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HLTH 218: Experiencing and Responding to Illness and Disability: 1793-1930 (HC) [Spring 2015]: Journal Articles

Health Studies 218 (Taylor)

Finding Journal Articles

Journal articles provide in depth scholarly information.  They are vetted and improved by peer review.  They are usually fairly short in length and focused on discussing one specific issue.  The following indexes are good places to find journal articles about history.

Use the Find It button in these indexes to check if the journal articles are available in the Tri-College libraries. If the journal is not listed in Tripod, use the Find It request form or the Interlibrary Loan Request Form on Tripod to have a copy of the article sent to you.

     Discipline-Specific Indexes

These indexes are particularly good for accessing the scholarly literature of specific disciplines, i.e., articles written by historians and other scholars.

Examples of Journal Articles

These articles found in History of Science, Technology, and MedicineAmerica History and Life and PubMed demonstrate a range of topics brought into focus around the broad topic of American medical history.

"The blood fights on in other veins": Norman Bethune and the Transfusion of Cadaver Blood in the Spanish Civil War.  By David Lethbridge.  Canadian Bulletin of Medical History/Bulletin Canadien d'Histoire de la Medecine Vol. 29, No. 1 (2012):  69--81.

Abstract:  During the Spanish Civil War, Dr. Norman Bethune instituted a research laboratory to determine whether the blood from cadavers could be transfused into wounded soldiers and civilians at the front. Dr. Herman J. Muller joined him in this effort carrying out extensive experimentation into the technique and practice of such transfusions. At the same time, Bethune was in frequent contact with Dr. Reginald Saxton who later publicly advocated that the Spanish government should organize a large-scale supply of cadaver blood to the front-line hospitals. Recent evidence suggests that Saxton carried out cadaveric transfusions to an extent not previously recognized.

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Control Discourses and Power Relations of Yellow Fever: Philadelphia in 1793.  By S. Kim. Uisahak vol. 23, no. 3 (2014): 513-41. 

Abstract:  1793 Yellow fever in Philadelphia was the most severe epidemics in the late 18th century in the United States. More than 10% of the population in the city died and many people fled to other cities. The cause of yellow fever in the United States had close relationship with slaves and sugar in Philadelphia. Sugarcane plantation had needed many labors to produce sugar and lots of Africans had to move to America as slaves. In this process, Aëdes aegypti, the vector of yellow fever had migrated to America and the circumstances of ships or cities provided appropriate conditions for its breeding. In this period, the cause of yellow fever could not be established exactly, so suggestions of doctors became entangled in political and intellectual discourses in American society. There was a critical conflict between Jeffersonian Republicanism and Federalism about the origin and treatment of yellow fever. Benjamin Rush, a Jeffersonian Republican, suggested urban sanitation reform and bloodletting. He believed the infectious disease happened because of unsanitary city condition, so he thought the United States could be a healthy nation by improvement of the public health and sanitation. He would like to cope with national crisis and develop American society on the basis of republicanism. While Rush suggested the improvement of public health and sanitation, the city government of Philadelphia suggested isolation of yellow fever patients and quarantine. City government isolated the patients from healthy people and it reconstructed space of hospital. Also, it built orphanages to take care of children who lost their parents during the epidemic and implemented power to control people put in the state of exception. Of course, city government tried to protect the city and nation by quarantine of every ship to Philadelphia. Control policies of yellow fever in 1793 showed different conflicts and interactions. Through the yellow fever, Jeffersonian Republicanism and Federalism had conflicted in politically, but they had interactions for control of the infectious disease. And with these kinds of infectious diseases policies, we can see interactions in local, national and global level.

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Free Health Care for the Poor: The Philadelphia Dispensary.  By William Pencak. Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography  vol. 136, no. 1 (2012): 25-52.

Conclusion (in lieu of an abstract):  In his ground-breaking article on the history of dispensaries in the United States, Charles Rosenberg rightly pointed out that the institution served America well throughout much of its history. In Philadelphia, at least, dispensaries provided free basic care to the poor for little money, satisfying the public penchant for frugality and efficiency along with charity.72 In some ways, they were comparable to the free clinics found throughout Mexico today, where many young doctors provide the free year of social service required of all college graduates. Defenders of the dispensary often emphasized how much health care could be delivered for little money: in 1921, its final year as an independent entity, the Philadelphia Dispensary treated 21,735 patients for $11,770—a little over fifty cents each.73 The expensive tests and machines that are only available in hospitals, along with drugs that require costly research are, in general, relatively new phenomena.74 The nature of modern medicine has made it impossible for the dispensary’s principal features to be resurrected: free services donated by doctors who did not have to pay for space, equipment, staff, and malpractice insurance. But for over half of our nation’s history, the dispensary was able to provide effective, and in tandem with the hospital, universal, free health care for the poor of America’s rapidly growing cities.

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To Preserve Moral Virtue: Opium Smoking in Nevada and the Pressure for Chinese Exclusion.  By: Ahmad, Diana L. Nevada Historical Society Quarterly. Sep1998, Vol. 41 Issue 3, p141-168.         

Abstract:  Perceptions among Nevada residents during the 1870's-80's that Chinese immigrants were responsible for widespread opium abuse prompted many to advocate halting Chinese immigration to the United States. Beginning in the 1840's, many Chinese immigrants settled in Nevada and established Chinatowns wherever there were employment opportunities. Opium dens attracted significant numbers of whites, causing concern that the Chinese were contributing to moral degeneration and opium addiction. In 1876, Virginia City became the first Nevada town to prohibit opium dens. Soon after, the Nevada state legislature banned its use. Considered unsuccessful, these measures were followed by demands to limit or restrict Chinese immigration, which put additional pressure on President Chester A. Arthur to sign the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

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