The WVU Health Sciences Library is committed to the study of the history of medicine and health sciences.  While health sciences professions rely on current research and training, considering a historical perspective enables greater analysis of health issues and trends. 

The History of Medicine Book Collection, currently located on level one of the library stacks, contains histories of health sciences disciplines, diseases and treatments, biographies of medical pioneers, as well as early textbooks and research publications. The Health Sciences Library also subsribes to history of medicine journals and databases to supplement our book collection.  

The pages in this guide are designed to lead you to the best sources for history of medicine information.  Find information about books and journals here at WVU as well as links to images, manuscripts and artifact collections available on the web.

We invite you to use the collection, suggest titles that could be added, and to ask questions!

February 11 - March 23, 2013

In the late nineteenth century, at a time when women were challenging traditional ideas about gender that excluded them from political and intellectual life, medical and scientific experts drew on notions of female weakness to justify inequality between the sexes. Artist and writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who was discouraged from pursuing a career to preserve her health, rejected these ideas in a terrifying short story titled “The Yellow Wall-Paper.” The famous tale served as an indictment of the medical profession and the social conventions restricting women's professional and creative opportunities.

Find out more and get a preview on the exhibition website.

http://www.hsc.wvu.edu/library

Find it in the Library Stacks!