Instructor: Eric v.d. Luft, Ph.D., M.L.S.
Curator of Historical Collections, Health Sciences Library
and Lecturer, Center for Bioethics and Humanities
SUNY Upstate Medical University
766 Irving Avenue
Syracuse, NY 13210
E-mail: lufte@upstate.edu
Phone: 315-464-4585 (w) or 315-458-5310 (h)

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1. What is the history of medicine?
   1. Biographies of physicians and other health care professionals?
   2. Chronicles of great events or milestone developments?
   3. Understanding the society and people of a certain era in terms of the level and nature of health care available at that time?
   4. Attempt to satisfy idle curiosity or to gain information that could be important for current clinical practice or current medical research?
   5. Something else?
2. Native American medicine
3. Domestic medicine
   1. Wesley
   2. Buchan
4. Medical education in America.
   1. University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (founded 1765 -- 1st).
      1. John Morgan
      2. William Shippen (1736-1808).
      3. Benjamin Rush
      4. William Potts Dewees
   2. Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (founded 1767 -- 2nd).
   3. Harvard Medical School (founded 1782 -- 3rd).
   4. Dartmouth Medical School (founded 1797 -- 4th).
   5. Medical School of Fairfield Academy (founded 1809 -- 8th, extinct)
      1. Curriculum
   6. Yale University School of Medicine (founded 1810 -- 6th oldest surviving, 10th founded).
   7. Jefferson Medical College (founded 1824 -- 9th oldest surviving, 16th founded).
      1. Samuel David Gross
   8. SUNY Upstate Medical University (founded 1834 as Geneva Medical College, existed 1871-1950 as Syracuse University College of Medicine -- 16th oldest surviving, 30th founded).
      1. Edward Cutbush (1772-1843).
      2. Charles Brodhead Coventry (1801-1875).
      3. Thomas Spencer (1793-1857).
      4. Charles Alfred Lee (1801-1872).
      5. Frank Hastings Hamilton (1813-1886).
      6. The Boardman affair.
      7. Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910), first woman M.D. (January 23, 1849).
5. Schools of thought.
   1. Single cure theory vs. nosology
   2. Bloodletting: pro & con.
6. Sectarian medicine.
   1. Botanic medicine
   2. Brunonianism
   3. Thomsonianism
   4. Homeopathy
   5. Eclecticism
   6. Hydropathy
   7. Allopathy (i.e., "regular medicine")
7. Professional societies.
   1. College of Physicians of Philadelphia
   2. New York Academy of Medicine
8. Beginnings of modern surgery.
   1. Philip Syng Physick (1768-1837): "The Father of American Surgery."
   2. Three prerequisites for complex surgical procedures:
      1. Antisepsis/asepsis.
      2. Anesthesia.
      3. Control of surgical shock/surgical hemorrhage.
   3. Ephraim McDowell
   4. Frank Hastings Hamilton
   5. Samuel D. Gross
   6. Military surgery
9. Public Health and Sanitation:
   1. Epidemiology
      1. Yellow fever
      2. Cholera
   2. Benjamin Rush
   3. Stephen Smith and the American Public Health Association
   4. Frank Hastings Hamilton and military medicine
10. Suggestions for Reading, Research, and Reference:
    1. Bibliographies: Austin
    2. General Histories: Garrison
    3. Social Histories:
       1. Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine
       2. Charles Rosenberg
       3. Rosemary Stevens
    4. Histories of Medical Education:
       1. Histories of Specific Medical Schools:
          1. George W. Corner, Two Centuries of Medicine
          2. Transylvania
       2. Norwood
       3. Stookey