HIST 458 and 640: What is this Thing Called Disease?
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
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.
- Cambridge Historical Dictionary of Disease McGill only Detailed entries for 161 diseases, describing both their histories and characteristics.
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.
- The Cambridge World History of Human Disease *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 and allied fields, science and technology.
- Subject Catalogue of the History of Medicine and Related Subjects. Published by the Wellcome Library and includes items published between 1900-1978. Good to find earlier articles that may not be in HSTM.
- LocatorPlus. Online catalogue of the U.S. National Library of Medicine, one of the most important collections of historical material and writings about the history of medicine. Contains records of books and some book chapters and articles.
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.
Books
- McGill University's Library 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!
- Internet Archive Freely available digitized out-of-copyright books, good for locating historical books.
Primary resources
Article indexes - medicine
- EMBASE McGill only Major database of biomedical research with a lot of international, particularly European, content. Some overlap with MEDLINE. Contains articles dating to 1947.
- IndexCat (Index-Catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon-General's Office) Both a catalogue and an index, with records for journal articles, books, pamphlets, reports, dissertations and portraits. A great source for locating primary resources. References are multilingual and cover medicine and allied areas. Coverage is through 1950. (Note: for a comparison of coverage between IndexCat and Index Medicus, see the NLM explanatory page.)
- MEDLINE McGill only Major bibliographic index of journal articles in medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, and the pre-clinical sciences. Limit results to only "History of Medicine" by clicking on "More Limits"
Newspapers and magazines
- Google News Archive of newspapers and periodicals going back aproximately 200 years, including the "Montreal Gazette." (Note: Not all content is freely viewable.)
- Newspapers List of online historical and contemporary newspapers and newspaper/magazine databases available at McGill.
- Readers' Guide Retrospective McGill only Online version of The Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, an index to U.S. popular periodicals. Contains material from 1890 to 1982.
Other article databases
- FRANCIS McGill only Multilingual, multidisciplinary academic database covering the humanities and social sciences. Records date from 1984.
- Sociological Abstracts McGill only Specialized database in sociology and the social and behavioral sciences from 1952.
- Web of Knowledge McGill only General academic database. Science citations go back to 1900, making this a source for finding historical, primary material.
- JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, McGill only 1883-present. Major North American medical journal. *Full text
- The Lancet, McGill only 1823-present. Major British medical journal. *Full text
- PubMed Central has digitised a number of nineteenth and twentieth century medical journals, including The British Medical Journal and Journal of the Royal Medical Society. *Full text
Government information
- Government information from Canada, Quebec, other provincial governments, the UK, the US, the European, and some intergovernmental organizations dating back centuries available at McGill. Much is available online.
Other Useful Information
Other subject guides
Citation Styles
- Look up citation syle guides on the library website by subject or style
- Chicago style guide
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.