Tag Archives: History

Vaccines Website

To vaccinate or not to vaccinate has been a topic of controversy for awhile now. California has experienced a measles outbreak every year for the past 3 years. Public health officials in Michigan are concerned about outbreaks here as well. The Michigan DHHS began an advertising campaign encouraging parents to have their children vaccinated. According to the announcement, MI ranks 43rd in the US for vaccination currency with only 54% of kids fully up to date on their vaccinations. The...

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Uncategorized , , Updated: June 13, 2017

The Ultimate Pandemic

H1N1, Ebola, SARS … all are examples of epidemics / pandemics within the last fifteen years. SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) was the first pandemic of the 21st century. It killed 774 people in 26 countries. Ebola is the most recent epidemic of the 21st century. There have been 11,283 reported deaths, according the World Health Organization. The ultimate pandemic however was the “Spanish” flu of 1918. Total deaths were estimated at about 50 million with some counts as high...

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Uncategorized , , Updated: August 12, 2015

Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus: 17th century BC

The National Library of Medicine has provided online access to the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus. The papyrus was discovered in Egypt by American archeologist Edwin Smith in the 1860′s. The text is thought to have been created around 1600 BC. Written in Ancient Egyptian hieratic script, the papyrus contains 48 cases of wounds and trauma and offers a detailed description of the injuries, diagnoses, prognoses, and treatments. The original papyrus currently resides at the Library of the New York Academy...

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Uncategorized , , , Updated: June 9, 2015

Black History Month – Mary Eliza Mahoney

In honor of  Black History month, I wanted to write a post highlighting an African American nurse leader: Mary Eliza Mahoney. Ms. Mahoney was the first African American to earn a nursing degree and practice as a professional nurse. She graduated in 1879 from the New England Hospital for Women and Children Training School for Nurses where she was only 1 of 3 to complete the challenging program. Ms. Mahoney spent her career practicing private duty nursing in and around...

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Uncategorized , Updated: February 26, 2015

Pictures of Nursing: An NLM Online Exhibition

The National Library of Medicine’s, (NLM) History of Medicine Division is featuring an  online exhibit entitled “Pictures of Nursing“. Pictures of Nursing is an archival collection of 2,588 postcards acquired from Micheal Zwerdling, an American nurse and collector.  “The full collection consists of postcards with images of nurses and the nursing profession from around the world, produced between 1893 and 2011.” NLM has divided the collection into several categories: the art of nursing; nursing and respectability; picturing the gender of...

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Uncategorized , , Updated: November 19, 2014