Exploring American Healthcare through 50 Historic Treasures

Tegan Kehoe is a public historian who specializes in the history of healthcare and science. She is the exhibit and education specialist at the Paul S. Russell, MD Museum of Medical History and Innovation at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and received her MA in history and museum studies from Tufts University.

• AcknowledgementsIntroductionChapter 1: Unwashed Groins and Child Labor: Cancer in the Early Industrial AgeChapter 2: George Washington’s ToothbrushChapter 3: The Age of the VaccineChapter 4: No Wrong Way to EatChapter 5: A Pioneering OperationChapter 6: Healing by a Higher PowerChapter 7: Morton’s Ether Inhaler and the Advent of AnesthesiaChapter 8: Bitters and Irregulars: Alternative Healing in the Nineteenth CenturyChapter 9: Blood Shed After the Battle: Bleeding CupsChapter 10: Under the Surgeon’s Tent: The Physician in the Civil WarChapter 11: “Inflammatory Mischief” Meets Antiseptic TechniquesChapter 12: Answering the Milk QuestionChapter 13: Skull Shape and Scientific RacismChapter 14: “Health and Comfort of Body, With Grace and Beauty of Form”Chapter 15: East Meets West in the Medicine Cabinet: A Chinese Doctor in AmericaChapter 16: The “Cure” That Wasn’t Chapter 17: Cocaine the Medicine and the DrugChapter 18: Don Pedrito, a Legendary HealerChapter 19: A Wooden Leg in a Mechanized WorldChapter 20: A Community Doctor’s LegacyChapter 21: Carville, the “Louisiana Leper Home”Chapter 22: The Professional Nurse OnlyChapter 23: The Pandemic of the Century: The 1918 FluChapter 24: The Bubonic Plague Meets BacteriologyChapter 25: Safe, Simple, Sure? The Power of X-RaysChapter 26: “Are You Playing The Health Game?”Chapter 27: The Problem with “Good” GenesChapter 28: Machinery and MachinationsChapter 29: Diabetes: A Fatal Disease Becomes ChronicChapter 30: The Tools of a Contested Trade: A Midwife's KitChapter 31: Sipping on the Sunshine VitaminChapter 32: Preemie Care Beyond the World’s FairChapter 33: The Penicillin RevolutionChapter 34: Blood Transfusion Comes of AgeChapter 35: Insuring and Ensuring HealthChapter 36: Nursing at WarChapter 37: The Science and Politics of Inhaling DustChapter 38: Health Uplifted, Health UpendedChapter 39: DDT: The Double-Edged SwordChapter 40: The Iron Lung and the Polio EpidemicsChapter 41: Two Eras of Change in PharmacyChapter 42: More than a Metaphor: The StraitjacketChapter 43: Changing Ways of Looking at the GutChapter 44: The Pill's New Era of Choice (For Some)Chapter 45: Smoking Under ScrutinyChapter 46: Ed Roberts and the Independent Living MovementChapter 47: Bypassing the HeartChapter 48: False Hopelessness or False Hope: The Early Years of AIDSChapter 49: September 11 and Emergency ResponseChapter 50: Saving Lives Amid the Opioid Crisis ConclusionAbout the AuthorBibliography

As the COVID-19 pandemic pushes public health and health care to the forefront of global concern, Kehoe offers great insight into how conceptualizations and treatments of disease and promotion of health have evolved over centuries through analysis of 50 medical artifacts. The collection would be a great supplement to George Rosen's canonical A History of Public Health though of course Kehoe's text brings readers closer to the present. The author's introduction notes that medicine has been variously conceived, whether as a progressive march forward of science or as a gruesome, macabre activity. The objects presented here include those representing both sides of the conceptual universe, from tools employed in developing vaccines and antibiotics, encapsulating the former, to some used in nefarious applications of eugenics and pesticide use, recalling the latter. The volume will be a great tool for students of public health history, presenting tangible evidence from the late 1700s to the present. Kehoe's text may also help contextualize current culture wars surrounding responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, including popular debates about masking, vaccinations, and lockdowns. This is a great resource for undergraduates, scholars of medical history, and medical antiquarians. Highly recommended. All readers.