the decision for federal funding of scientific research. Read: Warner and Tighe, chapter 12, document 3, 4; chapter 13, documents 1, 3, and chapter 14, document 5; ARTICLE--TBA.

Week 12: Biomedical research--the miracle of biomedicine and the example of polio. Read: Warner and Tighe, chapter 13, document 7 and essay by Brandt.

and Who pays for health care? The continuing crisis of health care. Read: Warner and Tighe, chapter 13, document 2, 5; chapter 14, documents 1, 3, 4 and essay by Stevens.

Week 13: Race, power, and health care in mid-20th century America--The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. Read: Warner and Tighe, chapter 12, documents 1, 2, 6-8 and essay by Lederer. James Jones, Bad Blood, Movie: "The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment."

and

Race, power, and health care in mid-20th century America. Racial aspects of health care in the American south. Read: Warner and Tighe, chapter 11, document 7; packet, Borst, “Race and gender and health care in Birmingham,” and related documents on indigent care in Birmingham.

Week 14: Race, power, and health care in mid-20 century America. Movie: "All My Babies." Read Smith and Holmes, Listen to Me Good.

and

Civil rights and the effect on health care in the US. Warner and Tighe, chapter 13, document 6; Finish reading Listen to Me Good for discussion in class.

Wed., Apr. 25 Critiquing health care at the end of the 20 th century feminist challenges to orthodox health care and health care providers. Read: Warner and Tighe, chapter 14 and essay by Bix; chapter 15, documents 1, 4, 5, and essay by Rothman. Begin reading Watkins, On the Pill.

Week 15: Sexuality and health care in the 20th century. Read: Warner and Tighe, chapter 12, essay by Marks; chapter 13, document 4 and essay by Lederer and Parascandola. Continue reading On the Pill .

and

Sexuality and health care in the 20th century: Gay pride and the challenge of

AIDS. Read: Warner and Tighe, chapter 14, documents 2, 6. Finish reading On.the Pill for discussion in class.

and

Technology: patients and practitioners--the possibilities and the limits of biomedical research. Read: Warner and Tighe, chapter 11, essay by Wailoo; chapter 15, essay by Brandt.

FINAL EXAM