History of Medicine

Fiction About

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.

Fiction - Black Plague

For texts written prior to 1924, users can consult Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, HathiTrust (BC login needed), or Google Books to check for fulltext versions online. More movies and books are available via the Boston Public Library with an e-card. Here are some recommended titles:

Fiction about Plague and Disease - 20th century

For contemporary texts still under copyright, check out BC Libraries access, the Internet Archive for a 14-day loan, as well as your public library's e-access. Here are some recommended titles:

And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts
Call Number: Internet Archive (14 day loan)
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Call Number: Internet Archive (14 day loan)
The Stand by Stephen King
Call Number: Internet Archive (14 day loan)
The Great Influenza by John M. Barry
Call Number: Internet Archive (14 day loan)
The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story by Richard Preston
Call Number: Internet Archive (14 day loan)
"The Plague" by Ken Liu
Call Number: Tor.com ("free")
"I’m in the river fishing with Mother. The sun is about to set, and the fish are groggy. Easy pickings. The sky is bright crimson and so is Mother, the light shimmering on her shkin like someone smeared blood all over her. ..."
The plague by Albert Camus
Call Number: Internet Archive (14 day loan)
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
Call Number: Internet Archive (14 day loan)

Historical Accounts of the Plague

Scientific or historical accounts concerning the plague written pre-1700. For some books hosted on Early English Books Online or other databases, BC sign-in is required.

Contagion: Historical Views of Disease and Epidemics
2,800+ texts and images related to disease and epidemics, digitized and hosted by Harvard University.

The charitable pestmaster, or, the cure of the plague, conteining a few short and necessary instructions how to preserve the body from infection of the plague, as also to cure those that are infected. Together with a little treatise concerning the cure of by Thomas Sherwood Practitioner in physick
Call Number: Access via Harvard University
Publication Date: 1641
Logos alexipharmakos, or, Hyperphysicall directions in time of plague collected out of the sole-authentick dispensatory of the chief physitian both of soule and body, and disposed more particularly (though not without some alteration and addition) accordi by Lionel Gatford
Call Number: Access via Early English Books Online. BC log-in required.
Publication Date: 1644
Good councell against the plague by Learned phisition
Call Number: National Library of Medicine. Open access via Internet Archive.
Publication Date: 1592
A receyt to stay the plague. Delivered in a sermon by R.W. minister of Gods Word by Robert Wright
Call Number: Bodleian Library. Open access via University of Oxford
Publication Date: 1636
Truth and innocency vindicated, against falshood & malice; exprest in a late virulent pamphlet, intituled, (A true account of a most horrid and dismal plague began at Rothwell, &c.) without printer's licenser's or author's name thereunto:) Together with a by Richard Davis
Call Number: Access via Early English Books Online. BC log-in required.
Publication Date: 1692
An approved medicine against the deserued plague by Anthony Anderson
Call Number: Access via Early English Books Online. BC log-in required.
Publication Date: 1593
Orders, thought meet by His Maiestie, and his Priuie Councell, to be executed throughout the counties of this realme, in such townes, villages, and other places, as are, or may be hereafter infected with the plague, for the stay of further increase of the by Charles I, King of England
Call Number: Access via Early English Books Online. BC log-in required.
Publication Date: 1625
Certain necessary directions, aswell for the cure of the plague as for preuenting the infection; with many easie medicines of small charge, very profitable to His Maiesties subiects by Royal College of Physicians of London
Call Number: Access via Early English Books Online. BC log-in required.
Publication Date: 1636
Man ashiv le-Yahoweh, or, A serious enquiry for a suitable return for continued life, in and after a time of great mortality, by a wasting plague (anno 1665) answered in XIII directions by Thomas Doolittle
Call Number: Access via Early English Books Online. BC log-in required.
Publication Date: 1666
A shorte learned and pithie treatize of the plague wherin are handled these two questions: the one, whether the plague bee infectious, or no: the other, whether and howe farre it may of Christians bee shunned by going aside. by Théodore de Bèze
Call Number: Access via HathiTrust. Click on "Full View" at bottom of the page.
Publication Date: 1580
A treatise of the plague containing the nature, signes, and accidents of the same, with the certaine and absolute cure of the feuers, botches and carbuncles that raigne in these times by Thomas Lodge
Call Number: Access via Early English Books Online. BC log-in required.
Publication Date: 1603
An antidote against the plague. by Thomas Hastler
Call Number: Access via Early English Books Online. BC log-in required
Publication Date: 1615
By the Queene. Forasmuch as the Queenes Maiestie our soueraigne ladie, is crediblie enfourmed that the infection of the plague is at this present in sundry places in [and] about the Citie of London by Elizabeth I, Queen of England
Call Number: Access via Early English Books Online. BC log-in required.
Publication Date: 1570
Lord haue mercy vpon vs A speciall remedy for the plague.
Call Number: Access via Early English Books Online. BC log-in required.
Publication Date: 1636
By the King a proclamation declaring His Maiesties pleasure touching orders to be obserued for preuention of dispersing the plague. by Charles I, King of England
Call Number: Access via Early English Books Online. BC log-in required.
Publication Date: 1636
The decameron, or ten days entertainment of Boccace. Translated from the Italian by Giovanni Boccaccio
Call Number: Access via HathiTrust. Click on "Full View" at bottom of page
Ane breue descriptioun of he pest quhair in the causis, signis, and sum speciall preseruatioun and cure thairof ar contentit by Gilbert Skeyne
Call Number: Access via National Library of Scotland
Publication Date: 1568

