The 1921 discovery of insulin ushered in a new era in endocrinology. Canadian researchers transformed diabetes from certain death sentence […]
How To Cook and Cure: Early Modern Recetas
Recipes can quickly transport us to particular times and places. A glance at this vintage Jell-O recipe calls to mind […]
Lizards and the Idea of Mexico
In the summer of 1782, Don Juan de Luna, a respected elder citizen of the City of Mexico, nearly choked […]
New Medical Tourism on St. Kitts
The late William Halford of Southern Illinois University’s School of Medicine spent his life developing what Hollywood director Agustín Fernández […]
Remembering the Mothers of Gynecology: Deirdre Cooper Owens’ Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology
Antebellum physician James Marion Sims has been in the news quite a bit lately as a target of activism. After […]
Dying to Heal: Women and Syphilis in Colonial Lima, Peru
In the early modern world, syphilis victims suffered through four stages of disease over a ten- to thirty-year time span. […]
The Politics of Sobreparto: Beyond the Medical Dimensions of a Postpartum Condition
Migrant indigenous Andean women living in the lowland Bolivian city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra often mention sobreparto (“following […]
Health Care in Colonial Peruvian Convents
Last May I had the opportunity to conduct archival research in Arequipa, Peru. I went in search of fodder for […]
My Experiences with Auto-Immunity and Why I Dislike the Term “Able-Bodied”
I dislike the term “able-bodied.” I see this term used frequently in academic and activist scholarship, as well as everyday […]
Mothers’ Natures: Sex, Love, and Degeneration in the Nineteenth-Century United States
Every so often, some viral article or other will declare that science “proves” or “confirms” that intelligence is inherited from […]
