Bulletin of the History of Medicine 

About: Bulletin of the History of Medicine is an academic journal published by Johns Hopkins University Press. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): MEDLINE & Public health. It has an ISSN identifier of 0007-5140. Over the lifetime, 3008 publications have been published receiving 29190 citations. The journal is also known as: Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine.

Updating the Accounts: Global Mortality of the 1918-1920 "Spanish" Influenza Pandemic

Abstract: The influenza pandemic of 1918-20 is recognized as having generally taken place in three waves, starting in the northern spring and summer of 1918. This pattern of three waves, however, was not universal: in some locations influenza seems to have persisted into or returned in 1920. The recorded statistics of influenza morbidity and mortality are likely to be a significant understatement. Limitations of these data can include nonregistration, missing records, misdiagnosis, and nonmedical certification, and may also vary greatly between locations. Further research has seen the consistent upward revision of the estimated global mortality of the pandemic, which a 1920s calculation put in the vicinity of 21.5 million. A 1991 paper revised the mortality as being in the range 24.7-39.3 million. This paper suggests that it was of the order of 50 million. However, it must be acknowledged that even this vast figure may be substantially lower than the real toll, perhaps as much as 100 percent understated.

A Global Perspective: Reframing the History of Health, Medicine, and Disease.

Abstract: The emergence of global history has been one of the more notable features of academic history over the past three decades. Although historians of disease were among the pioneers of one of its earlier incarnations—world history—the recent “global turn” has made relatively little impact on histories of health, disease, and medicine. Most continue to be framed by familiar entities such as the colony or nation-state or are confined to particular medical “traditions.” This article aims to show what can be gained from taking a broader perspective. Its purpose is not to replace other ways of seeing or to write a new “grand narrative” but to show how transnational and transimperial approaches are vital to understanding some of the key issues with which historians of health, disease, and medicine are concerned. Moving on from an analysis of earlier periods of integration, the article offers some reflections on our own era of globalization and on the emerging field of global health.

The disturbing "rise" of global income inequality

Abstract: We use aggregate GDP data and within-country income shares for the period 1970-1998 to assign a level of income to each person in the world. We then estimate the gaussian kernel density function for the worldwide distribution of income. We compute world poverty rates by integrating the density function below the poverty lines. The $1/day poverty rate has fallen from 20% to 5% over the last twenty five years. The $2/day rate has fallen from 44% to 18%. There are between 300 and 500 million less poor people in 1998 than there were in the 70s. We estimate global income inequality using seven different popular indexes: the Gini coefficient, the variance of log-income, two of Atkinson’s indexes, the Mean Logarithmic Deviation, the Theil index and the coefficient of variation. All indexes show a reduction in global income inequality between 1980 and 1998. We also find that most global disparities can be accounted for by across-country, not within-country, inequalities. Within-country disparities have increased slightly during the sample period, but not nearly enough to offset the substantial reduction in across-country disparities. The across-country reductions in inequality are driven mainly, but not fully, by the large growth rate of the incomes of the 1.2 billion Chinese citizens. Unless Africa starts growing in the near future, we project that income inequalities will start rising again. If Africa does not start growing, then China, India, the OECD and the rest of middle-income and rich countries diverge away from it, and global inequality will rise. Thus, the aggregate GDP growth of the African continent should be the priority of anyone concerned with increasing global income inequality.

Intentional Ignorance: A History of Blind Assessment and Placebo Controls in Medicine

Abstract: La methodologie de la recherche medicale moderne est fondee sur une evaluation en aveugle au cours de laquelle les patients ignorent s'ils sont traites par un placebo ou par un traitement medicamenteux, particulierement en pharmacologie et en psychologie