Medical history of Michigan ...

This illustrated two-volume set compiled by the Michigan State Medical Society presents information about medical developments in Michigan in the early and middle nineteenth century in loosely-organized chapters. The material is drawn from reminiscences, historical chronicles, anecdotes, scholarly journals, letters, and biographical as well as autobiographical accounts. Topics in vol. 1 include Native American medicine; physicians who accompanied the European and early American explorers of the upper Northwest; the development of Michigan's medical education and public health resources; diseases and epidemics; insects; homeopathy; diagnostic aids; medical equipment; and therapeutic practice. Many physicians are remembered in short factual entries or sketches. A few, like the pioneer physiologist William Beaumont (who conducted digestive research by monitoring a patient's exposed entrails), receive entire articles. Vol. 2 emphasizes the latter half of the nineteenth century, a time when Michigan physicians were developing a professional code of ethics, standards, and regulatory mechanisms. Topics include the re-organization of the State Medical Society, the controversy over homeopathy, and how hospitals became the preferred setting for major medical procedures. An index for both volumes starts on p. 83.