Sept. 10, 2013
USS Constitution Museum
Building 22
Charleston Navy Yard Charlestown, MA 02129
Driving Directions
Scott Podolsky is an Associate Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a primary care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. Since 2006, he has served as the Director of the Center for the History of Medicine based at the Countway Medical Library
USS Constitution Museum
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) spent parts of the nineteenth century as America's best-known physician and best-selling author. Today, he is remembered as a physician for his investigation of the contagiousness of puerperal fever, for his advocacy for therapeutic skepticism , and for coining such terms as anesthesia. He is celebrated as a literary and cultural figure for such poems as Old Ironsides, for his ground-breaking contributions to The Atlantic Monthly, and for terming Boston the Hub of the solar system. He was also the father of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. In this talk, clinician-historian. Reception to follow.