1642 RENAUDOT, Théophraste (1586 – 1653)
La presence des absens; ou facile moyen de rendre présent au médecin l'estat d'un malade absent. Dressé par les docteurs en médecine consultans charitablement à Paris pour les pauvres malades.
Renaudot, physician, philanthropist and journalist, published this self-diagnostic handbook so that charity patients could communicate with their physicians by correspondence. Digital facsimile from biusante.paris.des…
GMN 8956 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11135
1646 BROWNE, Sir Thomas (1605 – 1682)
Pseudodoxia epidemica, or, enquiries into very many received tenents and commonly presumed truths.
In this widely read work of popular science that underwent six editions in Browne's lifetime Browne debunked numerous quack cures, etc. Full text from quod.lib.umich.edu at this link. Digital facsimile of the 4th edit…
GMN 10032 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/12221
1747 WESLEY, John (1703 – 1791)
Primitive physick; or, an easy and natural method of curing most diseases.
Wesley, an English cleric, theologian, and evangelist, was a leader of a revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. Digital facsimile of the 14th American edition, Philadelphia, 1770, from the I…
GMN 9149 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11328
1761 TISSOT, Samuel Auguste André David (1728 – 1797)
Avis au peuple sur la santé.
A tract on medicine written for the lay public; it ran through many editions and was translated into all European languages. It has been called "the greatest medical best-seller of the eighteenth century" (Singy, "The…
GMN 1597 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/1713
1769 BUCHAN, William (1729 – 1805)
Domestic medicine or, the family physician: Being an attempt to render the medical art more generally useful, by shewing people what Is in their own power both with respect to the prevention and cure of diseases: Chiefly calculated to recommend a proper attention to regimen and simple medicines.
This pioneering medical self-help book was an instant success, selling 80,000 copies in Buchan's lifetime— a huge number for that time, and was translated into all the major European languages. Digital facsimile from …
GMN 9148 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11327
1801 DUPLANIL, Jean-Denis (1740 – 1802)
Médecine du voyageur; ou avis sur les moyens de conserver la santé, et de remédier aux accidens et aux maladies auxquels on est exposé dans les voyages, tant par terre que par mer. Suivie d'un essai de médecine pratique sur les voyages, considérés comme remèdes. 3 vols.
Digital facsimile from wellcomecollection.org at this link.
GMN 13750 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/16034
1810 RICHERAND, Anthelme Louis Claude Marie (1779 – 1840)
Des erreurs populaires relatives a la médecine.
Digital facsimile from wellcomecollection.org at this link. Second edition, revised, corrected, and expanded with 50 additional pages, Paris, 1812. Digital facsimile of the second edition from wellcomecollection.org a…
GMN 13684 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/15966
1830 GUNN, John C.
Gunn’s domestic medicine, or poor man’s friend in the hours of affliction, pain, and sickness. This book points out, in plain language, free from doctor's terms the diseases of men, women, and children, and the latest and most approved means used in their cure, and is expressly written for the benefit of families in the western and southern states. It also contains descriptions of the medicinal roots and herbs of the western and southern country, and how they are to be used in the cure of diseases: arranged on a new and simple plan, by which the practice of medicine reduced to the principles of common sense.
Gunn intended his book to serve as a guide for frontier and rural families who lived far away from any sort of medical care so it contained instructions on how to treat a wide variety of illnesses. While the first edi…
GMN 9150 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11329
1852 ROOT, Harmon Knox
The people's medical lighthouse; a series of popular and scientific essays on the nature, uses, and diseases of the lungs, heart, liver, stomach, kidneys, womb and blood; also a key to the causes, prevention, remedies, and cure of pumonary and other kinds of consumption;....Marriage guide....
One of the more comprehensive American works on popular medicine from the mid-19th century, frequently reprinted. The author, who published the work himself from his address in New York City, describes himself as A.M.…
GMN 13308 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/15574
1853 NICHOLS, Thomas Low (1815 – 1901)
Esoteric anthropology.
In this rather comprehensive popular and illustrated book on medicine and physiology Nichols explained sexual physiology in a level of detail radical for the time, and also advocated free love. Digital facsimile from …
GMN 13572 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/15850
1880 KELLOGG, John Harvey (1852 – 1943)
The home hand-book of domestic hygiene and rational medicine.
"Kellogg was not only a physician, surgeon, author, and administrator, but also an inventor. Although less discussed in comparison to his food creations, he designed and improved upon a number of medical devices that …
GMN 9306 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11488
1886 ALLINSON, Thomas Richard (1858 – 1918)
A system of hygienic medicine, or the only rational way of treating disease.
