Livia Arndal Woods // Last month, there was some popular coverage of a recent article in the medical journal Obstetrics and Gynecology. Nathan S. Fox, MD’s “Dos and Don’ts in Pregnancy: Truths and Myths” frames its intervention as evidence-based common-sense pregnancy-best-practices in an “age of the internet” in which women are “bombarded” with more information…
Tag: History of Medicine
Review-Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America’s Most Storied Hospital, by David Oshinsky
John A. Carranza Nothing is as important in American culture as the place of the hospital. Hospitals are spaces that we inhabit when we are at our most vulnerable and want to be healed. They are spaces where scientific knowledge manifests and intricate power relations occur. Perhaps this is why hospitals have been the locus…
Observation and Medicine: Dr. Ashbel Smith’s Pamphlet in the Cholera Outbreak of 1832
John A. Carranza “What I have written on the cholera was commenced in the form of a letter to a medical friend. As I proceeded, my observations spread over a much greater space than I had anticipated, and I resolved to publish them.” [1] Ashbel Smith, M.D. wrote these words to introduce the subject matter…
Carrie’s Story
Sneha Mantri On a spring morning ninety years ago, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its decision on a landmark trial, Buck v Bell, declaring that forcible sterilization of so-called “degenerates” was not only permissible but imperative. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. justified the decision: “It is…
Review: “Sawbones,” Podcasting, and the History of Medicine
“Sawbones is a show about medical history and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It’s for fun. Can’t you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you’ve earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from…that…weird…
Stability and Care: Establishing the Santa Rosa Infirmary in a Frontier City
By 1866, the Civil War had ended in the United States, and the country underwent a turbulent period of transformation known as Reconstruction. Presidential and Congressional Reconstruction set the terms for the South’s readmission into the Union, which included among its requirements: oaths of loyalty, inclusion of African Americans in politics, and the creation of…
