History 202/PM 479
Health, Medicine and Social Reform
Spring 2013
Prof. Theodore Brown
Office Hours: Monday 11:00 – 1:00 and by appointment
368 Rush Rhees (x52051)
email: theodore_brown@urmc.rochester.edu
Course Description: Examination of the interconnected histories of medical science, public health, and political
action promoting social and health reform, from the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century to the present.
Attention will also be directed to connections between socio-economic status and health status, variations in the
distribution of disease and risk, and changes in the social role of medicine and medical institutions. The course
material includes both major primary sources (Frank, Chadwick, Engels, Virchow, Riis, and Geiger) and secondary
analyses (by Rosen, McKeown, Navarro, Starr, Jones, and E.R. Brown)
Course requirements: a midterm exam, a final exam, and a 7-page book review essay. Each will contribute to onethird of the final grade. Course requirements for PM 479 are a midterm exam, a final exam, and a 12-page term
paper. The midterm, final exam, and term paper will each contribute to one-third of the final grade.
The following books are to be purchased:
George Rosen, A History of Public Health (Hopkins) [PH]
Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (Penguin)
Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (Bedford)
James H. Jones, Bad Blood (Free Press)
Other readings are available on electronic reserve.
For History 208, the book review essay must be written on one of the books below and submitted by the date
indicated.
Engels (due 3/4)
Riis (due 4/10)
Jones (due 5/1)
Schedule of Lectures
Jan 16
Jan 23
Jan 30
Feb 4
Feb 11
Feb 13
Introduction and Orientation
Health, medicine, and the Scientific Revolution
Health and the Englightenment
Eighteenth century hospitals
Medical Police – I
Medical Police – II
Feb 18
Feb 20
Feb 25
Feb 27
Mar 4
Mar 6
Mar 18
Mar 20
Mar 25
Mar 27
Apr 1
Apr 3
Apr 8
Apr 10
Apr 15
Apr 17
Apr 22
Apr 24
Apr 29
May 1
Health, medicine, and the French Revolution
British sanitary reform – I
British sanitary reform – II
German social medicine
Bismarck and sickness insurance
National health programs in 20th century Europe
Midterm Exam
American public health in 19th century America – I
American public health in 19th century America – II
Medicine and reform in the Progressive Era – I
Medicine and reform in the Progressive Era – II
Medicine and reform in the Progressive Era – III
Corporate philanthropy and public health
Medical politics in the early 20th – I
Medical politics in the early 20th century – II
Race and health in America – I
Race and health in America -- II
Race and health in America – III
Community Health Centers
From the sixties to the nineties
Readings
1/16
Rosen, A History of Public Health, 1-25
1/23
Rosen, PH, 57-106
King, The Medical World of the Eighteenth Century, 1-29
1/30
Rosen, PH, 107-137, 148-166
2/4
McKeown and Brown in Glass & Eversley (eds.), Population in History, 285-307
[start reading Engels]
2/11
Rosen, PH, 137-143
2/13
Frank, A System of Complete Medical Police, 36-39, 46-52, 64-69, 79-85,
112-113, 132-133, 164-167, 183-196, 357-361
2/18
Rosen, PH, 143-146
Frank, “The People’s Misery: Mother of Diseases,” Bull. Hist. Med., 9 (1941):
88-100
[finish approx. half of Engels]
2/20
Rosen, PH, 166-209, 235-251
Chadwick [Great Britain Poor Law], Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring
Population, 74-84, 396-399, 421-425
2/25
Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, esp. pp. 9-247
2/27
Rosen, PH, 226-235
Virchow, “Report of the Typhus Epidemic in Upper Silesia,” in Collected Essays on Public Health
and Epidemiology, I, 205-206, 307-319
3/4
Rosen, PH, 415-426
Hollyday, Bismarck, 57-66
3/6
Navarro, “Why Some Countries Have Health Insurance,” Soc. Sci. Med., 28 (1989): 887-897
3/20
Rosen, PH, 209-226
3/25
Rosen, PH, 308-319
3/27
Rosen, PH, 320-340
4/1
Rosen, PH, 395-415
4/3
Riis, How the Other Half Lives
4/8
E.R. Brown, “Public Health in Imperialism,” Amer. J. Public Health, 66 (1976): 897-903
4/10
Rosen, PH, 426-439
4/15
Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine, 266-289, 299-310
4/17
Jones, Bad Blood
4/29
Geiger, “The Endlessly Revolving Door,” Amer. J. Nursing, 69 (1969): 2436-2444
5/1
E.R. Brown, “Medicare and Medicaid: Bandaids for the Old and Poor,” in Sidel & Sidel (eds.),
Reforming Medicine, 50-76