Female Trouble: Headaches and the Modern Woman

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Who among us has not experienced the dreaded throb of cranial pain that accompanies stress and anxiety? Headaches seem to be the physiological manifestation of modern life’s tensions: perhaps more so than aches in any other part of the body, pain in the head symbolically ties together physical, mental, and emotional distresses.[1] In popular culture, headaches are also seen as a particularly female trait – think of the old misogynistic joke about a woman pleading… Continue reading

The Battle Creek Sanitarium: Deliverance Through Diet

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The College of Physicians of Philadelphia has launched a new digital exhibit. Founded in 1866 and rebuilt after a fire in 1903, the Battle Creek Sanitarium of Battle Creek, Michigan was a health resort which employed holistic methods based on principles promoted by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. This mini-exhibition highlights some of the materials held at the Historical Medical Library that were produced by J.H. Kellogg, founder of The Sanitarium, including official Sanitarium publications, as well… Continue reading

Women Veterans of World War I

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The Hopkins and the Great War exhibit features the stories of several women veterans of World War I . By exploring the experiences of the female Johns Hopkins doctors and nurses, the exhibit sheds light on the opportunities women had to serve during the war and the ways in which gendered norms varied by professional training and nationality. Continue reading

Insanity, medicine and the law-The case of President Garfield’s assassin, Charles Guiteau

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On November 28th, 1881, Charles Julius Guiteau, assassin of President James A. Garfield, took the stand on his own behalf, testifying in court until December 3rd, 1881. Guiteau’s rambling testimony documented his life and his belief that killing Garfield was necessary and divine providence. Following Guiteau’s testimony, the prosecution brought a succession of medical experts, who testified over the course of three weeks that Guiteau was not insane but “depraved,” “sane, though eccentric,” and many… Continue reading

Fake Silk: The Lethal History of Viscose Rayon

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Join UCSF Archives & Special Collections on Friday, December 2, at noon in the Lange Room for an afternoon talk with medical historian and author Paul Blanc MD MSPH  as he discusses the toxic legacy of viscose rayon portrayed in his new book, Fake Silk. Dr. Blanc poses a basic question: When a new technology makes people ill, how high does the body count have to be before protectives steps are taken? His work tells a dark… Continue reading

Remembering Base Hospital 30 of the First World War

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In his Annual Report of the President of the University to the then-Governor of the State of California, UC President Benjamin Wheeler outlined the part of the university in the Great War: On February 13, 1917, in view of the increasing probability of the United States entering the European War, the Board of Regents, at the instance of the President of the University, formally offered to the National Government the entire resources of the University… Continue reading

Blood Transfusion: 350 Years

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Three hundred and fifty years ago, on December 17, 1666, the Philosophical Transactions published the first account of blood transfusion, in the form of a letter from physician Richard Lower to chemist Robert Boyle.i Lower’s experiments transfused blood from one dog to another. The article provided his methods, specifying where the arteries and veins were to be cut, how the quill was to be inserted that formed the blood’s conduit between animals, and many other… Continue reading