LibGuides: Health Humanities: Primary Sources

Primary Sources

Primary sources are produced by participants or direct observers of an issue, event or time period. These sources may be recorded during the event or later on, by a participant reflecting upon the event. In some cases, it will be difficult to obtain the original source, so you may have to rely on copies (photocopies, microfilm, digital copies). Copies or transcriptions of a primary source still count as a primary source.

Some examples of primary sources include:

Newspapers
Speeches
Government documents
Legal documents
Public opinion polls
Personal materials, including letters, diaries, interviews, memoirs, autobiographies, and oral histories
Images
Works of art (novels, plays, paintings, etc.)

The College of Physicians of Philadelphia Digital Library
A searchable image database and exhibition platform dedicated to celebrating and communicating the history of medicine. The Digital Library launched in December 2013 with images drawn from the Historical Medical Library collection, with strengths in the history of anatomy and botanical medicine.
History of Medicine Finding Aids Consortium
A discovery tool providing keyword search services across a union catalog of finding aids describing archival collections broadly related to the history of medicine and its allied sciences. The site currently indexes over 11,000 finding aids from more than 100 special collections and archival repositories throughout the U.S.
Medicine and Madison Avenue
This collection explores the complex relationships between modern medicine and modern advertising, or "Madison Avenue," as the latter is colloquially termed. It presents images and information for approximately 600 health-related advertisements printed in newspapers and magazines.
Gallica Digital Library
A large digital library, in French, containing many primary source documents.
Europeana Archive
An online database containing over 58 million artworks, artifacts, books, films and music from European museums, galleries, libraries and archives.

NLM History of Medicine Collection
"The NLM History of Medicine Division (HMD) collects, preserves, makes available, and interprets for diverse audiences one of the world’s richest collections of historical material related to health and disease. Spanning ten centuries, encompassing a variety of digital and physical formats, and originating from nearly every part of the globe . . . "
The Medical Heritage Library
Residing on the Internet Archive, this is "a digital curation collaborative among some of the world’s leading medical libraries, promotes free and open access to quality historical resources in medicine."
Wellcome Library
One of the world's major resources for the study of medical history. The library's digital collections "cover a wide variety of topics, including asylums, food, sex and sexual health, genetics, public health and war."
Yale University. Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library
Digitized collections include medical instruments, books by Harvey Cushing, historical medical poster collection, etc.
Harvard, Countway Library. Center for the History of Medicine
"The Center for the History of Medicine is one of the world's leading collections in the history of health care and medicine, attracting researchers from around the world to consult its rare books and journals, archives and manuscripts, photographs and prints, and art and artifact collections. The history of medicine plays a critical role in informing contemporary medicine, at the same time that it informs our understanding of the larger society within which medicine is embedded."
New York Academy of Medicine
"The Academy is home to one of the most significant historical libraries in medicine and public health in the world, safeguarding the heritage of medicine to inform the future of health."
McGill University. The Osler Library
Portraits, cartoons, and caricatures of medical professionals

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"The Osler Library Prints Collection brings together a rich variety of visual documents related to the history of medicine, spanning several centuries, countries, and artistic media. Ranging from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, the collection consists predominantly of prints, though it also includes some photographs, drawings, posters, and cartoons. Medical professionals throughout history are represented largely through portraiture, as well as through caricatures and scenes. The images in this collection, acquired from various donors at different times, are fascinating for both their historical significance and their artistic merit. Straddling the disciplines of art and science, the collection is a valuable resource on the history of medicine and the history of portraiture"
University of Toronto. Anatomia Collection
"This collection features approximately 4500 full page plates and other significant illustrations of human anatomy selected from the Jason A. Hannah and Academy of Medicine collections in the history of medicine at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto."

To find primary sources in the following databases, you may have to refine your search by date (e.g., by limiting search results to a date range of interest, such as 1800-1850), or limit your results to formats of particular interest (such as newspapers). For further guidance, please consider the points in this LibGuide from Princeton.

Alt HealthWatch
Updated regularly. Focuses on the many perspectives of complementary, holistic and integrated approaches to health care and wellness. Offers full text articles, from more than 180 international, and often peer reviewed, reports, proceedings, association and consumer newsletters. In addition, there are hundreds of pamphlets, booklets, special reports, original research and book excerpts. Provides in-depth coverage across the full spectrum of subject areas covered by complementary and alternative medicine dating back to 1990.
America: History and Life
1964 - present. Unlimited users.

Updated regularly. Contains citations with abstracts to social science and humanities literature on all aspects of U.S. and Canadian history, culture and current affairs from prehistoric times to the present. Covers books, book reviews, journals and dissertations. Also reviews films and video projects. The database corresponds to the print America: History and Life, which is produced by ABC-CLIO. The database covers history, interdisciplinary studies of historical interest and history-related topics in the social sciences and humanities.
American Periodicals Series (APS)
1740 - 1940. Unlimited users.

Updated daily. Contains periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals. Titles include Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine, the first American professional journals, and several consumer magazines still in publication, such as Vanity Fair, Harper's Magazine, and Ladies' Home Journal. The search interface allows you to search the complete text, including tables of contents, by boolean and keyword operators. Articles are linked to the corresponding page images, downloadable in PDF format.
Historical Abstracts
1955 - present. Unlimited users.

