Learn about the development of the systems for delivery and reimbursement of health care in the U.S. from the unregulated free-market state in 1908 to the complex, highly managed state in which it exists in 2008.
Student of medicine and the history of medicine, J Mellinger examines a 14th-century manuscript for evidence of physicians’ duty to treat during the Black Plague.
The Epidemic Intelligence Service, by Douglas H. Hamilton, traces the history of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, with details about the service’s response to actual and potential epidemic outbreaks.
Invention of the stethoscope in 1816 changed the patient-physician relationship. Technology, widely used in medicine today, is not a substitute for the physician’s human understanding of the patient’s life.
Amy Fairchild, PhD, MPH, Ronald Bayer, PhD, and James Colgrove, PhD, MPH
A brief history of public opposition to disease surveillance in the U.S., despite the documented success of this tool in recognizing and managing threats to public health.
Traditional physicians' garb changed from black to white at the time that antiseptic practices became common in medicine. White coats gained symbolic value, and Arnold P. Gold, MD, instituted annual ceremony for medical students.