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History Of Science & Medicine Episodes

18TH Century America's Founding History Of Science & Medicine

Smallpox Inoculation & the American Revolution

Dec. 19, 2022

In 1775, a smallpox outbreak struck the Continental Northern Army. With many of the soldiers too sick to fight, their attempted capture of Quebec on December 31, 1775, was a devastating failure, the first major defeat of the…

18TH Century History Of Science & Medicine Legal History Reproductive Justice History Women's History

Abortion in 18th Century New England

Sept. 12, 2022

In 1742, in Pomfret, Connecticut, 19-year-old Sarah Grosvenor discovered she was pregnant, the result of a liaison with 27-year-old Amasa Sessions. Instead of marrying Sarah, Amasa provided her with a physician-prescribed ab…

20TH Century Black History History Of Science & Medicine LGBTQIA+ History

African American AIDS Activism

Sept. 13, 2021

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the CDC), in 2018, 13% of the US population was Black and African American, but 42% of new HIV diagnoses in the US were from Black and African American people. Thi…

Guest: Dan Royles
19TH Century History Of Science & Medicine

Phrenology & Crime in 19th Century America

Aug. 30, 2021

In Nineteenth Century America there was a strong reformist push to know and improve the self. One key tactic Americans used to learn more about themselves was phrenological readings. They would pay practical phrenologists, l…

20TH Century Biographical History History Of Science & Medicine

Mary Mallon (The Sad & Complicated Story of "Typhoid Mary")

July 26, 2021

Mary Mallon, known to history as Typhoid Mary, immigrated from Northern Ireland to New York City at age 15, around 1883. She found work as a cook, a well paying job for an immigrant woman and worked for number of different f…

Guest: Kari Nixon