When the first cases of AIDS began appearing in the United States in 1981, doctors and researchers were baffled. It took a decade rife with protests and media coverage to encourage action by government officials and funding organizations, and it wasn't until the 1990s that effective treatment practices for HIV and AIDS were disseminated to the wider medical community. Surviving & Thriving: AIDS,...

Researchers and scholars looking at historical pandemics frequently study the communities that were strongly affected by these various occurrences. However, this fascinating digital archive from the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School looks at seven communities during the 1918-1920 influenza pandemic that experienced low rates of influenza during this...

What role did the belief in religion and magic play in ancient medicine? How have medical instruments changed throughout time? What role did medicine play in Renaissance art? The Kelsey Museum of Archeology and the University of Michigan Library recently put together this website that traces the history of medicine in Europe and the Middle East, from Ancient Greece and Rome through the...

Human adults experience the disease we call "the common cold" an average of 2 to 4 times a year. What do scientists know about the so-called "common cold", and why haven't we figured out a way to end this illness? This long-form essay from The Guardian's Nicola Davison, published on October 6, 2017, investigates the history of research into the cold (and some of the unsuccessful ways that people...

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the Hagstromer Medico-Historical Library is the Introduction. Visitors are treated to a fine prologue that explains the wide benefits and importance of using historical texts to understand the history of science and medicine. After building a foundational knowledge of medical history, visitors can then explore the site's collections. There is the option to...

The History of Vaccines is an educational site maintained by the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Founded in 1787, the College currently runs the Mutter Museum, a museum of the history of medicine, and the Historical Medical Library. The History of Vaccines website includes an interactive timeline of vaccination history, online classroom activities, and a gallery of over 700 items related to...

Those visitors unfamiliar with the unsettling and terrifying short story, "The Yellow Wall-Paper", by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, are fortunate that this National Library of Medicine website provides a PDF of the story in its original form that first appeared in 1892 in The New England Magazine. At the bottom of the homepage, visitors need just to click on the image of a page underneath the heading...

Professor Loren C. MacKinney came to the study of medieval history via his training at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Grenoble, France. During his time as a professor at the University of North Carolina, he amassed a remarkable collection of manuscripts and images related to the history of medieval medicine. He was beloved by his students for his intellectual curiosity and his...

When the United States needed to teach soldiers and others about public health matters, who did they turn to? The United States Army Pictorial Service, of course. The National Library of Medicine has digitized 18 of these most intriguing items for consideration by researchers as well as the general public. These short films cover women's health, physical fitness, syphilis prevention, as well as...

For a number of centuries, prior to the advent of the scientific revolution, "astrology was used as a tool for both treatment and diagnosis of any number of aches and pains." On this website, created by the Historical Medical Library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia Digital Library, visitors can learn more about this perceived link between astrology and human health via a number of...