American Association for the History of Medicine: Report of the Seventy-sixth Annual Meeting

The seventy-sixth annual meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine was held in Boston, Massachusetts, 1-4 May 2003 at the Westin Copley Place Hotel.

The following summary has been prepared by the Secretary-Treasurer, Todd L. Savitt, and is intended for the information of the members of the Association. The official minutes and reports are preserved in the office of the Secretary.

Program

Thursday, 1 May

AAHM Council Meeting
Opening Reception

Friday, 2 May

Opening Session

Welcoming remarks, Kenneth M. Ludmerer, presiding

Joseph Martin, Dean, Harvard Medical School
Allan M. Brandt and Thomas A. Horrocks,
Local Arrangements Committee
Margaret Humphreys and John M. Eyler, Program Committee

Fifty Years of Twining: The Physician's Helix and the Historian's Helix,
Everett Mendelsohn, presiding

DNA at the Bedside
         William C. Summers

Molecular Middle Ages: DNA's Emerging Impact on the Study of Medieval Europe
         Michael McCormick

Concurrent Sessions: Block I

Session A: Conquering Smallpox or Conquering Risk, Elizabeth Fenn, presiding

Vaccination and the Evaluation of Risk
         Andrea Rusnock

"Mark of the Beast," "Mark of Indenture," or "Badge of Citizenship"? The Social Currency of the Vaccine Scar during the Montreal Smallpox Epidemic 1885-86
         Jennifer Keelan

Session B: Medicine in Early America, Renate Wilson, presiding

The Inquisitive Dr. William Avery (1622-1687): Physician of Dedham and Boston
         Norman Gevitz

"Inoculation Mad": Opposition to Smallpox Inoculation in Charleston, South Carolina, 1738-1764
         Peter McCandless

Continuing Medical Education in Nineteenth-Century Rural Massachusetts: The Medical Libraries of Drs. Peter Bryant
(1767-1820) and Samuel Shaw (1792-1870)
         Paul Berman

Session C: Disease, Mortality, and History, Randall M. Packard, presiding

Changes in Morbidity during the Mortality Decline of the Nineteenth Century: Evidence from the Gibraltar Garrison, 1818-1899
         Janet Padiak

The Rockefeller Foundation's 1925 Malaria Film: A Case Study in Early Public Health Filmmaking
         Marianne Fedunkiw

Imperfect Eradication: The Campaigns against Malaria in
Latin America, 1950-1970
         Marcos Cueto

Session D: Medical Institutions and their Populations, Guenter Risse, presiding

"Is He Crying for Home?" The Relationship between Families, Confined Children, and the Orillia Asylum, 1900-1930
         Jessa Chupik

Bureaucratic Creativity and Professional Conservatism: Neighborhood Health Centers in New York City, 1900-1980
         William G. Rothstein

First Choice or Last Resort? Philadelphia General Hospital and the Black Community, 1945-1965
         Lisa Levenstein

Luncheon Workshops

Do Come Play: Web Resources in the History of Medicine from NLM
         Stephen J. Greenberg

Remembering Roy Porter
         Dorothy Porter, Harold Cook, and Others

On the Utility of Medical History: A Panel Discussion
         Ernest B. Hook

Concurrent Sessions: Block II

Session A: Birth Defects in Historical Context, Rima Apple, presiding

An Epidemic of Anxiety: Maternal Rubella, 1963-65
         Leslie Reagan

What Is a Birth Defect? Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and the
Problem of Behavioral Teratogenesis
         Janet Golden

Who is "Defective" and Who Decides? The "Feebleminded"
and the Courts
         Molly Ladd-Taylor

Session B: Pulmonary Disease, Barron Lerner, presiding

Assessing Outcomes in Public Health: Agency Physicians
and Sioux Tuberculosis, 1880-1900
         David S. Jones

Asthma Germs and Germicides: The Rise and Fall
of Infectious Asthma, 1860-1925
         Carla Keirns

Tuberculosis and the Politics of Exclusion:
Mexicans in Los Angeles, 1914-1940
         Emily K. Abel

Session C: The Body and Signs in the Sixteenth Century, Arleen Tuchman, presiding

Reforming the Female Body in Sixteenth-Century England
         Mary E. Fissell

The Masculine Birth of Gynecology
         Monica H. Green

Jodocus Lommius' Little Golden Book and the Renaissance of Diagnostic Semeiology
         Jacalyn Duffin

Session D: Medicine in India, Ranes Chakravorty, presiding

Professionals Abroad: India and the Making of British Medical Women, 1870-1914
         Kaarin Michaelsen

Class Anxiety, Maternal Ambivalence, and Professional Ambition in Mary Scharlieb's Letters Home, 1883-1887
         Maneesha Lal

"Reading Controversy, Re-writing Science": Indian Responses to the Germ Theory Debates
         Roberta Bivins

Concurrent Sessions: Block III

Session A: Eighteenth-Century Medicine, Richard Kahn, presiding

"To the...