Skip to main content

History, Medicine Guide Ask Us

Guide Sections

Reference Sources

When researching a new topic it is often necessary to get an overview, explanations of unfamiliar terms, or brief factual information. The print and electronic resources listed below include selected reference materials (dictionaries, encyclopaedias, handbooks, guides, and standards) for the field of History. To find additional reference materials, check UNB WorldCat (the library catalogue) or our Reference Materials database. 

Key Resources

  • Cambridge World History of Human Disease

    Combining recent medical discoveries with historical and geographical scholarship, this is the most comprehensive history of human disease since August Hirsch's monumental Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology in 1880. Accessible to laypeople and specialists alike, The Cambridge World History of Human Disease explores the patterns of disease throughout the world as well as the variety of approaches that different medical traditions have used to fight it. The volume traces the concept of disease as medicine developed from an art to a science, then addresses the history of disease in each major world region. The final and largest part offers the history and geography of each significant human disease - both historical and contemporary - from AIDS to yellow fever. A truly interdisciplinary history, it includes contributions from over 160 medical and social scientists from across the globe. Together with The Cambridge World History of Food (2000), The Cambridge World History of Human Disease provides an extraordinary glimpse of what is known about human health as the twenty-first century begins.

  • Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB)
    Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is an illustrated/fulltext reference tool providing 55,000 specially-written signed biographies of the men and women who shaped all aspects of the British past from the earliest times to the end of the year 2000. It is the product of research instituted at the University of Oxford and funded by the British Academy and by Oxford University Press. It is the achievement of 10,000 contributors and advisers staff in Oxford. The Oxford DNB aims to provide full, accurate, concise, and readable articles on noteworthy people in all walks of life. No living person is included: the Dictionary's articles are confined to people who died before 31 December 2000.
  • Encyclopaedia of the history of science, technology, and medicine in non-western cultures

    The second edition of this landmark encyclopaedia will contain approximately 1000 entries dealing in depth with the history of the scientific, technological and medical accomplishments of cultures outside of the United States and Europe. The entries consist of fully updated articles together with hundreds of entirely new topics.

  • Medieval science, technology, and medicine : an encyclopedia [HIL-REF Q124.97 .M43 2005]

    Like others in the series "Routledge [formerly Garland] Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages," the 11th volume calls on high-level scholars as editors and authors to prepare entries that are both up-to-date and accessible to non-specialists, making this an excellent reference for college libraries. The entries address subjects pertaining to technology (including apparatus, equipment, implements, and techniques); biography; the disciplines; geographical places; institutions; and scientific genres, theories, texts, and traditions. A sampling of topics: includes agriculture, communication, computus, Al-Farabi, gunpowder, technological diffusion, and women in science. The fruitful reception of knowledge from the east to the west--specifically from China, Central Asia, India, and the Islamic world to Europe--is a repeated theme. The authors are 148 academics, with half or more of them based in Europe and the rest in North America, thus ensuring the international point of view essential in medieval studies. Glick (Boston U.), a specialist in the technology of medieval Spain, co-edited the volume with Steven J. Livesey (U. of Oklahoma) and Faith Wallis (McGill U., Montreal, Canada). Annotation #169;2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

  • A Companion to Health and Medical Geography
    This title is part of the Wiley/Blackwell Reference Online e-book collection available through the Wiley Online Library.
    Permitted Use | Purchased multi-user unlimited access
  • Dictionary of medical vocabulary in English, 1375-1550 : body parts, sicknesses, instruments, and medicinal preparations [HIL-REF PE685 .M4 N67 2016]

    Medical texts written in English during the late Middle Ages have in recent years attracted increasing attention among scholars. From approximately 1375 onwards, the use of English began to gain a firmer foothold in medical manuscripts, which in previous centuries had been written mainly in Latin or French. Scholars of Middle English, and editors of medical texts from late medieval England, are thus faced with a huge medical vocabulary which no single volume has yet attempted to define. This dictionary is therefore an essential reference tool. The material analysed in the Dictionary of Medical Vocabulary in English, 1375–1550 includes edited texts, manuscripts and early printed books, and represents three main types of medical writing: surgical manuals and tracts; academic treatises by university-trained physicians, and remedybooks. The dictionary covers four lexical fields: names of sicknesses, body parts, instruments, and medicinal preparations. Entries are structured as follows: (1) headword (2) scribal variants occurring in the texts (3) etymology (4) definition(s), each definition followed by relevant quotations (5) references to corresponding entries in the Dictionary of Old English, Middle English Dictionary, and The Oxford English Dictionary (6) references to academic books and articles containing information on the history and/or meaning of the term.

