From sickly Tiny Tim in Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol to the disfigured character in the movie The Elephant Man, illness and its consequences have preoccupied writers, painters, and filmmakers. The Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database aims to help students use these works to understand disease, health care, and the social issues they raise.

The site from the New York University School of Medicine catalogs hundreds of films, paintings, novels, and other titles with medical connections. Tuberculosis, AIDS, and mental illness have drawn plenty of interest over the years; diabetes and arthritis, much less. Commentaries by guest scholars elucidate works such as Vincent van Gogh's painting of the mental asylum where he spent much of his final year of life. The barren hallway--the only figure is fleeing--reflects his isolation during his illness.

Volume 316, Number 5832, Issue of 22 June 2007

At Changing the Face of Medicine, meet some of the doctors who shattered the stereotype of the M.D. as a middle-aged man with a stethoscope and a Thursday tee time. The National Library of Medicine exhibit tells the life stories of more than 200 women physicians in the United States. You can cue up video interviews with living doctors and peruse biographies of historical figures such as Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910), the first woman M.D. in the country. Visitors can also try out interactive features such as a pioneering design by Mary Putnam Jacobi (1842-1906) for a sphygmograph, a device that measures pulse strength.

Science 22 September 2006:
Vol. 313. no. 5794, p. 1709

Princeton University in New Jersey forbade students from leaving campus and ringed the dorms with sentries. Gunnison County in Colorado closed its schools for more than 3 months, banned public gatherings, and quarantined visitors. Measures like these might seem extreme, but they apparently kept influenza at bay during the 1918-1920 pandemic. This new archive from the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor details the responses of seven such "escape communities" that suffered no more than one flu death. The site is based on a recent report commissioned by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency to help prepare for future pandemics. It includes contemporary newspaper accounts, letters, and other documents that reveal the tenor of the times. Also included is a photo of the pneumonia ward at the San Francisco Naval Training Station on Yerba Buena Island, which was one of the escape communities.

Science 22 September 2006:
Vol. 313. no. 5794, p. 1709