Ever wonder how people figured out there used to be such things as dinosaurs? Curious about how scientists learned to reconstruct fossil skeletons? The knowledge we take for granted today was slow in coming, and along the way, scientists and scholars had some weird ideas. This Web site shows some of their mistakes, provides a timeline of events, gives biographies of a few of the people who have gotten us where we are today, and lists resources you can use to learn more.
The UK Centre for the History of Nursing is a new venture that for the first time provides a focus for nursing history in Europe. Its task is to build awareness of the importance of nursing history through education and research.
Pellagra was first identified among Spanish peasants by Don Gaspar Casal in 1735. A loathsome skin disease, it was called mal de la rosa and often mistaken for leprosy. Although it was not conclusively identified in the United States until 1907, there are reports of illness that could be pellagra as far back as the 1820s. In the United States, pellagra has often been called the disease of the four D's -- dermatitis, diarrhea, dementia, and death. National data is sketchy, but by 1912, the state of South Carolina alone reported 30,000 cases and a mortality rate of 40 percent. While hardly confined to Southern states, the disease seemed especially rampant there. A worried Congress asked the Surgeon General to investigate the disease. In 1914, Joseph Goldberger was asked to head that investigation.
Increasingly, over the past three centuries, we have come to rely upon statistical reasoning as a powerful, impartial and accurate means of understanding the social world.
However, while statistics have been used to identify and formulate effective means of addressing a range of social problems, we have used statistics in very human ways.
In this module, you will encounter a range of materials and associated learning tasks illustrating how statistical reasoning came to be applied to human affairs by six prominent European social scientists between, roughly, 1860 and 1914.
Now archived by the National Library of Australia and Partners, this site was created to support a class in the history of health. The five chapters here include "Health of the Body Politic," "Fever," "War's Cruel Scythe," "Quacks and Quackery," and "Populate or Perish." Each chapter includes a reading room with essays. Technical words are linked to a glossary (which is still under construction). The site also provides a chronology and a workshop with class exercises. Each chapter also includes biographies of key figures like Cesare Lombroso and synopses of important events. A few of the chapters include links to primary documents including Lambert A.J. Quetelet's "A Treatise on Man, and the Development of His Faculties," and Frances Galton's Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development." The site favors Australian medical history but should prove to be useable by scholars anywhere.
Main topics of interest are: the problem of scientific realism; the relation between Science and Common Sense; the role of the "images of the world" in Science (and daily life); the conceptual foundations of Physics;
This exhibit, "From Quackery to Bacteriology: The Emergence of Modern Medicine in 19th Century America," traces the development of medicine through printed works: from heroic medicine at the beginning of the century to quackery movements, the experience of the Civil War, and ending with improvements in medical education and the formulation of the germ theory at century's end. Other topics covered in the exhibit include women's health, mental health, public health, and preventative medicine as advocated through physical fitness and nutrition.
"Highlights of Nursing in Virginia" was originally compiled by Mabel E. Montgomery, RN, Katherine R. Gary, RN and Marie Schmidt, RN members of the Special Anniversary Observances Committee of the Virginia Nurses' Association and published in 1975. Under the guidance of Evelyn C. Bacon, Chair of the VNA History Committee, revisions were begun to the "Highlights" in the 1990s. This edition was completed by the Joint History Committee of the Virginia Nurses' Association and the Virginia League of Nursing, under the leadership of Corinne F. Dorsey in November of 2000.
Medicine has made tremendous progress in the 20th century. Information provided in this museum are on medicines, drugs & substances
which were in use during late 19th & early 20th century; the most important period for basic advancement of modern medicine, manufactured by nearly 148 manufacturers around the globe, in collection with a pharmacy established in 1912.
In 1925, when Mary Breckinridge established the Frontier Nursing Service and built Wendover, this marked the first effort to professionalize midwifery in the United States. Within the thematic framework of the National Historic Landmark Program, Wendover, the national headquarters of the Frontier Nursing Service, has national significance under theme XIII. Science: (F) Medicine (1.) Clinical Specialties.
Up until the 1930s, an American woman was more likely to die in childbirth than from any other disease, except tuberculosis. The mortality rate was particularly high for pregnant women in rural areas where hospitals and qualified medical care were scarce. Breckinridge recognized this concern and succeeded in one of the pioneering attempts to bring professionalized health care to rural-America.
Perseus is an evolving digital library, engineering interactions through time, space, and language. Our primary goal is to bring a wide range of source materials to as large an audience as possible. We anticipate that greater accessibility to the sources for the study of the humanities will strengthen the quality of questions, lead to new avenues of research, and connect more people through the connection of ideas.
