John Warren’s Lectures on Anatomy, 1783–1812

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Somos
Keyword(s):  
Medical School ◽  
American Medical ◽  
Medical History ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Harvard Medical School ◽  
The Body ◽  
Technical Aspects ◽  
History Of ◽  
History And Theory

This chapter presents an English translation of selected passages from John Warren’s Lectures on Anatomy, delivered between 1783 and 1812. Most of the lectures deal with technical aspects of anatomy, ranging from the structure and parts of the body through characteristics of bones and ligaments to making anatomical preparations. Here Warren offers valuable insights into American medical history and progress. The present selection focuses on the history and theory of anatomy that Warren taught as part of his course over the first three decades in the history of Harvard Medical School (HMS). Warren was one of the founders of HMS on September 19, 1782, with Aaron Dexter and Benjamin Waterhouse. He served as the school’s first Professor of Anatomy and Surgery.

scholarly journals 1316. An Integrative Approach to Teaching History of Medicine in Medical School

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (suppl_1) ◽  
pp. S402-S402
Author(s):  
Magdalena Slosar-Cheah ◽  
Joshua Nosanchuk ◽  
Liise-Anne Pirofski
Keyword(s):  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Medical School ◽  
Medical History ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Albert Einstein College ◽  
Virtual Learning Environment ◽  
Integrative Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
Course Material ◽  
Approach To Teaching

Abstract Background Medical history plays a foundational role in shaping the characters and habits of thought of developing physicians. Specifically, it cultivates an ability to assess the quality and durability of current knowledge and contributes to the growth of resilience, humility and intellectual curiosity. Especially for Infectious Diseases, knowledge of its history fosters an appreciation for our evolving understanding of the field and an opportunity to spark interest in a future career. Nevertheless, it is hard to find the space for this content amidst competing priorities in the medical school curriculum. An integrative approach has been described as a way to introduce history as a longitudinal component of the existing curriculum. Our aim, using this approach, was to pilot the incorporation of history modules into the Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (Micro/ID) course at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Methods Students participating in Micro/ID were shown four history modules integrated into the existing course. The first was embedded within the introductory lecture and the remaining three were prerecorded videos available through the virtual learning environment. The modules offered context to course material and introduced principles of medical history, such as the potential pitfalls of retrospective diagnosis and changing definitions of disease over time. Comprehension and retention were assessed via two questions on each of two exams. Students had the opportunity to evaluate the course material in both their examination and end-of-course evaluations. Results On the first examination, 99% and 68% of students answered correctly. On the second examination, 92% and 54% answered correctly. Student evaluation of the content was positive overall with 91% rating the content satisfactory, very good or excellent. However, some questioned the value of the material while others requested expansion of the modules to include topics such as history of research ethics (Tuskegee and syphilis) and more recent history (the HIV epidemic). Conclusion An integrative approach to teaching medical history is largely well-received by students and offers a way to introduce historical topics to an entire class. Comments from students serve as a guide to topics of interest for future iterations of the course. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.

Medicine

2009 ◽  
pp. 551-568
Author(s):  
Brooke Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Medical History ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Medical Texts ◽  
Internal Organs ◽  
History Of

This article attempts to characterize a secular tradition of medicine, and focuses on approaches to the body and theories of causation. It seems that, just like the street philosophers, magicians were more individualistic and charismatic than the writers of systematic treatises, and yet they too sometimes relied on texts. It is important to remain open to possible connections between magic and medicine. For example, in the course of medical history, dissection and investigation of the interior of the body gradually became more prominent; similarly, ancient curses, spells, and binds became increasingly specific about the body parts and internal organs they targeted. The wider context of society is relevant here: magical and medical texts are affected by the history of torture, and of vivisection.

Henry R. Viets, MD, and the history of myasthenia gravis

Neurology ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 10.1212/WNL.0000000000011239
Author(s):  
Robert M. Feibel
Keyword(s):  
Myasthenia Gravis ◽  
Medical School ◽  
History Of Medicine ◽  
Harvard Medical School ◽  
Massachusetts General Hospital ◽  
Great Success ◽  
Myasthenic Patient ◽  
History Of ◽  
Medical Historian

Henry R. Viets (1890–1969) was both a noted neurologist and medical historian. While at Harvard Medical School, from which he graduated in 1916, he attracted the attention of Harvey Cushing who directed Viets into these disciplines. Cushing arranged for Viets to take a fellowship in Oxford in the year after his graduation. With Cushing's recommendation, he lived with Sir William and Lady Osler and did research with the famous neurologist Sir Charles Sherrington. Viets was in London in 1935 when he heard about the remarkable success of Mary Walker in treating myasthenia gravis, first with physostigmine and then with neostigmine (Prostigmin). Securing an ampoule of this drug, he took it to the Massachusetts General Hospital where he was an attending neurologist and in March 1935 injected it into a myasthenic patient with great success. He established the first Myasthenia Gravis Clinic in the world and was a pioneer in the treatment of this once obscure disease: he evaluated hundreds of patients and published many articles on myasthenia. He continued this association for over 30 years. Under the tutelage of Cushing and Osler, Viets became a medical historian and bibliophile, publishing hundreds of articles and several books on many different subjects in the history of medicine. He was the President of the American Association for the History of Medicine and curator of the Boston Medical Library that eventually joined with the Harvard Medical School Library. Viets served on the Editorial Board of the New England Journal of Medicine for 40 years.

Medicine Unbound

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Corinna Treitel
Keyword(s):  
History Of Medicine ◽  
Medical History ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Search Engine ◽  
The Body ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Medicine Physician ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Mind

Why should intellectual historians care about the history of medicine? As someone who admires and draws frequently on intellectual history but is mostly an outsider to the field, I asked myself this question after accepting the invitation to review two books related to medical history for Modern Intellectual History. To make the question manageable, I decided to investigate how much the history of medicine had cropped up in the pages of MIH since it began publishing in 2004. Three terms fundamental to the history of medicine went into the MIH search engine: “medicine,” “physician,” and “disease.” “Medicine” yielded seven hits, “physician” three, and “disease” one. Curious to see in what context “medicine” appeared, I clicked on the seven hits and discovered three book reviews, two articles that made mention of medicine only incidentally, and two articles that connected medicine to the history of subjectivity. Because seven hits seemed low and the subjectivity result intrigued me, I went back to the search engine with a more specific set of terms. “Psychology” yielded sixteen hits, “psychoanalysis” fourteen, and “psychiatry” one. These results, of course, only tell us about the publishing record of MIH and not necessarily about the research interests that intellectual historians might have in the history of medicine. Still, they do suggest that the piece of medical history most useful to intellectual historians concerns the mind/brain sciences—that is, those sciences most likely to engage minds, selves, identities, the individual, and related constructs of interiority. Apparently less interesting is work from other vibrant research areas in medical history: diseases (e.g. cholera, cancer, plague), hospitals, medical education, medical practice, medical technology, medical sciences (e.g. physiology, nutrition, biochemistry), and the body, to name just a few. Intellectual historians, it seems, hold a strong but quite selective interest in medicine right now.

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