Scholars@Duke
Margaret Ellen Humphreys

Margaret Ellen Humphreys

Josiah Charles Trent Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine, in the School of Medicine
History
meh@duke.edu
Dept of History, Box 90719, Durham, NC 27708-0719
206 Classroom Bldg, Durham, NC 27708

Selected Publications

The origins and genomic diversity of American Civil War Era smallpox vaccine strains.

Journal Article Genome biology · July 2020 Vaccination has transformed public health, most notably including the eradication of smallpox. Despite its profound historical importance, little is known of the origins and diversity of the viruses used in smallpox vaccination. Prior to the twentieth cent ... Full text Cite

The influenza of 1918: Evolutionary perspectives in a historical context

Journal Article Evolution, Medicine and Public Health · January 1, 2018 The 1918 influenza pandemic was the deadliest in known human history. It spread globally to the most isolated of human communities, causing clinical disease in a third of the world’s population, and infecting nearly every human alive at the time. Determina ... Full text Cite

17th Century Variola Virus Reveals the Recent History of Smallpox.

Journal Article Current biology : CB · December 2016 Smallpox holds a unique position in the history of medicine. It was the first disease for which a vaccine was developed and remains the only human disease eradicated by vaccination. Although there have been claims of smallpox in Egypt, India, and China dat ... Full text Cite

This Place of Death: Environment as Weapon in the American Civil War

Journal Article Southern Quarterly: a journal of the arts in the South · 2016 Open Access Cite

Malaria in america

Chapter · January 1, 2014 The following sections are included: • Introduction • The Parasites and Their Vectors • Immigrants to the New World and the Arrival of Malaria • Fighting Back • World War II and New Tools for the Malaria Wars • Lessons Learned. ... Full text Cite

Marrow of tragedy: The health crisis of the American civil war

Book · January 1, 2013 The Civil War was the greatest health disaster the United States has ever experienced, killing more than a million Americans and leaving many others invalided or grieving. Poorly prepared to care for wounded and sick soldiers as the war began, Union and Co ... Cite

Review of Bobby A Wintermute, Public Health and the U. S. Military

Journal Article Journal of the History of Medicine · October 2011 Cite

Review of Jane M Schultz, This Birth Place of Souls

Journal Article Journal of the Civil War Era · 2011 Cite

Review of Deanne Stephens Nuwer, Plague among the Magnolias

Journal Article Bulletin of the History of Medicine · 2010 Cite

How Four Once Common Diseases Were Eliminated from the American South

Journal Article Health Affairs · November 2009 Cite

Review of Kent Gramm, ed., Battle: The Nature and Consequences of Civil War Combat

Journal Article North Carolina Historical Review · October 2009 Cite

Telemedicine: climate change and mosquito-borne disease: a historical perspective.

Journal Article MD advisor : a journal for New Jersey medical community · January 2009 Cite

Review of G. Schroeder-Lein, Encyclopedia of Civil War Medicine

Journal Article Georgia Historical Quarterly · October 2008 Cite

Intensely human: The health of the black soldier in the American Civil War

Book · January 1, 2008 Black soldiers in the American Civil War were far more likely to die of disease than were white soldiers. In Intensely Human, historian Margaret Humphreys explores why this uneven mortality occurred and how it was interpreted at the time. In doing so, she ... Cite

Racial disparities in diabetes a century ago: evidence from the pension files of US Civil War veterans.

Journal Article Soc Sci Med · April 2007 Using a comprehensive database constructed from the pension files of US Civil War veterans, we explore characteristics and occurrence of type 2 diabetes among older black and white males, living circa 1900. We find that rates of diagnosed diabetes were muc ... Full text Link to item Cite

Social consequence of disease in the American South, 1900-World War II.

Journal Article Southern medical journal · August 2006 The early 20th century Southerner lived in a disease environment created by a confluence of poverty, climate and the legacy of slavery. A deadly trio of pellagra, hookworm and malaria enervated the poor Southerner--man, woman and child--creating a dull, we ... Full text Cite

Quinine prophylaxis for malaria (1914): Commentary

Journal Article Public Health Reports · January 1, 2006 Full text Cite

A Stranger in our Camps: Typhus in American History

Journal Article Bulletin of the History of Medicine · 2006 Cite

Dietary treatment of diabetes mellitus in the pre-insulin era (1914-1922).

