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Michael Wiggleworth’s gravestone.
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“Physician, Heal Thyself”: Michael Wigglesworth, Puritan, Poet, and Physician

As a clergyman and physician, his medical practice, his chronic illnesses, and his theology were intertwined throughout his life.
by Sarah Pawlicki via All of Us on March 21, 2025
A collage of advertisements for lithium and lithium water.

The Truth About Lithium Might Never Come Out

Longevity enthusiasts are microdosing a 19th-century cure-all. Are they onto something?
by Shayla Love via The Atlantic on October 4, 2024
Demonstrators outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on April 24, 2024.
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How Doctors Came to Play a Key Role in the Abortion Debate

While the phrase "between a woman and her doctor" has been used to protect abortion access, it also reflects physicians' outsized power.
by Emma Peterson, Daniel Martinez Hosang via Made By History on June 20, 2024
An illustration of a tube of cream; reads "Hakka Cream Catarrh, Hay Fever, Head Colds, etc.)

Hay Fever

The nuisance of a new season.
by Erika Mills via Circulating Now on April 5, 2024
A hand holding a stethoscope and knife.

The Blackwell Sisters and the Harrowing History of Modern Medicine

A new biography of the pioneering doctors shows why “first” can be a tricky designation.
by Casey N. Cep via The New Yorker on January 25, 2021
Doctor helping a patient

Trump’s Doctor Comes From a Uniquely American Brand of Medicine

Osteopathy was founded by a 19th-century healer who believed the body was a self-healing machine.
by Eleanor Cummins via The Atlantic on October 6, 2020

Hygeia: Women in the Cemetery Landscape

The Mourning Woman emerged during a revival of classical symbolism in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century gravestone iconography.
by Corinne Elicone via Nursing Clio on September 3, 2020
Image of a Black man wearing a black mask saying "I Can't Breathe"

A History of Anti-Black Racism In Medicine

This syllabus lays groundwork for making questions of race and racism central to studying the histories of medicine and science.
by Elise A. Mitchell, Ayah Nuriddin, Antoine S. Johnson via Black Perspectives on August 12, 2020
19th caricature of a dentist extracting a tooth

Sicko Doctors: Suffering and Sadism in 19th-Century America

American fiction of the 19th century often featured a cruel doctor, whose unfeeling fascination with bodily suffering readers found unnerving.
by Chelsea Davis via The Public Domain Review on July 1, 2020
Ad for children's aspirin.

‘Candy Aspirin,’ Safety Caps, and the History of Children’s Drugs

The development, use, and marketing of medications for children in the 20th century.
by Cynthia Connolly via Penn Today on May 22, 2018
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Henrietta Lacks, Immortalized

Henrietta Lacks's "immortal" cell line, called "HeLa," is used in everything from cancer treatments to vaccines.
by Allison C. Meier via JSTOR Daily on May 17, 2018
Magazine ad for Johnson & Johnson baby products.

Licensed to Ill

The disquieting story of an American health-product giant.
by Mary Turfah via Bookforum on July 15, 2025
Walt Whitman

Brag and Humblebrag: Walt Whitman’s Encounters

Walt Whitman was a champion self-advertiser, maven of the brag and the humblebrag.
by Maureen N. McLane via London Review of Books on May 22, 2025
A woman holding her head in distress, and a naked woman sitting on an illustration of a toy car pulled by string.

Frog-Free

The demystification of pregnancy.
by Erin Maglaque via London Review of Books on April 17, 2025
Carrie Baker and her book Abortion Pills: US History and Politics.

The Forgotten—and Incredibly Important—History of the Abortion Pill

Mifepristone took longer to get approved than most drugs—but not because it was unsafe.
by Nina Martin via Mother Jones on February 7, 2025
The cover of an edition of Good Housekeeping Magazine depicting a woman leaning on a chair and reading in front of a bookshelf and a pile of books.

