Use the VPN!

To access online resources from a non-Yale network, you will need to connect to the VPN using Cisco AnyConnect. Instructions on installing the VPN software are available here.

Remember to start your VPN client when you start doing research — not when you want to download something. Web sites use cookies to determine who should and shouldn't have access, and most access issues from off-campus happen when an older cookie doesn't refresh when the VPN connection is established. If that happens to you, clear the cookies for the web site you are visiting (or open a different browser) and try again.

This guide provides a starting point for researchers inside and outside of Yale to find history of medicine resources online.  For any research questions, please email Melissa Grafe or James Kessenides using the links in the boxes on the right.

This guide will:

• Describe search strategies for finding primary and secondary sources.
• Provide links to online primary and secondary sources.
   

Background sources (or “reference” works) are great places to start. Reference works include scholarly encyclopedias, handbooks, scholarly “companions," and similar sources that contain essays providing background information on a topic and overviews of the relevant scholarship. Citations to the secondary literature will always be included, and often so too will citations to primary sources.  Here are some of these recommended resources:

Oxford Bibliographies

Many annotated bibliographies in a variety of fields, often with citations to both primary and secondary sources.

There is an entire "Public Health" collection that includes articles such as "History of Public Health," but be sure to search the whole database too, as you'll also often find relevant articles in other modules.

Oxford Handbooks

A useful collection of many handbooks, each with numerous articles. Browse and search for single chapters or whole books such as The Oxford Handbook of the History of Medicine.

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History

A scholarly encyclopedia that is a great place to start your research. Each article has a "Discussion of the Literature" that usually has many recommendations for primary sources.

Articles include "Contagious Disease and Public Health in the American City."