OFFICE OF HISTORY
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
The Office of History, National Institutes of Health exists to advance historical understanding of biomedical research within the NIH and the world. Through preserving records of significant NIH achievements, innovative exhibits, educational programs, and training researchers from multiple disciplines, the Office of History explores the past to enhance present understanding of the health sciences and the NIH.
NEWS
NEW PUBLICATIONS
Biomedicine in the Twentieth Century: Practices, Policies, and Politics
(IOS Press, 2006)
Edited by Caroline Hannaway
A book presenting new scholarship on the history of the NIH and the history of biomedicine, and honoring the career and accomplishments of the Office's founding director, Dr. Victoria A. Harden.
Cancer in the Twentieth Century
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008)
Edited by David Cantor, Ph.D., Deputy Director, Office of NIH History
On both sides of the Atlantic, cancer control programs emerged in the early twentieth century; most were focused on early detection and treatment. Yet, those initiatives took very different forms in different countries. Focusing on the United States and Britain, this volume features works on subjects such as the portrayal of cancer in the movies, feminist surgeons, risk factors for breast cancer, and the emergence of clinical trials.
A Life Worth Living: A Doctor's Reflections on Illness in a High-tech Era
(New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008)
Robert Martensen, M.D., Ph.D., Director, Office of NIH History
Intended for general readers confronting tough questions about how to navigate serious illness, this book of eight linked tales draws on Martensen’s experiences of caring for approximately 75,000 patients as an emergency physician.
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
September 22, 2009: Eric W. Boyle, Ph.D., Stetten Fellow in the Office of History, National Institutes of Health will present the first annual lecture for the 2009-2010 Reynolds Lecture Series at the University of Alabama Historical Collections.
Title: The Recent History of Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health 1991-2008.
Finished Proofs? A Symposium to Celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the Publication of On the Origin of Species (1859)
Conference program (PDF - 2.2MB)
Date/Time: 1 October 2009 / 9:00 - 6:15 p.m.
Venue: Lister Hill Auditorium, National Library of Medicine (NIH), 8600 Rockville Pike, Bldg. 38A, Bethesda, MD
This symposium (co-organized by the Office of History and the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine) brings together leading historians, philosophers, and scientists to explore changing understandings of Darwinian theory in the last 150 years.
For further details please download the conference program.
A ERNEST LEITZ MICROSCOPE, ONE OF SEVERAL MICROSCOPES LOCATED IN THE STETTEN MUSEUM COLLECTION
