About
Dr. Howard Markel writes a monthly column for the PBS NewsHour, highlighting the anniversary of a momentous event that continues to shape modern medicine. He is the director of the Center for the History of Medicine and the George E. Wantz Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan.
He is the author or editor of 10 books, including “Quarantine! East European Jewish Immigrants and the New York City Epidemics of 1892,” “When Germs Travel: Six Major Epidemics That Have Invaded America Since 1900 and the Fears They Have Unleashed” and “An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted, and the Miracle Drug Cocaine.”
Recent Stories
Health Sep 09
The sexual assault case that shocked Hollywood almost a century agoOn Sept. 9, 1921, a young actress named Virginia Rappe died of a ruptured urinary bladder, days after a Labor Day party where she alleged that silent movie star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle had assaulted her.
Health Aug 28
Why you can thank Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. for doctors washing their handsIn the mid-19th century, doctors in elite teaching hospitals would unknowingly spread deadly bacteria to expectant mothers. Here's how Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. helped change that.
Health Jul 21
How mental health struggles wrote Ernest Hemingway’s final chapterOn a Sunday morning, the famed writer awoke early in a discombobulated and distressed mood. The rest is literary history -- and part of a family’s legacy of pain.
Health Jul 13
Analysis: Why some schools stayed open during the 1918 flu pandemicDuring the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, when an estimated 675,000 people died in the U.S. alone, the majority of public schools were closed for weeks to months on end. But three major cities kept their schools open amid valid questions and…
Health Jun 12
‘One day they simply weren’t there.’ How researchers reconstructed Anne Frank’s last monthsToday would have been the 91st birthday of Anne Frank, the girl who left behind a tattered, hidden diary, now known as the gem-like book that's treasured by many millions. But the exact date of her death is unknown, and…
Health Apr 20
What history revealed about cities that socially distanced during a pandemicIn 2005, in response to the threat of H5N1, a flurry of pandemic preparedness planning began in Washington and across the nation that would set the groundwork for what’s happening now.
Health Apr 16
‘The Plague’ perfectly captures the risk in returning to normalIt's the most vexing phase of an epidemic -- once an illness peters out, healthy people begin to place it in the past.
Health Apr 04
Dorothea Dix’s tireless fight to end inhumane treatment for mental health patientsToday marks the 218th birthday of Dorothea Lynde Dix, one of the America’s most eminent reformers of the living conditions and treatment of the mentally ill.
Health Mar 24
How the discovery of HIV led to a transatlantic research warAs the world struggles to constrain the new coronavirus, it's worth remembering the discovery of another deadly, global virus and a controversy that played out among the researchers who brought it to light.
Health Feb 21
The dramatic death of a former president at the U.S. CapitolPerhaps the strangest event that ever occurred in the House chamber of the Capitol harkens all the way back to 1848.
