The Online Program in the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University is pleased to announce that registration is now open for our Term 3 course entitled Introduction to the History of Medicine.

Introduction to the History of Medicine

(Term 2: Jan 22–Mar 16, 2018; registration deadline: Friday, January 12)

This course introduces students to key themes and approaches in the history of medicine, healing, and public health. Topics include the history of disease, the history of therapeutics, and patients and healers. Each session presents the breadth of the historians’ craft. The course explores: a variety of approaches to the interpretation of primary and secondary sources; a range of analytic frameworks for the understanding of history; and different techniques for writing histories of scientific research, healing practices, facts, or technologies. The emphasis is on how these were not necessarily predestined, but instead produced in real time, by real people, with interests, wants, needs, motives, and limitations. Students will review the history of medicine and public health as a way of knowing based on empirical research, balancing primary and secondary sources.