How Midcentury Women’s Magazines Fought Cancer

Journalists at Good Housekeeping, Redbook, and other women’s magazines were informing readers how to recognize, protect against, and talk about cancer.
by Meg Heckman via The Saturday Evening Post on February 5, 2025
Advertisement promoting cocaine toothache drops, 1889.

An Undulating Thrill

Once lauded as a wonder of the age, cocaine soon became the object of profound anxieties. What happened?
by Douglas Small via Aeon on October 4, 2024
Tuskegee syphilis study.

All We Want is the Facts…Or Not

Shedding light on the truth of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.
by Susan Reverby via Nursing Clio on July 25, 2024
Drawing of a woman nurse in a tent with two rows of sick patients in bed.

Listening to Women Nurses and Caretakers

A case study from the smallpox epidemic among North Carolina Moravians.
by Savannah Jane Flanagan via Nursing Clio on July 3, 2024
Fanny Angelina Hesse in front of article about her accomplishments.

Meet the Forgotten Woman Who Revolutionized Microbiology With a Simple Kitchen Staple

Fanny Angelina Hesse introduced agar to the life sciences in 1881. A trove of unpublished family papers sheds new light on her many accomplishments.
by Corrado Nai via Smithsonian on June 25, 2024
A stylized drawing of an insulin vial.

The Insulin Empire

Insulin transforms a sick body. It also has the potential to reconstitute our political economic realities.
by Edward Ongweso Jr., Athena Sofides via The Baffler on May 30, 2024
Disabled children learning in a classroom at Washington Boulevard School.

Disabling Modernism

During the first decade of the New Deal, modernist architects designed schools for disabled children that proposed radical visions of civic care.
by David Serlin via Places Journal on May 15, 2024
Black nurses and Sea View Hospital.

The ‘Black Angels’ Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis

Professional nurses who moved north during the Great Migration worked in New York City’s most contagious sanatorium — and changed the course of public health.
by Maria Smilios via The Emancipator on May 9, 2024
An activist holding a placard that says Stop The War On Women during the protest in Los Angeles in 2019.
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History Shows Abortion Bans Are a War on Poor Women

While some liberals decry abortion bans as a war on women, history reveals that this charge distorts the reality of their impact.
by R. E. Fulton via Made By History on April 15, 2024
The island of Molokai, where the Ball Method successfully treated leprosy sufferers.

A Young Black Scientist Discovered a Pivotal Leprosy Treatment in the 1920s

Historians are working to shine a light on Alice Ball’s legacy and contributions to an early treatment of a dangerous and stigmatizing disease.
by Mark M. Lambert via The Conversation on April 12, 2024
Pregnant woman.

What the Shadowy History of Women’s Health Tells Us About Its Uncertain Future

Clare Beams on the dark legacy of a purported pregnancy miracle drug.
by Clare Beams via Literary Hub on April 9, 2024
Death to Beauty book cover, featuring a gloved hand with a syringe.

The Eyes Have It: On Eugene M. Helveston’s “Death to Beauty”

Injecting the world’s deadliest toxin into one’s eye was always going to be a hard sell.
by Arvind Dilawar via Los Angeles Review of Books on March 30, 2024
A photograph of the Arizona desert at sunset with cacti in the foreground.

I Want Settlers To Be Dislodged From the Comfort of Guilt

My ancestors were the good whites, or at least that’s what I’ve always wanted to believe.
by Natasha Varner via Electric Literature on February 8, 2024
Black doctor tending to a Black patient in a bed with family nearby

How Tens of Thousands of Black U.S. Doctors Simply Vanished

My mother was a beloved doctor. She is also a reminder, to me, of every Black doctor who is not here with us but should be.
by Uché Blackstock via Washington Post on January 22, 2024
A group of Black medical students outside Howard University's medical school
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The History Behind America’s Shortage of Black Doctors

Decisions about medical training and licensing in the 19th and early 20th century are still having an impact today.
by Margaret Vigil-Fowler via Made By History on November 29, 2023
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