History of Medicine and Health

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Consortium Respectful Behavior Policy

Participants at Consortium activities will treat each other with respect and consideration to create a collegial, inclusive, and professional environment that is free from any form of discrimination, harassment, or retaliation.

Participants will avoid any inappropriate actions or statements based on individual characteristics such as age, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, nationality, political affiliation, ability status, educational background, or any other characteristic protected by law. Disruptive or harassing behavior of any kind will not be tolerated. Harassment includes but is not limited to inappropriate or intimidating behavior and language, unwelcome jokes or comments, unwanted touching or attention, offensive images, photography without permission, and stalking.

Participants may send reports or concerns about violations of this policy to conduct@chstm.org.

Upcoming Meetings

There are no currently scheduled upcoming events.


Past Meetings

  • March 18, 2016

    Alex Mold (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) and Nancy Tomes (Stony Brook University) discussed their recently published books on patient consumerism in the UK (Making the Patient-Consumer, Manchester, 2015) and the US (Remaking the American Patient, UNC Press, 2016), and Roberta Bivins (University of Warwick) provided comments to start the discussion.


  • February 19, 2016

    Wendy Kline (Purdue University) shared a chapter from her book-in-progress, Coming Home: Medicine, Midwives, and the Transformation of Birth in Late-Twentieth-Century America. Judith Walzer Leavitt (U. Madison at Wisconsin) and Barbara Katz Rothman (Baruch College/CUNY Graduate Center) provided commentary and the group discussed.


  • December 18, 2015

    Heidi Knoblauch of Bard College joined the group to discuss her paper, "Collecting Patients: Clinical Photographs, Record Keeping, and Privacy in the United States, 1862-1939."


  • October 30, 2015

    Joseph Gabriel (University of Wisconsin) and Jeremy Greene (Johns Hopkins University) discussed each other's books. The group read excerpts from Joe's Medical Monopoly:Intellectual Property Rights and the Origins of the Modern Pharmaceutical Industry and Jeremy's Generic: the Unbranding of Modern Medicine. Lawrence Glickman (Cornell University) gave comments, and then the group discussed.


  • April 17, 2015

    A discussion between two authors who have recently written books about pain: Keith Wailoo, the author of Pain: A Political History, and Joanna Bourke, the author of The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers. Keith commented on Joanna's book, Joanna on Keith's, followed by questions and discussion from all seminar participants.


  • March 20, 2015

    The group discussed a draft paper by Christopher Willoughby of Tulane University, entitled "Running Away from Drapetomania: Samuel Cartwright, Medicine, and Race in the Antebellum South." Sharla Fett of Occidental College and Michael Sappol of the National Library of Medicine provided commentary to start the discussion.


  • January 16, 2015

    James Colgrove of Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health, Shobana Shankar of Stony Brook and David Barnes of UPenn discussed the Ebola epidemic in historical context.


  • May 6, 2014

    Deanna Day of UPenn introduced her paper "'As Modern As Tomorrow': Toward a History of the Medicine Cabinet as Architectural Innovation and Ontological Category."


  • April 1, 2014

    Julia Mansfield of Stanford University and PACHS introduced her paper, "Restoring Civility to Commerce: Samuel Mitchill's Response to Quarantine in the Napoleonic Age."


  • March 4, 2014

    Margaret Marsh of Rutgers University introduced her paper "The Road to IVF: From 'Fatherless' Sea Urchins to Human 'Conception in a Watch Glass'"