Medicine, Disease, and Death in American History
HIPS 29606/HIST 24904
Tue 3-5:50, SS108
Rachel Ponce
Description
In this course, we will examine some of the leading causes of death in
America from the early national period until the early twentieth
century. Our objective is to highlight a time in the
not-so-distant past when infectious diseases and rapidly advancing
industrial and military technology were the primary killers of the
day—killers which have now been replaced by the hazards of
abundance and longevity (such as heart disease, stroke, and cancer).
These modern threats have shifted the emphasis in politics today to
accommodate aging baby boomers, and in this course, we will come to
understand how early American political and social life was similarly
altered by diseases such as smallpox, yellow fever, diphtheria, railway
spine, etc. We will also explore the ways in which medicine
before germ theory grappled with disease and infection, and consider
how the bacteriological revolution and the growing power of the state
reshaped the face of modern medicine.
Course Requirements
Participation: 20%
Paper and Presentation: 25%
Final: 55%
Everyone will be required to give one brief presentation (no more than
10 minutes) on the readings for one week. The presentation should
consist of identifying some of the key issues raised by the text(s) and
asking one or two questions to kick off the class discussion. A
week after the presentation, you will hand in a five page paper
recapitulating and expanding on the themes originally raised. You
will probably also want to incorporate elements of the class
discussion.
The final exam will consist of several prompts. You will choose 2 of
those prompts and write approximately 6-7 pages in response to each
(12-15 pages total). A 12-15 page research paper may be done in
place of the final exam (HIPSS students are strongly encouraged to
write a research paper, but it is not mandatory). If you choose
this option must see me in office hours by the beginning of the sixth
week. Once committed to doing the research paper, you will not
have the option of doing the final exam instead. There will be no
penalty or reward for choosing a research paper over the final exam.
It is essential that you keep up with the readings. I will try to
keep each week manageable, but knowledge of the texts will be essential
to having good discussions. You are expected to have the reading
prepared before class each week. The final exam will be
comprehensive and it will be to your advantage to be familiar with all
the readings. Regular attendance and participation is required.
Required Materials
Charles Rosenberg, Cholera Years
Course Packet (will be available in SS205)
I have also put some general references on 24-hour reserve at the
Regenstein. They are not required, but you may find them helpful
reference sources. You should be able to access the list of
reserved books through the Chalk site. Any additional readings or
adjustments made to the syllabus after the course packet has been
issued will be made available through e-reserve/Chalk.
Schedule of Readings
Week 1, March 27
Course Overview/Disease and the European Colonization of North America
Week 2, April 3
Yellow Fever epidemic of 1793: Medical Theory in the early 19th century
Hippocrates, “The Nature of Man,”
“A Regiment for Health,” “Airs, Waters, Places”
Benjamin Rush, A Second Address to the Citizens of Philadelphia…
Martin S. Pernick, "Politics, Parties, and Pestilence: Epidemic Yellow
Fever in Philadelphia and the Rise of the First Party System," William and Mary Quarterly, October 1972.
Week 3, April 10 ***Meet in Regenstein Special Collections***
Smallpox, Inoculation, and the American Revolution
John Williams, “Several arguments, proving, that inoculating the
small pox is not contained in the law of physick...”
John B. Blake, “The Inoculation Controversy in Boston,
1721-1722,” The New England Quarterly, December
1952.
Elizabeth Fenn, Pox Americana, chapters 2-3
Week 4, April 17
Popular Health Movements and Nostrum Dealers
James Harvey Young, The Toadstool Millionaires, chapter 5
E.G., “XIX. Organon der Heilkunst, von Samuel
Hahnemann…” The American Journal of the Medical Sciences
February 1831.
Sylvester Graham, A Lecture to Young Men, excerpt on Self-Pollution
Week 5, April 24
Mental Health and Medical Jurisprudence
Shooting at the President: The Remarkable Trial of Richard Lawrence…
Janet Tighe, “Francis Wharton and the Nineteenth-Century Insanity
Defense: The Origins of a Reform Tradition,” American Journal of Legal History, July 1983.
James C. Mohr, Doctors and the Law, chapters 7-8.
Week 6, May 1
Cholera: Public Health before Germ Theory
Charles Rosenberg, Cholera Years*
John Snow, On the Mode of Communication of Cholera
Week 7, May 8
Surgery and the Civil War: From Anesthesia to Orthopaedics
Julian Kuz and Bradley Bengtson, Orthopaedic Injuries of the Civil War, excerpts.
Frank R. Freemon, Gangrene and Glory, chapter 4
Week 8, May 15
Industry and Accidents
Mark Aldrich, “Train Wrecks to Typhoid Fever: the Development of
Railroad Medicine Organizations, 1850 to World War I,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 75 (2001).
John G. Burke, “Bursting Boilers and the Federal Power,” Technology and Culture 7 (1966).
Farwell v. Boston & Worcester Railroad Corporation, 4 Metc. (Mass.) 49
William Stead, If Christ Came to Chicago, excerpt.
Emile Zola, La Bete Humaine, excerpt.
Week 9, May 22
A Revolution in the Making: Germ Theory
Bert Hansen, “American’s First Medical Breakthrough: How
Popular Excitement about a French Rabies Cure in 1885 Raised New
Expectations for Medical Progress,” American Historical Review 103, 1998.
Evelynn Maxine Hammonds, Childhood’s Deadly Scourge, chapters 4-5
Week 10, May 29
Public Health II: Individual Liberties and the State
People ex. rel. Jennie Barmore, Relatrix, vs. John Dill Robertson et. Al. Respondents, 302 Ill 422.
Lawrence W. Potts et al. School Directors, v. Jennie Breen et al., 167 Ill 67.
Buck v. Bell, 274 US 200.