The Science of Sickness & Health

Medicine is where science intersects most directly with our bodies. From leeches to vaccines, germ theory to gene therapy, the ways we think about health and healing are shaped by how we observe—and seek to manipulate—the natural and material world.

box of throat drops with an illustration of a frog

DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

Health & Medicine Collection

Medications, documents, manuals, and photographs relating to biochemical research and technology.

DIGITAL EXHIBITIONS

Animals and the Making of Human Vaccines

Learn about the role of animals and their cells in the development of lifesaving vaccines.

DISTILLATIONS MAGAZINE

American Fevers, American Plagues

How yellow fever outbreaks in the early United States anticipated much of what we lament about the COVID-19 era.

illustration of a person with cholera

DISTILLATIONS MAGAZINE

John Snow Hunts the Blue Death

In showing that cholera spreads through tainted water, an English doctor helped lay epidemiology’s foundations.

Collage illustration showing pills and historical image of Europeans enslaving Africans.

DISITLLATIONS PODCAST

Black Pills

A pill to treat high blood pressure in African Americans had the unintended consequence of perpetuating the myth that race is a biological construct.

Alexander Fleming, wearing a lab coat and holding a petri dish.

SCIENTIFIC BIOGRAPHIES

Alexander Fleming

Learn about the Scottish microbiologist whose accidental discovery of penicillin changed the course of modern medicine.

men in a lab

THE DISAPPEARING SPOON PODCAST

The Lifesaving Rat Poison

Follow blood thinner warfarin’s unlikely journey from moldy clover and cow killer to lifesaving drug.

DISTILLATIONS MAGAZINE

Medicinal Leeches and Where to Find Them

The rise, fall, and resurrection of the humble leech.

DISTILLATIONS MAGAZINE

Fighting Through the Fear

Lessons from the Polio Pioneers in an era of misinformation.

Photograph of a young woman's hands, putting pills from bottles into a pill sorter.

DISTILLATIONS VIDEO

Young and Positive

Sophisticated drugs have enabled those with HIV to live long lives—as long as they take their medication.

DISTILLATIONS MAGAZINE

The Nurse Who Introduced Gloves to the Operating Room

Caroline Hampton and the forgotten origins of the first personal protective equipment.

Rosenkranz in a suit and tie, smiling

DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

Oral History: George Rosenkranz

Interview with the pioneering steroid researcher who was instrumental in developing the oral contraceptive.

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