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HLTH 218: Experiencing and Responding to Illness and Disability (HC) Spring 2016

HLTH 218: Experiencing and Responding to Illness and Disability: 1793-1930 (Taylor)

Primary Sources on U. S. Medicine

                        Anatomy lesson at the Woman's College of New York Medical Infirmary, 1870  (Wikimedia Commons)

Finding Primary Source Texts

Primary source texts that have been edited, reprinted in facsimiles, or transferred to microfilm can be borrowed through E Z Borrow or interlibrary loan if they are not in Tripod. 

***  Many of them will be listed in Tripod and WorldCat under subject terms which include such words as "sources," "letters," "diaries," or "personal narratives."  For example, the search:

 (medicine OR medical)  ("personal narratives") [keyword]  ("united states") history [subject] = 39 results  including:

      The Wounded River: The Civil War Letters of John Vance Lauderdale, M.D. / 
Author:John Vance Lauderdale   Publication: Michigan State University Press, 1993

      A Woman Doctor's Civil War: Esther Hill Hawk's Diary / 
Author: Edsther Hill Hawk.     
Publication: : University of South Carolina Press,1984

***    Another search strategy for primary sources is to use a publication date range to focus results:

(immigra* OR foreign*) (health* OR disease* OR medical OR medicine)  [keyword] Published 1870-1920= 29 results

     Results include:  Medical problems of immigration: Being the papers and their discussion presented at the XXXVII annual meeting of the American academy of medicine, held at Atlantic City, June 1, 1912.  Full text in Hathi Trust.

Digital Source Collections on Medical History

Digital Collections of Older Books

Major Historical Primary Source Collections

  American Magazine and Newspaper Articles from the 19th and Early 20th Centuries

Books from the Philips Wing Mezzanine