Journal Article Perspect Biol Med · 2006 Before the discovery of insulin, one of the most common dietary treatments of diabetes mellitus was a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet. A review of Frederick M. Allen's case histories shows that a 70% fat, 8% carbohydrate diet could eliminate glycosuria amo ... Full text Link to item Cite

Review of Conevery Valencius, Health of the Country

Journal Article Medical History · 2005 Cite

On Rats, Lice, and History

Journal Article Environmental History · 2005 Cite

Review of Howard Phillips and David Killingray, eds. The Spanish Influenza Pandemic, 1918-19

Journal Article Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences · 2004 Cite

Review of Charles Wooley, The Irritable Heart of Soldiers

Journal Article Bulletin of the History of Medicine · 2003 Cite

Review of David McBride, Missions for Science

Journal Article Journal of American History · 2003 Cite

Review of Robert Sallares, Malaria and Rome

Journal Article Environmental History · 2003 Cite

Review of John Roper, ed., Repairing the March of Mars

Journal Article Journal of Southern History · 2003 Cite

Review of Gerald Grob, The Deadly Truth: A History of Disease in America

Journal Article J. American Medical Association · 2003 Cite

Review: The Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, Fear and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth Century America

Journal Article Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences · July 1, 2002 Full text Cite

Review of Norma Mohr, Malaria: Evolution of a Killer

Journal Article New England Journal of Medicine · 2002 Cite

No Safe Place: Disease and Panic in American History

Journal Article American Literary History · 2002 Cite

Review of Charles M. Poser and George Bruyn, An Illustrated History of Malaria

Journal Article Bulletin of the History of Medicine · 2001 Cite

Review of Nancy Tomes, The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life

Journal Article Bulletin of the History of Medicine · 1999 Cite

Review of Sheldon Watts, Epidemics and History

Journal Article Bulletin of the History of Medicine · 1999 Cite

Water won't run uphill: the New Deal and malaria control in the American South, 1933-1940.

Journal Article Parassitologia · June 1998 During the 1930s the United States Government poured significant funds into malaria control, via a variety of New Deal agencies. These projects were largely confined to drainage of mosquito-producing wetlands. Malaria had diminished significantly by the ea ... Cite

Review of Guy Settipane, Columbus and the New World

Journal Article Journal of the History of Medicine · 1996 Cite

Review of Ken DeBevoise, Agents of the Apocalypse

Journal Article Journal of the History of Medicine · 1996 Cite

Review of Adell Patton, Jr., Physicians, Colonial Racism and Diaspora in West Africa

Journal Article Journal of the History of Medicine · 1996 Cite

Review of Curtis M. Hinsley, The Smithsonian and the American Indian

Journal Article History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences · 1996 Cite

Review of J. Stuart Moore, Chiropractic in America

Journal Article New England Journal of Medicine · 1994 Cite

Review of Francois Delaporte, The History of Yellow Fever

Journal Article Bulletin of the History of Medicine · 1993 Cite

Review of John H. Ellis, Yellow Fever and Public Health in the New South

Journal Article Journal of the History of Medicine · 1993 Cite

Review of Sydney Halpern, American Pediatrics

Journal Article Journal of the History of Medicine · 1990 Cite

Review of Norman Gevitz, Other Healers

Journal Article New England Journal of Medicine · 1989 Cite

Review of Guy Williams, The Age of Agony: The Art of Healing, 1700-1800

Journal Article The Journal of the History of Medicine · 1988 Cite

Letters from a Young Physician: James Jackson, Jr. and His Two Medical Fathers

Journal Article Harvard Medical Alumni Bulletin · 1986 Cite

Review of James L. A. Webb, Jr., Humanity’s Burden: A Global History of Malaria

Journal Article Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences Cite