This site presents Andreas Vesalius' anatomical atlas, On the Fabric of the Human Body (1543, 1555) in a new way and explains this effort to translate and annotate it. Never before completely translated into English, Vesalius' account of human anatomy transformed its subject and changed medical education in the West.

This primary-source study of 4 medical works of the 13th century Muslim scholar Ibn Al-Nafis confirmed that his Kitab Al-Mujaz Fi Al-Tibb was authored as an independent book meant to be a handbook for medical students and practitioners not as an epitome of Kitab Al-Qanun of Ibn Sina as thought by recent historians. His huge medical encyclopedia, Al-Shamil, represents a wave of intense scientific activity that spread among the scholars of Cairo and Damascus following the massive destruction of books by Hulako's Army during the devastation of Baghdad in 1258. Like his predecessors in the Islamic Era, Ibn Al-Nafis critically appraised the views of scholars before him in the light of his own experimentation and direct observations. Accordingly, in his books Sharh Tashreeh Al-Qanun, Risalat al-Aadaa and Al-Risalah Al-Kameleyyah, we find the first description of the coronary vessels and the true concept of the blood supply of the heart as well as the correct description of the pulmonary circulation and the beginnings of the proper understanding of the systemic circulation. Those discoveries of Ibn Al-Nafis, translated to Latin by Andreas Alpagus printed in Venice in 1547, appeared, 6 years later, in the Christianismi Restituto of Servetus and, in 1555, in the De Fabrica Humani Corporis of Vesalius 2nd edition then in the works of Valvarde 1554, Columbus 1559, Cesalpino 1571, and finally Harvey in 1628. Furthermore, this study documented several other contributions of Ibn Al-Nafis to the progress of human functional anatomy and to advances in medical and surgical practice.

This video segment adapted from A Science Odyssey tells the story of researcher Sir Alexander Fleming, whose luck and scientific reasoning led to the groundbreaking discovery of penicillin.

This lesson plan helps students explore the concept that health is a basic human right. Primary sources -- Article 25 of the "U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights" and Article 1 of the "Declaration of Alma-Ata" -- are used to help students define health and human rights, and to build a connection between the two. Students apply the concept of health as a basic human right by analyzing case studies from the Against the Odds exhibition

Welcome to the Smithsonian Institution's HistoryWired: A few of our favorite things. This experimental site introduces visitors to some of the three million objects held by the National Museum of American History, Behring Center. With less than five percent of our vast and diverse collection on public display in our exhibit halls, we hope that Web sites like this will bring many more of our treasures into public view. The initial 450 objects, selected by curators from across the Museum, include famous, unusual, and everyday items with interesting stories to tell. They are not intended to be representative of the Museum's entire collection.

For thousands of years the inner workings of the body have provoked fascination, confusion, amazement and even disgust. This site looks at the way different cultures, at various points in history, have looked at the body, and how these ideas have been translated into pictures.

This is a collection of nearly 60,000 images that illustrate the social and historical aspects of medicine. The collection includes portraits, pictures of institutions, caricatures, genre scenes, and graphic art in various media.

This unit looks at the history of institutions in the twentieth century, starting with a case study of Lennox Castle Hospital. It tries to make sense of the history of Lennox Castle, and of institutional life in general, through testimony of those who experienced institutions as inmates and as nurses, as well as through Erving Goffman's model of the 'total institution'. It examines the social bases of segregation, the professionalzsation of staff in asylums and institutions, and campaigns for change in the treatment of those segregated from society in institutions.

This video segment adapted from NOVA is a dramatized story of chemist Percy Julian’s work to synthesize cortisone. Find out how a biological process, not a chemical one, proved the key to producing cortisone in bulk.

This site looks at the work of this advocate for women's reproductive freedom. Sanger worked to help develop simpler, less costly, and more effective methods of birth control. Bibliographies, biographies, selected papers, a newsletter, and links to documents on and off the website help illustrate the life of this remarkable individualist.

This course offers an introduction to differing conceptions of disease, health, and healing throughout American history, the changing role and image of medicine and medical professionals in American life, and the changing social and cultural meanings and entanglements of medical science and practice throughout American history.

Access to health care is important to all of us. Did the arrival of state medicine in the twentieth century mean that everyone had access to good medical services? If you fell sick in 1930 where could you get treatment - from a GP, a hospital, a nurse? This unit shows that in the early twentieth century, access to care was unequally divided. The rich could afford care; working men, women and children were helped by the state; others had to rely on their own resources.

In this video segment adapted from A Science Odyssey, learn about pellagra, a mysterious and deadly disease that affected populations living in the American South in the early 20th century, and how a scientist experimented to find a cure.

This is a study and translation of the section on pericarditis in Al Taisir book written by the Muslim physician Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) who lived and practiced in Eshbeelia (nowadays Seville, Andalusia,Spain) between 1091-1162 AD. Ibn Zuhr described the serous type of pericarditis as well as the pathological findings in fibrinous pericarditis. His description of the latter may also fit with the picture of chronic fibrous pericarditis. He also described acute purulent pericarditis and involvement of the pericardium in cases of acute carditis with hectic fever Ibn Zuhr’s description of the pericardial effusion in serous pericarditis as “looking like urine”indicates that he must have seen a sample of the fluid obtained either by pericardiocentesis or during apost-mortem examination. However, his description of “solid substances accumulating on the inside of the heart’s covering looking like layers upon layers of membranes” could not have been made possible without post-mortem dissection.

See the history of microbiology in nine scenes of gags, burlesque, drollery and song. Produced by Active Cultures, the vernacular theater of Maryland, Petri Dish Circus is a play based off of the classic non-fiction novel Microbe Hunters by Paul Henry de Kruif. Much like the original book first published in 1926 that describes 12 historical milestones in science, Active Cultures reenacts "the daring-do of Louis Pasteur in his Parisian lab, the Scotch fortitude of Ronald Ross as he travels through disease-stricken Africa, and the melancholy saga of Walter Reed as he battles Yellow Jack in Cuba" - all with a healthy dose of humor. In this episode, we interview Mary Resing, artistic director for Active Cultures, who talks about Microbe Hunters as inspiration for theater and her whimsical, and slightly pointed, approach to the portrayal of women featured in de Kruif's work. Excerpts from the actual performance are also featured.

This video segment, adapted from NOVA, tells the story of chemist Percy Julian's quest to make progesterone from a plant steroid, an important medical advancement of the 1940s.

In the Graeco-Roman era and in the Middle Ages in Europe, S-shaped bronze catheters with one terminal eye were in common use. In the East, the evolution of urethral catheters started with the firm establishment of Muslim supremacy, and by 1013, straight or one-curve catheters made of gold, silver, copper, lead or salve of white lead with a rounded end and many side holes and a stylet were the standard instruments. Then in Europe in 1853 a prototype of the Foley catheter was designed. The next important evolutionary step was the rubber catheter of Nelaton in 1873.