"In place of orthodox medicine, he [Allinson] promoted health through diet, exercise, fresh air and bathing. He advocated a vegetarian diet and the avoidance of alcohol, tobacco, coffee and tea. He especially promoted…
GMN 12417 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/14647
1887 SEAMAN, Elizabeth Cochran [Nelly Bly] (1864 – 1922)
Ten days in a mad-house.
By newspaper reporter Nellie Bly, this book was initially published as a series of articles for the New York World newspaper. The book collected Bly's reportage while on an undercover assignment in which she feigned i…
GMN 9121 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11300
1897 JACOBS, Aletta Henriëtte (1854 – 1929)
De Vrouw: Haar bouw en haar inwendige organen. Een populaire schets.
Jacobs was the first woman in the Netherlands to graduate from medical school. In 1882 she founded the first birth control clinic in the Netherlands and "the first clinic in the world devoted solely to dissemtinating …
GMN 14308 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/16633
1904 FREUD, Sigmund (1856 – 1939)
Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens.
An exposition of psychoanalytic theory for a popular audience. Includes description and examples of the well-known “Freudian slip”. English translation, London, 1914.
GMN 4982 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/6405
1909 OTIS, Edward Osgood (1848 – 1943)
The great white plague: Tuberculosis.
Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.
GMN 13476 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/15750
1939 PRICE, Weston Andrew Valleau (1870 – 1948)
Nutrition and physical degeneration: A comparison of primitive and modern diets and their effects.
"The 1939 foreword to the book, written by physical anthropologist Earnest A. Hooton, lauded Price's work for confirming previous research that dental caries were less prevalent in "savages" and attempting to establis…
GMN 10688 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/12881
1946 SPOCK, Benjamin McLane (1993 – 1998)
The common sense book of baby and child care.
One of the best-selling books of the twentieth century, selling 500,000 copies in the six months after its initial publication in 1946, and 50 million by the time of Spock's death in 1998. As of 2011, the book had bee…
GMN 11819 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/14021
1959 WILSON, Mitchell; DEWITT, Cornelius Hugh (1905 – 1995); SELIGMANN, Arthur W.
The human body, what it is and how it works. Text by Mitchell Wilson. Illustrations by Cornelius De Witt. Arthur W. Seligmann, M.D., medical consultant.
A modern classic of medical illustration, and the popularization of medicine. The artist is best known for illustrating children's books.
GMN 13256 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/15521
1977 NUMBERS, Ronald L. (1942 – ); RISSE, Guenter B. (1932 – ); LEAVITT, Judith Walzer (1940 – )
Medicine without doctors: Home health care in American history. Edited by Guenter B. Risse, Ronald L. Numbers, and Judith Walzer Leavitt.
GMN 9151 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11330
1981 CALDERONE, Mary Steichen (1904 – 1998); JOHNSON, Eric W.
The family book about sexuality.
GMN 13902 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/16194
1991 MURPHY, Lamar Riley (1953 – )
Enter the physician: The transformation of domestic medicine, 1760-1860.
GMN 9673 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11860
1998 ROSENBERG, Charles Ernest (1936 – ); HELFAND, William H. (1926 – 2018)
"Every man his own doctor." Popular medicine in early America: An exhibition drawn from the collections of Charles E. Rosenberg, William H. Helfand and the Library Company of Philadelphia.
GMN 9642 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11829
2001 –2008 HOOLIHAN, Christopher; ATWATER, Edward Congdon (1926 – 2019)
An annotated catalogue of the Edward C. Atwater collection of American popular medicine and health reform. 3 vols.
GMN 7524 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/9696
2002 RAMSAY, Matthew
Professional and popular medicine in France 1770-1830: The social world of medical practice.
"This is the first comprehensive study on a national scale of the entire range of medical practitioners who flourished in preindustrial and early industrial societies. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, it provides…
GMN 8034 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/10210
2003 ROSENBERG, Charles Ernest (1936 – )
Right living: An Anglo-American tradition of self-help medicine and hygiene. Edited by Charles Rosenberg.
GMN 9152 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11331
2009 BROWN, Julie K.
Health and medicine on display: International expositions in the United States, 1876-1904.
GMN 8617 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/10794
2009 CARLINO, Andrea (1960 – ); JEANNERET, Michel (1940 – )
Vulgariser la medecine: Du style medical en France et en Italie (XVIe et XVIIe siecles). Edited by Andrea Carlino and Michel Jeanneret.
GMN 8973 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11152
2020 HAMBLIN, James Richard (1982 – )
Clean: The new science of skin.
"A preventative medicine physician and staff writer for The Atlantic explains the surprising and unintended effects of our hygiene practices in this informative and entertaining introduction to the new science of skin…
GMN 13039 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/15289
