History Day

The Connecticut Medical Society was incorporated in 1792. From its inception, until 1893, the Society was responsible for licensing physicians. Now known as the Connecticut State Medical Society, it exists as a voluntary non-profit organization for scientific and educational purposes.
Dates: 1792-1912

CHI: "The Health and Disease featured topic brings together and provides an access point to resources from CTDA contributor organizations that pertain both broadly and specifically to health and disease in Connecticut’s distant and more recent past. It includes links to documents, broadsides, photographs, media reports, government records and other artifacts from the eighteenth- to the twenty-first centuries, organized into format- and topic-based sub-collections. The digital primary sources curated for this topic document epidemics and pandemics and their impact, ways to foster and maintain public health through disease prevention and treatment, promotion of wellness, and services of healthcare professionals and organizations designed to support these efforts and provide aid to those with health issues. The Health and Disease featured topic is one twenty-four curated sets created through the Connecticut Collections Alliance project funded by Connecticut Humanities, which seeks to make resources in Connecticut cultural heritage organizations more accessible, discoverable and usable for a wide range of audiences. To find more on health and disease in Connecticut and the related topics, use the topic headings within records to extend your searches--terms such as “epidemics,” “public health,” “mental illness,” “diet*” (enclosing phrases in quotes, and using an * to allow for singular, plural or other forms), and the names of specific diseases or institutions."

In 1878, the General Assembly established a State Board of Health mandated to “take cognizance of the interests of health and life” of the people of Connecticut. It made sanitary investigations to inquire into and report on the causes of disease and the sources of mortality. It distributed sanitary information to local boards of health and compiled data submitted by these boards. It also had supervision of birth, death, and marriage registrations. Today the Department of Public Health is the State’s lead agency in public health policy and advocacy. Its major program areas include prevention/education, regulation, planning, emergency medical services, and local health administration.

VHP: "No one in war has a purer mission than nurses. Even doctors must sometimes inflict pain for the better good of a patient, but a nurse is there only to soothe and comfort. The ideals that a nurse carries into any wartime hospital are challenged by the daily arrival of bodies broken in battle. Every personal experience -- camaraderie with fellow nurses, relations with superior officers, romantic entanglements -- is magnified by the intensity of a profession that demands courage, compassion and above all, composure."

VHP: "In an enterprise founded on destruction and killing, military doctors have a uniquely constructive mission. They must mend their own comrades’ wounds and if possible, send them back to fight, even if it risks further injury. Doctors rarely carry a weapon and in most instances are exempt from being fired on. That doesn't always protect them from danger, and it surely does not exempt them from the stresses of war. A soldier, if he’s truly lucky, may never witness a casualty; casualties are what wartime military doctors deal with every day."

Library of Congress (LOC): "Between the spring of 1918 and 1919, a virulent and fatal influenza swept the United States. This guide provides information for researching the "Influenza Epidemic of 1918 (Spanish Flu)" in the Chronicling America digital collection of historic newspaper."
Use the side navigation for additional information.

Library of Congress (LOC) research guide: "After the Industrial Revolution, poor socioeconomic conditions led to the highly contagious consumption. This guide provides access to materials related to "Tuberculosis” in the Chronicling America digital collection of historic newspapers."

Library of Congress (LOC) research guide: "In the Fall of 1906, Mary Mallon, a cook, is found to be "patient zero" for a typhoid outbreak leading to her exile. This guide provides access to materials related to "Typhoid Mary” in the Chronicling America digital collection of historic newspapers."

Part of the decision: "The defendant insists that his liberty is invaded when the state subjects him to fine or imprisonment for neglecting or refusing to submit to vaccination; that a compulsory vaccination law is unreasonable, arbitrary, and oppressive, and, therefore, hostile to the inherent right of every freeman to care for his own body and health in such way as to him seems best; and that the execution of such a law against one who objects to vaccination, no matter for what reason, is nothing short of an assault upon his person. But the liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint. There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good. On any other basis organized society could not exist with safety to its members. Society based on the rule that each one is a law unto himself would soon be confronted with disorder and anarchy."