200B. Introduction to History of Health Sciences

Winter 2006

Tuesdays, 10-12

LH 485 seminar room 

Prof. Elizabeth Watkins LH 370: 476-1245

watkinse@dahsm.ucsf.edu Office hours by appointment

Week 1: The development of scientific medicine
Week 2: Therapeutics and the practice of medicine in the 19th cent
Week 3: The germ theory of disease
Week 4: Medical sectarianism and professionalization
Week 5: Nursing
Week 6: Social and cultural histories of disease
Week 7: Pharmaceutical drugs
Week 8: Quantification and the culture of medical research
Week 9: The economics and politics of health care in the 20th cent
Week 10: Wrap-up

Course description:

A continuation of 200A. this course presents a general survey from 1800 to the present, with the primary focus on Europe and the United States . Topics include: the rise of scientific medicine; the significance of germ theory; the development of medical therapeutics and technologies; the growth of health care institutions; the evolution and specialization of the medical profession.

Course objectives:

• Identify the main themes in the development of medical thought and practices in the Western world from 1800 to the present.
• Understand how medical providers and patients have existed, acted, and thought in the different contexts of the past
• Use texts and other sources materials both critically and empathetically
• Appreciate and interpret the complexity and diversity of past situations, events, and mentalities
• Evaluate problems inherent in the historical record and apply critical skills to the interpretation of complex, ambiguous, and incomplete materials
• Gather, sift, select, organize, and synthesize large quantities of evidence (as the availability and multiplicity of sources increases dramatically for the 20 th century)
• Formulate appropriate questions and provide reasoned answers to them using valid and relevant argument and evidence

Course requirements:

• Each student will lead the discussion for two classes (to be decided at the first meeting). S/he will be responsible for 1) providing an introduction to the week's topic, by researching additional secondary sources, and 2) framing the questions for discussion of the books read. Each student is also expected to participate actively in each week's discussion.

• Each week, students will write a short review (no more than 3 pages double-spaced, or 1000 words) of the two books on the syllabus, focusing on how the two books speak to one another and to the topic of the week.

Syllabus and reading list:

WEEK 1

The development of scientific medicine

W. F. Bynum, Science and the Practice of Medicine in the 19 th Century ( Cambridge , 1994)

Claude Bernard, An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (Dover 1957; 1865)

WEEK 2

Therapeutics and the practice of medicine in the 19 th century

John Harley Warner, The Therapeutic Perspective: Medical Practice, Knowledge, and Identity in America , 1820-1885 (Harvard, 1986)

Charles E. Rosenberg, The Care of Strangers: The Rise of America's Hospital System (Johns Hopkins, 1987)

WEEK 3

The germ theory of disease

Louis Pasteur, Germ Theory and Its Application to Medicine

Nancy Tomes, The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life (Harvard, 1998)

Alan M. Kraut, Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes, and the “Immigrant Menace” (Johns Hopkins, 1994)

WEEK 4

Medical sectarianism and professionalization

Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine, Book One (Basic, 1982)

Norman Gevitz (editor), Other Healers: Unorthodox Medicine in America (Johns Hopkins, 1988)

WEEK 5

Nursing

Susan M. Reverby, Ordered to Care: The Dilemma of American Nursing, 1850-1945 ( Cambridge , 1987)

Catherine Ceniza Choy, Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History (Duke, 2003)

WEEK 6

Social and cultural histories of disease

Sheila M. Rothman, Living in the Shadow of Death: Tuberculosis and the Social Experience of Illness in American History (Johns Hopkins, 1995)

James T. Patterson, The Dread Disease: Cancer and Modern American Culture (Harvard, 1987)

WEEK 7

Pharmaceutical drugs

Michael Bliss, The Discovery of Insulin ( Chicago , 1982)

David Healy, The Antidepressant Era (Harvard, 1997)

WEEK 8

Quantification and the culture of medical research

J. Rosser Matthews, Quantification and the Quest for Medical Certainty ( Princeton , 1995)

Harry M. Marks, The Progress of Experiment: Science and Therapeutic Reform in the United States , 1900-1990 ( Cambridge , 1997)

WEEK 9

The economics and politics of health care in the 20th century

Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine, Book Two (Basic, 1982)

Colin Gordon, Dead on Arrival: The Politics of Health Care in 20 th -Century America ( Princeton , 2003)

WEEK 10

Wrap-up

Reading to be determined