  • Human medical experimentation : from smallpox vaccines to secret government programs [HIL-REF R853 .H8 H86 2017]

     

    Era 1: Pre-19th century : Timeline -- Reference entries : Galen of Pergamon ; William Harvey ; Hippocrates of Cos ; John Hunter ; Edward Jenner ; James Lind ; Ambroise Paré ; Santorio Sanctorius ; Smallpox inoculation ; Transfusion -- Documents : Ambroise Paré and the treatment of gunshot wounds (1537) ; William Harvey and the circulation of blood (1628) ; James Lind's scurvy experiment (1747) ; Edward Jenner's inoculation experiment (1798) -- Era 2: 19th century : Timeline -- Reference entries : Anesthesiology ; William Beaumont and Alexis St. Martin ; Beriberi experiments in Japan ; Sigmund Freud ; Waldemare Mordecai Wolff Haffkine ; John Scott Haldane ; William Stewart Halsted ; Gerhard Armauer Hansen ; Hookworm ; Albert Neisser ; Louis Pasteur ; Giuseppe Sanarelli ; J. Marion Sims ; Venereal disease experiments ; Max Von Pettenkofer -- Documents : Inhumane experimentation on African American slaves (1855) ; Louis Pasteur and rabies (1885) -- Era 3: 20th century to World War II : Timeline -- Reference entries : Amoebic dysentery experiments at Bilibid Prison ; Beriberi experiments in Malaya ; Alexis Carrel ; William Castle ; Elgin State Hospital experiments ; Eugenics ; Werner Forssmann ; German medical research ethics ; Joseph Goldberger ; John Burdon Sanderson Haldane ; Insulin ; Insulin coma therapy ; Lobotomy ; Malariatherapy ; Cornelius Rhoads ; John D. Rockefeller ; San Quentin State Prison experiments ; Seizure therapy ; Richard Pearson Strong ; Studies of rickets and scurvy ; Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis ; Yellow Fever Commission -- Documents : William Osler and the importance of informed consent (1907) ; Albert Leffingwell and the cruelty of vivisection (1916) ; The Tuskegee experiments (1932) -- Era 4: World War II : Timeline -- Reference entries : American experiments with malaria ; Auschwitz ; Hermann Becker-Freyseng ; Kurt Blome ; Karl Brandt ; Buchenwald ; Dachau ; Doctors' trial ; Albert Hofmann ; Josef Mengele ; Minnesota starvation experiment ; Nuremberg Code ; Nutrition research in Canada's aboriginal communities ; Herta Oberheuser ; Ravensbruek ; Stateville Penitentiary malaria experiments ; Unit 731 -- Documents : The activities of Unit 731 (1942) ; The Nuremberg Code (1948) -- Era 5: Cold War : Timeline -- Reference entries : American bacterial attacks on U.S. cities ; Atomic veterans ; Aversion therapy in South Africa ; Henry Beecher ; Belmont report ; Boston Project ; Donald Ewen Cameron ; Cardiopulmonary resuscitation ; CIA and mind control ; Declaration of Helsinki ; Development of chlorpromazine ; Fernald State School ; Heart surgery and transplantation ; Irradiation of prisoner's testicles ; Jay Katz ; Albert Kligman ; Ernest and John Lawrence ; Timothy Leary ; Lexington Narcotic Farm ; Barry Marshall ; Marshall Islands ; Operation Whitecoat ; Maurice Pappworth ; Plutonium experiments ; Polio vaccine trials ; Porton Down ; Project Coast ; Eugene Saenger ; Sexually transmitted disease experiments in Guatemala ; Chester Southam ; James Stanley ; Streptomycin clinical trial ; Thalidomide ; Uranium miners ; Vanderbilt University nutrition experiments ; Vipeholm Hospital experiment ; Willowbrook hepatitis experiments -- Documents : Venereal disease experimentation in Guatemala (1947) ; Parental notification of nutrition experiments at the Fernald State School (1953) ; Willowbrook vaccination experiment letter of parental consent (1958) -- Era 6: Post-cold War to the present : Timeline -- Reference entries : Advisory Committee of Human Radiation Experiments ; Asthma experiments at Johns Hopkins ; AZT trials in the Third World ; Clinical trials ; Commission to Review Ethical Issues in Research ; Common rule ; Jesse Gelsinger ; Informed consent ; Institutional review boards ; Professional guinea pigs ; Trovan in Nigeria -- Documents : Radiation Experimentation Victims Act (1994) ; Problems facing institutional review boards (1998).

  • A Companion to the Anthropology of the Body and Embodiment
    This title is part of the Wiley/Blackwell Reference Online e-book collection available through the Wiley Online Library.
    Permitted Use | Purchased multi-user unlimited access

Additional Resources

  • A cultural history of the human body [HIL-REF HM636 .C853 2010]

    A Cultural History of The Human Body presents an authoritative survey from ancient times to the present. This set of six volumes covers 2800 years of the human body as a physical, social, spiritual and cultural object. 

