How to research a question in medical history
General guides to historical research.
You might consider starting with the chapter: “Sleuthing and Science: How to Research a Question in Medical History” from Jacalyn Duffin’s text History of Medicine: A Scandalous Short Introduction. This text is written for medical students.
One accessible introduction to general historical research is Anthony Brundage’s Going to the Sources: A Guide to Historical Research and Writing.
Sources for information on medical history
The History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine has a rich website with many resources for historical research. Their on-line syllabus archive is a good place to start to find a list of readings about specific topics; many - if not most - of these syllabi relate to social issues and medicine. A number are in Spanish.
MedHist: Gateway to Internet Resources on the History of Medicine: This website is run by a consortium of seven universities and is designed to link to high quality internet resources on the history of medicine.
Portail pour l’histoire des sciences et des techniques en France et en Europe A web portal for medical history run by the University of Paris.
Sigerist Circle: The Sigerist Circle (named after Henry E. Sigerist) is “a group of medical historians, scholars in related fields and others interested in the history of health, health care and the biomedical sciences, who give special attention to the issues of class, race and gender and /or use Marxist, feminist and related critical methodologies in the analysis of medical history.” Their website primarily has information about the Circle.
Wellcome Library, The Wellcome Trust An amazing on-line archive from Britian’s largest charity funding biomedical research. It is named after Henry Wellcome, a British “pharmaceutical entrepreneur.”
The Countway Library at Harvard Medical School is one of the major medical libraries in the US and its website has a History of Medicine section.
Funding
The US Health Left History Center offers a Lear Fellowship for Medical History Students. This is an unparalleled collection of 20th century materials on US health activism. See our posting on the Center.
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