Updated regularly. Contains citations and abstracts of worldwide literature (excluding the United States and Canada) from approximately 2,100 journals and (since 1980) books and dissertations on political, diplomatic, economic, social, cultural and intellectual history and related areas of the social sciences and humanities. Covers history dating from 1450 to the present. The database corresponds to the print Historical Abstracts, which was produced by ABC-CLIO.
History of Science, Technology and Medicine
This database integrates four bibliographies—the Isis Current Bibliography of the History of Science, the Current Bibliography in the History of Technology, the Bibliografia Italiana di Storia della Scienza and the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine—to create the definitive international database for the history of science, technology and medicine. The History of Science, Technology, and Medicine database indexes journal articles, conference proceedings, books, book reviews, and dissertations in the history of science, technology, and medicine and allied historical fields.
JSTOR
Updated regularly. Offers a high-quality, interdisciplinary archive to support scholarship and teaching. Includes archives of over 1,000 leading academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work. The entire corpus is full-text searchable, offers search term highlighting, includes high-quality images, and is interlinked by millions of citations and references.
Members of the public can read online up to three articles for free every two weeks from a large subset of JSTOR journals via the Register & Read program. This program allows remote access. Non-UT students, faculty and staff who need more articles can contact library staff for other access options.

For more information on ebooks see the Ebook Guide
Native Health Research Database
Updated regularly. Contains bibliographic information and abstracts of health-related articles, reports, surveys, and other resource documents pertaining to the health and health care of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Canadian First Nations. Provides information for the benefit, use, and education of organizations and individuals with an interest in health-related issues, programs, and initiatives regarding North American indigenous peoples.
NLM Gateway
Updated regularly. As of December 2011, NLM Gateway only provides search access across two databases: Meeting Abstracts and Health Services Research Projects in Progress (HSRProj). Meeting Abstracts contains selected abstracts from meetings and conferences in the subject areas of AIDS, Health Services Research, and Space Life Sciences. Meeting Abstracts will remain accessible but will not be updated after 2011. HSRProj contains descriptions of research funded by federal and private grants and contracts and provides access to information about health services research in progress before results are available in a published form. Please see NLM's project description for a table that lists the names and URLS of NLM resources no longer available via NLM Gateway.
Periodicals Archive Online (PAO)
1770 - 2000. Unlimited users.

Updated annually. A major archive that makes the backfiles of periodicals in the humanities and social sciences available electronically, providing access to the full text of a growing number of digitized periodicals that have been indexed in its sister database, Periodicals Index Online. Contains over 700 journals comprising more than 3 million articles and 15 million article pages. The scope is international and multi-disciplinary, including journals in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and other Western languages.
Project MUSE Premium Collection
Journals: Updated as issues are published. Project MUSE is a leading provider of humanities and social science content for the scholarly community, with complete, full-text versions of scholarly journals from leading university presses and scholarly societies.
Ebooks: Selected ebook titles from university presses and scholarly societies. All content from the print edition of the book is included in the digital edition. There are no DRM restrictions, and titles are accessible on some mobile devices. For further information, please consult the FAQ or tutorials and user guides
.
For more information on ebooks see the Ebook Guide
PubMed
Updated weekly. Provides access to over 10 million citations in MEDLINE, PreMEDLINE, and other related databases. Links to the full text articles are provided when available, subject to UT subscription status.
1. Click "Log in" in the top right-hand corner.
2. Chose "more login options".
3. Select "University of Texas at Austin".
4. Login with your UT EID and password.
5. Click on your login and select DASHBOARD.
6. Select NCBI Site Preferences
7. Under PubMed Preferences, select Outside Tool.
8. Select F and scroll down to select Find it@UT.

LITMED - Literature Arts Medicine Database
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"The Literature, Arts and Medicine Database (LitMed) is a collection of literature, fine art, visual art and performing art annotations created as a dynamic, comprehensive resource for scholars, educators, students, patients, and others interested in medical humanities. It was created by faculty of the New York University School of Medicine"

Print indexes can help you find older medical articles:

Index-Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon General’s Office
Index to medical literature from 1880-1961.
Quarterly Cumulative Index Medicus
Print index to medical literature from 1927-1956.

Before online PubMed came into existence, there were print medical journal article indexes. Here is a brief history:

In 1879, the Surgeon-General's Office began publishing Index Medicus (1879-1927), and the Index-Catalog of the Library of the Surgeon-General's Office (1880-1961) in 1880.
In 1916, the American Medical Association began publication of the Quarterly Cumulative Index to Current Literature (1916-1926).
In 1927, these two indexes were combined to form the Quarterly Cumulative Index Medicus (1927-1956).
In 1941, the National Library of Medicine began publication of the Current List of Medical Literature (1941-1959).

These indexes may be found in print and digital format in the following collections:

National Library of Medicine. IndexCat - a database containing citations for all 5 series of the Index-Catalog of the Library of the Surgeon General's Office.
Hathi Trust Digital Library - find searchable digital scans of the following indexes:
- Current List of Medical Literature
- Index Medicus
- Quarterly Cumulative Index to Current Medical Literature
Print collections at UT Libraries. Search for the following in the library catalog.
- Quarterly Cumulative Index Medicus
- Index-Catalog of Library of Surgeon-General's Office

The UT Libraries has historical back issues of several medical journals, including:

British Medical Journal (1840-current) - online access for all years
Journal of the American Medical Association [JAMA] (1883-current)
- Print (1883-1960)
- Print (1960-2010)
- Electronic (1998-current). Hint: use the search box in the electronic version of JAMA to search the citations and abstracts all the way back to 1883. Then request a scan of the print journal through interlibrary loan.
Lancet (1823-current) - online access for all years
Nature (1869-current) - online access for all years
New England Journal of Medicine (1928-current) - online access for all years
Science (1880-current) - online access for all years
Scientific American (1845-current) - online access for all years