    Each volume discusses the same themes in its chapters: 
    1. Birth and Death 
    2. Health and Disease 
    3. Sex & Sexuality 
    4. Medical Knowledge and Technology 
    5. Popular Beliefs 
    6. Beauty and Concepts of the Ideal 
    7. Marked Bodies I: Gender, Race, Class, Age, Disability and Disease 
    8. Marked Bodies II: the Bestial, the Divine and the Natural 
    9. Cultural Representations of the Body 
    10. The Self and Society 

    This means readers can either have a broad overview of a period by reading a volume or follow a theme through history by reading the relevant chapter in each volume. Superbly illustrated, the full six volume set combines to present the most authoritative and comprehensive survey available on the human body through history.

  • Historical atlas of immunology [HIL-REF QR182 .C78 2005]

    1. Origins of immunity in antiquity : Rhazes; variolation; Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; Edward Jenner and smallpox vaccination by cowpox inoculation -- 2. Germ theories and the advent of classical immunology -- 3. Immunochemistry (molecular immunology) -- 4. The complement system : chronology and mystique -- 5. Anaphylaxis -- 6. Allergy, atopy, Arthus and Schwartzman reactions -- 7. Cellular immunity and delayed-type hypersensitivity -- 8. Immunobiology, cellular immunology and tumor immunity -- 9. Autoimmunity -- 10. Immunohematology -- 11. Immunogenetics, immunologic tolerance, transfusion and transplantation -- 12. Immunization against infectious diseases; interferon; congenital immunodeficiences; AIDS -- 13. Immunological methods -- 14. Immunological societies -- 15. Landmarks in this history of immunology.

  • Oxford Bibliographies Online
    "Oxford Bibliographies Online (OBO) is an entirely new research tool for the social sciences and humanities. A scholar-curated library of discipline-based subject modules, OBO is designed to help busy researchers find reliable sources of information in half the time by directing them to exactly the right chapter, book, website, archive, or data set they need for their research."
    Purchased multi-user unlimited access
  • Wiley/Blackwell Reference Online
    Wiley/Blackwell Reference Online "is a vast new online library giving instant access to the most authoritative and up-to-date scholarship across the humanities and social sciences. With more than 350 reference volumes to be published in Blackwell Reference Online by the end of 2008, it is the largest academic reference collection available online and includes the critically-acclaimed Blackwell Companions and Handbooks, major reference works such as the Blackwell Encyclopedia of Management and the Companion to Syntax, and a whole host of other valuable reference materials such as dictionaries, encyclopedias and concise companions."
  • Cambridge histories online
    This resource, part of Cambridge Core, contains the online versions of over 270 Cambridge Histories publications in the following 15 areas: American History, British History, Economic History, General History, History of Science, History of the Book, Language and Linguistics, Literary Studies, Music, Philosophy, Political and Social Theory, Regional History, Religious Studies, Theatre Studies and Performing Arts, and Warfare. For a complete listing of titles in each area, please refer to the publisher's site, at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/what-we-publish/collections/cambridge-histories
  • Oxford English dictionary (OED)
    "This unique and powerful resource offers unprecedented access to the definitive record of the meaning, history and evolution of more than 600,000 words over the last 1,500 years."A complete text of the 2nd. ed. of the Oxford English dictionary with quarterly updates, including revisions not available in any other form.
    5 simultaneous users
  • Oxford Reference
    Multi-part database of the online versions of Oxford University Press texts. Each topical division contains the searchable version of the latest edition of published dictionaries and encyclopedias. Additionally, information about Oxford University Press is provided. Online texts will be updated after new editions of the print monographs are published.Covers the humanities and social sciences.
    Collection limited to subscribed 5-user access
  • LEME (Lexicons of Early Modern English)

    "Lexicons of Early Modern English (LEME) is a historical database of monolingual, bilingual, and polyglot dictionaries, lexical encyclopedias, hard-word glossaries, spelling lists, and lexically-valuable treatises surviving in print or manuscript from the Tudor, Stuart, Caroline, Commonwealth, and Restoration periods." Published by the University of Toronto Press.

  • ARTstor
    Artstor is a repository of approximately 300 collections composed of over 2.5 million digital images (and growing), related data and provides tools to actively use those images in a restricted usage environment that balances the rights of the content providers and the needs of the users. The images are drawn from different sources, such as museums, archaeological teams, photo archives, slide collections, and art reference publishers.

    Scholars can examine wide-ranging material such as Native American art from the Smithsonian, treasures from the Louvre, and panoramic, 360-degree views of the Hagia Sophia in a single, easy-to-use resource. The artistic traditions across many cultures embraces architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and design as well as many other forms of visual culture.

  • Encyclopaedia of historical metrology, weights, and measures. [HIL-REF QC83 .G95 2018]
    • Weights and measures History Encyclopedias.
    • Weights and measures.

 


Talk to me about your research and teaching needs including working with primary sources, literature searches, building a research question, evaluating online sources, effective reading and organizing sources, and more.


Last modified on March 28, 2024 10:53