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 course examines how medicine is practiced cross-culturally, with particular emphasis on Western biomedicine. Students analyze medical practice as a cultural system, focusing on the human, as opposed to the biological, side of things. Also considered is how people in different cultures think of disease, health, body, and mind.

This lesson introduces students to historic medical discoveries by focusing on the individuals and medical innovations that advanced the field. Students will create “About Me” pages for individuals and create a presentation about medical innovations. Finally, a timeline is created for students to identify trends and reflect on the importance of history to the field. 

An Iowa Idea—Worldwide Impact

Short Description:
A memoir and history of the Institute of Agricultural Medicine at the University of Iowa, emphasizing its role in the development of the study and practice of occupational and environmental health and medicine for farmers their families and workers.

Long Description:
The Institute of Agricultural Medicine at the University of Iowa played an important role in bringing scholarly and professional attention to the health and safety of farmers and rural residents. Its impact is evident in many professional education opportunities available to health care providers today. The Institute also engaged in foundational research on the health and safety of farmers. This text tells from the personal perspectives of the authors the story of the institute, its national and international connections and influence, and its key people over its decades-long history.

Word Count: 54663

ISBN: 978-0-578-89097-5

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Guest lecture with Professor David S. Jones, Harvard, held at IGS, University of Bergen, January 25, 2019. Organized with support from the research group Health-, welfare and history of science, AHKR. Abstract: Coronary artery disease became the leading cause of death worldwide in the twentieth century. In the 1950s, however, CAD mortality began to fall, first in California, and then throughout the United States and in other high income countries from New Zealand to Norway. Mortality rates fell 50 percent in many countries, one of the great accomplishments of modern public health and medicine. In the 1990s, however, disease surveillance programs began to detect signs that the decline of CAD had slowed or plateaued. In some populations the decline has reversed. Life expectancy in the United States has now decreased for the first time in over a century. Health officials similarly fear an impending epidemic of dementia, despite evidence that the incidence of that disease has recently begun to decline. How should these public health fears be assessed? How should health policy priorities be set? I will trace the history of disease decline and resurgence to identify patterns in how public health officials create data and craft them into powerful narratives of progress or pessimism. This perspective can help us to interpret the narratives that circulate today. About the lecturer: Trained in psychiatry and history of science, David Jones is the Ackerman Professor of the Culture of Medicine at Harvard University. His research has focused on the causes and meanings of health inequalities (Rationalizing Epidemics: Meanings and Uses of American Indian Mortality since 1600) and the history of decision making in cardiac therapeutics (Broken Hearts: The Tangled History of Cardiac Care, 2013). He is currently at work on three other histories, of the evolution of coronary artery surgery, of heart disease and cardiac therapeutics in India, and of the threat of air pollution to health. His teaching at Harvard College and Harvard Medical School explores the history of medicine, medical ethics, and social medicine. Filming and editing by Magnus Vollset (who apologizes for the poor light)