History of Medicine

Scholarly Research

This is a brief guide to approaching the History of Medicine at Boston College with a focus on major access points for scholarly material and then focus on digital collections of primary sources.

Researching the History of Medicine

This page is designed to provide access points to reference material (e.g., dictionaries, bibliographies, biographies, and handbooks) as well as scholarly books and journal articles.

What's on This Page by Type

Reference Shelf

Oxford Reference Online
This is a quick go-to for high-quality, short, dictionary style descriptions, definitions, facts, and figures. Great for date and name checking.

Bibliographies

Oxford Bibliographies Online
Access to Boston College's subscriptions to Oxford's bibliographies on subjects including African Studies, Public Health, and Victorian Literature, and more.

Biographies

American National Biography This link opens in a new window
Scholarly biographical articles with short bibliographies on deceased notable Americans.

Encyclopedia

Encyclopedia of Infectious Diseases by Carol Turkington; Bonnie Ashby
Call Number: EBSCOhost eBooks
Publication Date: 1998-01-01

Handbooks and Companions

The Cambridge World History of Human Disease by Kenneth F. Kiple (eds.)
Call Number: Cambridge Histories online
Publication Date: 1993
The Cambridge World History of Medical Ethics by Robert B. Baker and Laurence B. McCullough (eds.)
Call Number: Cambridge histories online
Publication Date: 2008
Infectious Diseases by Brenda Wilmoth Lerner; K. Lee Lerner
Call Number: O'Neill Stacks RC111 .I516 2008
Publication Date: 2007

Indices

British Nursing Index This link opens in a new window
British Nursing Index is a nursing and midwifery database, covering over 220 UK journals and other English language titles. A significant feature is the inclusion of articles relevant to nurses and midwives from medical journals and those for healthcare management and professions allied to medicine.

Books: Find & Request from BC & Beyond

Your local libraries have excellent monographs and anthologies located in O'Neill library as well as through the BC libraries portal. Try searching for books (only books) through the WorldCat library system to see if we have what you need. If we don't, you can order material through Interlibrary Loan (ILL).

WorldCat Catalog

Journal & eBook Databases

For a selection of excellent journals and some e-books on various topics in global history, we recommend a few databases. Remember to explore these database "advanced search" options for date and other modifiers before you run your searches.

JSTOR
JSTOR is a collection of scholarly journals and ebooks across multiple disciplines. Content includes back issues and some current issues.
Project MUSE
Full-text access to a large number of scholarly journals and eBooks in the humanities and social sciences published by over 120 of the world's leading university presses and scholarly societies.
Historical Abstracts
Index of journal articles, book chapters, book reviews, and dissertations pertaining to the study of World History (Europe, Asia, Middle East, Africa, Latin America), from 1450 to the present. Coverage is 1955-present. Some full text coverage.

Additional Recommendations

Cambridge Core This link opens in a new window
Cambridge Core is the place to find valuable, useful and inspirational research and academic information. Includes journals and books across the humanities and sciences. Of particular note are the Cambridge Histories, the Cambridge Companions, and the Cambridge Handbooks.
De Gruyter This link opens in a new window
Based out of Berlin, De Gruyter has been publishing academic books and journals for more than 250 years. Their fields of focus include humanities (e.g., history, classics, ancient near east, philosophy, religion, and more), social sciences, medicine, mathematics, engineering, computer sciences, natural sciences, and law. This interface provides affiliates with access to Boston College's subscriptions to De Gruyter's journals as well as ebook and some open access material.
Oxford Academic This link opens in a new window
Oxford University Publisher's access point for their reference, journals, and books. Material covers arts and humanities (including history and theology); law; medicine and health; science and math; as well as the social sciences.
Taylor & Francis This link opens in a new window
Access to our T&F journals and other e-content. Includes more than 200 history journals with full or partial access. Keep in mind that BC affiliates can order articles we don't have through ILL.

Databases with Medical Journals

Keep in mind that, depending on your topic, these might include primary materials.

EMBASE This link opens in a new window
EMBASE.com is the database equivalent of EXCERPTA MEDICA. It is a comprehensive, international database covering Anesthesiology, Human Genetics, Gerontology, Drug Research, Pharmacology, Drug Side Effects and Interactions, Toxicology, Human Medicine (Clinical and Experimental), including Pediatrics and Obstetrics & Gynecology, Basic Biological Sciences, Biotechnology, Biomedicine, Health Policy and Management, Pharmacoeconomics, Public and Occupational Health, Environmental Health, Pollution Control, Substance Dependence and Abuse, Psychiatry, Forensic Science, Alternative and Complementary Medicine, Nursing.
FRANCIS This link opens in a new window
Open access archive combining the INIST's databases Francis (primarily Humanities and Social Sciences) and Pascal (Science, Technology and Medicine).
PubMed This link opens in a new window
PubMed is the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) search tool biomedical literature. It includes bibliographic information from the MEDLINE database, as well as from additional life science journals. PubMed also provides access and links to NCBI's integrated suite of molecular biology databases.
Toxline This link opens in a new window
Produced by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, Toxline indexes the core journal literature in all areas of toxicology, including chemicals and pharmaceuticals, pesticides, environmental pollutants and mutagens and teratogens. 1999 - present
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Web of Science is a large database, indexing high quality journals and conference proceedings in the sciences, social sciences and humanities and providing detailed citation analysis and citation searching, It covers from 1900 to the present, and is global in scope.

Institutions and Government Agencies

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

History Liaison

Erin Kate Scheopner

she/her/hers

Email Me

Contact:

O'Neill 314

617-552-3457

Subjects: African & African Diaspora Studies, History, Irish Studies, Latin American Studies

O'Neill Library

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Burns Library

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Law Library

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Theology & Ministry Library

O'Connor Library

Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies

History of Medicine

Scholarly Research

Researching the History of Medicine

What's on This Page by Type

Reference Shelf

Bibliographies

Biographies

Encyclopedia

Handbooks and Companions

Indices

Books: Find & Request from BC & Beyond

Journal & eBook Databases

Additional Recommendations

Databases with Medical Journals

Institutions and Government Agencies

History Liaison