The Johns Hopkins Program in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology consists of two departments, the History of Medicine Department, located at the School of Medicine, and the History of Science and Technology Department in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. Both departments have had long-standing programs for graduate education in history of science, medicine, and technology. They have informal connections between graduate programs, with students participating with Philadelphia-area students in such regular events as the Joint Atlantic Seminar in History of Biology and Joint Atlantic Seminar in History of Medicine. The History of Science and Technology Department , the first of its kind, concentrates on science and technology since the Renaissance and has particular strength in the history of early-modern science and the history of American science and technology. Faculty interests extend to such subjects as history of architecture, the emergence of science cities, the iconography of science, science and exploration, and science and religion. Founded in 1929, the Institute of the History of Medicine is the oldest history of medicine department in the US. They are dedicated to scholarship on the history of medicine, disease and the health sciences, and their relation to society. In addition, the Institute seeks to bring historical perspectives to bear on contemporary health issues. The Institute of the History of Medicine contains the Department of the History of Medicine, which jointly runs the Graduate Program in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology with the Department of History of Science and Technology, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences; the Historical Collections, a medical history research library containing antiquarian and modern resources; and the editorial offices of the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, the official journal of the American Association of the History of Medicine.
Specialty
Research university; library system with holdings in many areas.
Collections
The Historical Collection of the Institute of the History of Medicine ranks among the best such collections housed in American medical schools, and is one of the few to be directly linked with a major research and graduate teaching program. The collection contains over seventy-eight thousand volumes, including runs of more than eight hundred journals. It has one of the most comprehensive collections of secondary literature in the history of medicine, and subscribes to almost all currently published periodicals in history of medicine, history of science and social studies of medicine. Special Collections and Archives of the Sheridan Libraries house collections that support research in the history of science and technology. The materials are housed in three locations: The Brody Learning Commons, The John Work Garrett Library, and the George Peabody Library. Collection strengths include natural history, history of exploration and cartography, and architecture (Garrett Library); astronomy, The Dr. Elliott and Eileen Hinkes Collection of Books of Scientific Discovery, cosmology, and alchemy (Brody) and archaeology, geography, and exploration and travel (George Peabody Library).
Collections URL
Holding Highlights
A notable number of landmark works of medical history are held in the comparatively small rare book collection of some twenty-five thousand volumes, which is also especially strong in the history of infectious disease and public health. The Alan Mason Chesney Archives holds the institutional records and the personal papers of the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. The Sheridan Libraries of Johns Hopkins University include the Garrett Library at Evergreen House, which has an outstanding collection of books relating to exploration and travel, as well as the Peabody Library, an incredibly rich research collection with strengths in many areas of history of science.