History of Psychiatry
Note: Items marked McGill only are only accessible from computers on the McGill campus network or remotely via EZproxy or VPN. To find out how to access these resources, go to Accessing online resources.
Reference sources for background information
Medical biographies
- Dictionary of Medical Biography McGill only Biographies of over 1,000 doctors and practitioners.
- Biographical Books *In-library use only. 40,000 biographies and autobiographies arranged alphabetically by name. See the vocation index to locate physicians.
- Biographical sources in history of medicine subject guide.
Medical terminology
- Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary McGill only Source for information about medical terminology.
- Oxford Reference Online McGill only Searches multiple reference books. Useful for definitions and brief information about terms and people in medical history. You can narrow down a search by specific subject area.
General history of medicine
- Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine *In-library use only.
- A Dictionary of the History of Medicine *In-library use only.
Article indexes and databases
History of medicine
- History of Science, Technology and Medicine (HSTM) McGill only Journal articles, conference proceedings, books, book reviews, and dissertations in the history of medicine, science and technology.
- Subject catalogue of the history of medicine and related sciences *In-library use only. Published by the Wellcome Library, for articles published between 1900-1978. Use in addition to HSTM to find earlier articles.
- LocatorPlus Catalogue of the National Library of Medicine in the United States, with records of books, book chapters, and audiovisual material.
General academic
- Academic Search Complete Multidisiplinary, full-text database.
General history
- America: History and Life McGill only Journal articles, book reviews, and some dissertations on Canadian and US history. Broad subject coverage includes medical topics.
- Historical Abstracts McGill only Journal articles, book reviews and some dissertations on world history from 1450 (particularly the West). Note: Excludes Canada and the United States.
Medicine and the arts
- Literature, Arts & Medicine "Annotated multimedia listing of prose, poetry, film, video and art" maintained by New York University School of Medicine.
Books
- McGill University's Classic Catalogue lists almost all of the printed holdings in the various branches of the McGill Library, as well as electronic, microform and audio-visual material. For first hand accounts and case records, try using search terms like: personal narratives; narratives; diaries; correspondence; interviews; biographies; case studies.
- An easy way to narrow down books to only history of medicine (i.e. eliminate contemporary medical literature from your search results) is by searching in the Osler Library subcatalogue:
- Click the "Sub-catalogues" tab, then click "Osler Library of the History of Medicine" under the Libraries and Collections category
- Run your search!
- McGill's second catalogue (WorldCat) has a more up-to-date listing of electronic resources. Check here when searching for e-journals.
- Internet Archive Freely available digitized out-of-copyright books, good for locating historical books.
Primary resources
Article indexes
- IndexCat (Index-Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon-General's Office) Catalogue and index with records for journal articles, books, pamphlets, reports, dissertations and portraits, good source to locate primary source material. Coverage through 1950.
- MEDLINE McGill only Major index of journal articles in medicine and related fields from the US National Library of Medicine (NLM). Some material going back to before 1950.
- PsycINFO McGill only Professional and academic literature in psychology and related disciplines. Includes material dating from 1806, good source for finding historical journal articles.
- Readers' Guide Retrospective McGill only Online version of The Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, an index to popular American periodicals. Material from 1890 to 1982.
- Web of Knowledge McGill only General academic database. Science citations go back to 1900, making this a source for historical, primary material.
Full-text journals online
- American Journal of Psychiatry McGill only 1844-present. Originally The American Journal of Insanity.
- American Periodicals Serials Online, 1740-1900 McGill only Full text of US professional/trade journals and popular magazines such as Harper's Bazaar (1867-1912) and The Ladies' Home Journal (1889-1907).
- JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association McGill only 1883-present.
- The Lancet McGill only 1823-present. Premier British medical journal.
- The New England Journal of Medicine McGill only 1823-present. Online holdings go back to 1812.
- PubMed Central has a number of digitized nineteenth and twentieth century medical journals, including The British Medical Journal.
Films and video
- Internet Archive - Moving Image Archive Collection of free online films, including public health films. The subset of the Prelinger Archives is particularly useful.
- National Film of Board of Canada Catalogue of films made by the National Film Board, including Canadian government films. Can search by categories "Health and Medicine" and "Psychology and Psychiatry."
- Alexander Street Counseling Online collection of videos for the study of counseling, social work, psychotherapy, psychology, and psychiatric counseling.
Images
- Images from the History of Medicine Nearly 60,000 digitzed images from the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine.
- Wellcome Images Includes over 160,000 historical and contemporary digitized images. Narrow down to historical images in advanced search.
Transcripts and narratives
- Counseling and Psychotherapy Transcripts Database of 2,000+ transcripts of counseling and therapy sessions and 44,000 pages of first-person narratives illuminating the experience of mental illness and treatment. Also includes secondary reference works material.
Research guides
- Resources on the History of Psychiatry Great guide to the history of psychiatry holdings at the NLM
- History of American Psychiatry: A Teaching and Research Guide *In-library use only. Pamphlet available in the Osler Library
Other Information
Oral history
- Tips for interviewers From the Regional Oral History Office, UC Berkeley
- Interviewing guidelines From the Center for Oral History Research, UCLA
Other subject guides
Citation styles
- Multiple guides available by subject area from the library
- APA citation style guide
McGill Library information
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If you have any comments about the Library or suggestions of how we could do things better, please let us know.