Gaming: Mobile

Plague by Ndemic Creations
Call Number: Mobile and Desktop
Publication Date: 2012+
Realtime strategy simulation. Your pathogen has just infected 'Patient Zero'. Now you must bring about the end of human history by evolving a deadly, global Plague whilst adapting against everything humanity can do to defend itself.
Arknights by Hypergryph and Studio Montagne (Yostar pub)
Call Number: Google Play/Apple Store
Publication Date: 2019/2020
Tower defense. The game is set in the dystopian, post-apocalyptic future setting of the planet Terra, where magic exists and some humans exhibit features of animals or mythological races. Natural disasters leave behind a mineral, originium, which infected people with a progressive disease, oripathy.

Video Games: Consoles, Desktops, and Laptops

A Plague Tale: Innocence by ASOBO Studio
Call Number: PS4/Windows/XboxOne
Publication Date: 2020
A dark third-person adventure set in plague-ridden France. Guide orphans Amicia and Hugo though medieval villages as you evade deadly foes, both human and rat.
Dishonored 1&2 by Arkane Studios (Bethesda Softworks pub.)
Call Number: PS4/Windows/Xbox
Publication Date: 2012, 2016, 2017+
Action role-playing. In a time of uncertainty, when the city is besieged by plague and ruled by a corrupt government armed with industrial technologies, dark forces conspire to bestow upon you abilities beyond those of any common man – but at what cost?
The Last of Us by Naughty Dog (Sony pub.)
Call Number: PS4
Publication Date: 2013
Third-person adventure. 20 years after a pandemic has radically changed known civilization, infected humans run wild and survivors are killing each other for food, weapons; whatever they can get their hands on. Joel, a violent survivor, is hired to smuggle a 14 year-old girl, Ellie, out of an oppressive military quarantine zone, but what starts as a small job soon transforms into a brutal journey across the U.S.
Tom Clancy's The Division by Massive Entertainment (Ubisoft pub.)
Call Number: PS5/Windows/Xbox
Publication Date: 2016+
World War Z by Saber Interactive (Mad Dog pub)
Publication Date: 2019
World War Z is a heart-pounding four-player cooperative third-person shooter featuring massive swarms of zombies that recklessly rush their living prey.

Gaming: Web Browser

Solve the Outbreak by CDC
Call Number: CDC.gov
Publication Date: 2018
Your mission, if you choose to accept, is to get clues and analyze data to Solve the Outbreak and save lives. In this fun, interactive app you get to try your hand at becoming a Disease Detective. You’ll travel the world chasing outbreaks like the ones real-life CDC Disease Detectives help fight. Should you quarantine the town, send for more lab results, or alert the media?
The Great Flu Game by HorizonHealth.eu
Call Number: Web browser ("free")

Movies

At BC, you have access to hundreds of streaming videos from major motion pictures to educational mini-series. For the full range, check out our Streaming Collections guide. Movies may also be available on streaming services such as YouTube and Netflix. More movies and books are available via the Boston Public Library with an e-card. Here are some recommended titles:

The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet) by Ingmar Bergman
Call Number: Check paid streaming services
Publication Date: 1957
Disillusioned and exhausted after a decade of battling in the Crusades, a knight (Max von Sydow) encounters Death on a desolate beach and challenges him to a fateful game of chess. Much studied, imitated, even parodied, but never outdone, Bergman’s stunning allegory of man’s search for meaning.
Contagion by Steven Soderbergh
Call Number: Check paid streaming services
Publication Date: 2011
Healthcare professionals, government officials and everyday people find themselves in the midst of a pandemic as the CDC works to find a cure.
Panic in the Streets by Eliza Kazan
Call Number: Check paid streaming services
Publication Date: 1950
A doctor and a policeman in New Orleans have only 48 hours to locate a killer infected with pneumonic plague.
The Killer that Stalked New York by Earl McEvoy
Call Number: Check streaming services
Publication Date: 1950
Police seek a smuggler while doctors, unaware she's the same person, desperately comb unprotected New York for a smallpox carrier.
Train to Busan by Sang-ho Yeon
Call Number: Check streaming services
Publication Date: 2016
While a zombie virus breaks out in South Korea, passengers struggle to survive on the train from Seoul to Busan.

Documentaries

An Introduction to Infectious Diseases by The Great Courses
Call Number: Kanopy
Publication Date: 2015
"The Changing Disease-Scape" by The Great Courses
Call Number: Kanopy
Publication Date: 2017

O'Neill Library

Bapst Library

Burns Library

Educational Resource Center

Law Library

Social Work Library

Theology & Ministry Library

O'Connor Library

Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies

History of Medicine

Fiction About

Fiction - Black Plague

Fiction about Plague and Disease - 20th century

Historical Accounts of the Plague

Gaming: Mobile

Video Games: Consoles, Desktops, and Laptops

Gaming: Web Browser

Movies

Documentaries