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Black doctor tending to a Black patient in a bed with family nearby

How Tens of Thousands of Black U.S. Doctors Simply Vanished

My mother was a beloved doctor. She is also a reminder, to me, of every Black doctor who is not here with us but should be.
Class photo of white men medical students on the steps of a building.

Race and Early American Medical Schools: Review of "Masters of Health"

Medical schools in the antebellum U.S. were critical in the formation of a medical community that shared ideas about racial science.
Oil painting by Claire Lehmann called "Painter’s Hand, Patron’s Hand."

Learning and Not Learning Abortion

The fact that most doctors like me don't know how to perform abortions is one of the greatest scandals of contemporary medicine in the US.
African-American man holding a medical bag, posing behind horse-drawn carriage.

Doctors Without Borders

On the Black doctors who received their medical degrees and a new sort of freedom in Europe.
profile illustration of human nervous system against black background

The Mystery of ‘Harriet Cole’

Whose body was harvested to create a spectacular anatomical specimen, and did that person know they would be on display more than a century later?
Black doctors.

The 1910 Report That Disadvantaged Minority Doctors

A century ago, the Flexner Report led to the closure of 75% of U.S. medical schools. It still explains a lot about today’s unequal access to healthcare.
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Blackface and the Roots of Racism in American Medicine

The study of medicine is rife with racist assumptions and experiments that still shape health outcomes today.
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Why It’s Shocking to Look Back at Med School Yearbooks from Decades Ago

They offer jaw-dropping examples of the sexism and racism that shaped professional cultures.
A group of Black medical students outside Howard University's medical school
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The History Behind America’s Shortage of Black Doctors

Decisions about medical training and licensing in the 19th and early 20th century are still having an impact today.
Nurses attend to patients in rows of hospital beds.

In 19th-Century Philadelphia, Female Medical Students Lobbied Hard for Mutual Aid

In a century-long tradition, students at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania came together in solidarity to combat illness among their members.
Drawing of Transylvania University Medical Department

The Murderous Origins of the American Medical Association

How a bloody gun duel between two doctors in Transylvania sparked a frenzy of outrage—and helped create the American Medical Association.
A hand holding a stethoscope and knife.

The Blackwell Sisters and the Harrowing History of Modern Medicine

A new biography of the pioneering doctors shows why “first” can be a tricky designation.

UVA and the History of Race: Eugenics, the Racial Integrity Act, Health Disparities

Reflections on the long career of race science at Mr. Jefferson's university.
Small box from the late 1800s containing small vials of homeopathic remedies.

A Short History of Homeopathy: From Hahnemann to Whole Foods

In the 19th Century, homeopathy was popular because of its use of small doses, its emphasis on the curative power of nature, and its holistic treatment of the body.
Illustration of grave robbing

Body Snatchers of Old New York

In the 1780s, medical schools used cadavers stolen from the cemeteries of slaves.
The Jersey Devil, a winged creature with horns and a goat-like head, amidst trees wrapped with vines.

Birthing the Jersey Devil

A mythical creature that lurks in the pinelands of New Jersey has served as a reminder of the horrors that result when reproductive freedoms are destroyed.
Maps and photos of the Smithsonian and its anthropologicl collections.

Revealing the Smithsonian’s ‘Racial Brain Collection’

The Smithsonian’s human brains collection was led by Ales Hrdlicka, a museum curator in the 1900s who believed that White people were superior.
Illustration of 1844 Philadelphia riots

When Philadelphia Became a Battlefield, Its Surgeons Bore Witness

The surgeons’ observations survive thanks to a remarkable document: an eleven-page published report presented to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
A man sitting in a chair

Making Medical History: The Sociologist Who Helped Legalize Birth Control

When professor Norman E. Himes published The Medical History of Contraception in 1936, he had made a tactical move, to legalize birth control.
An anatomical diagram of a man's muscular system.

Seeking the Truth Behind Books Bound in Human Skin

And the "gentleman" doctors who made them.
Doctor helping a patient

Trump’s Doctor Comes From a Uniquely American Brand of Medicine

Osteopathy was founded by a 19th-century healer who believed the body was a self-healing machine.

Hygeia: Women in the Cemetery Landscape

The Mourning Woman emerged during a revival of classical symbolism in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century gravestone iconography.
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A Public Calamity

The ways that authorities in Richmond, Virginia, responded to the 1918 Flu offer a lens onto what – and who – was most valued by those in power there.
Open field by a highway.

The Departed and Dismissed of Richmond

Richmond has a long-forgotten graveyard that is the resting place for hundreds of slaves. Will a new railway be built over it?

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