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Medicine

The Archive of Healing lists traditional remedies, procedures and practices from all seven continents.

How a New Digital Archive Preserves—and Protects—Indigenous Folk Medicine

UCLA’s database features hundreds of thousands of entries detailing traditional healing practices

Seventeen-year-old Dasia Taylor was named one of 40 finalists in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, the country’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors.

Innovation for Good: Game Changers

This High Schooler Invented Color-Changing Sutures to Detect Infection

After winning a state science fair and becoming a finalist in a national competition, Dasia Taylor now has her sights set on a patent

The stories of children who participated in polio vaccine tests became a constant in media coverage, appearing alongside warnings and debates.

Vintage Headlines

The Press Made the Polio Vaccine Trials Into a Public Spectacle

As a medical breakthrough unfolded in the early 1950s, newspapers filled pages with debates over vaccine science and anecdotes about kids receiving shots

The tear gland organoids grown from stem cells produce a tear-like fluid (red).

New Research

Scientists Make Tiny Lab-Grown Tear Glands Cry

The tear-producing organoids researchers created could one day help relieve medical conditions that cause dry eyes

Although this sign was used in Connecticut, similar quarantine signs were used across the United States.

Smithsonian Voices

How Failed Quarantines Led to 20th-Century Measles Outbreaks

In 1904, measles epidemics were spiraling across the state of Connecticut

Jennifer Doudna, a Nobel Prize recipient for her work on the gene-editing tool CRISPR, and the "life sciences revolution" are the dual subjects of Walter Isaacson's latest biography.

How Scientist Jennifer Doudna Is Leading the Next Technological Revolution

A new book from Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson offers an incisive portrait of the gene editing field that is changing modern medicine

Sandra Lindsay, an intensive care nurse with Northwell Health, was the first person known to receive the approved vaccine in the United States on December 14, 2020.

Covid-19

First Vial Used in U.S. Covid-19 Vaccinations Joins the Smithsonian Collections

The empty vial, a vaccination card and scrubs worn by nurse Sandra Lindsay, first to be injected, will go on view in a new exhibition in 2022

Artificial Intelligence has been used to help caregivers focus on patients most at-risk, sort threats to patient recovery and foresee spikes in facility needs for things like beds and ventilators.

How Doctors Are Using Artificial Intelligence to Battle Covid-19

Software is helping to shape treatment, but experts worry that some tools are approved too soon and others are biased

Anthony Fauci, age 80, says museum director Anthea Hartig, “defines service at the highest level and exemplifies the true meaning of a great American.”

Covid-19

Anthony Fauci Donates His 3-D SARS-CoV-2 Model to the Smithsonian

The nation’s doctor is awarded the Great Americans Medal by the National Museum of American History in virtual ceremony

In 1794, angered by the inaccurate reporting of the work black Philadelphians had contributed, Richard Allen (above) and Absalom Jones published "A Refutation," detailing how the community cared for the sick.

How the Politics of Race Played Out During the 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic

Free blacks cared for the sick even as their lives were imperiled

The authorization is the third Covid-19 vaccine—following Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech's mRNA vaccines—approved for use in the United States.

FDA Approves Johnson & Johnson Vaccine, Another Valuable Tool Against Covid-19

New vaccines increase the total supply and meet the needs of different communities

Women in early modern Europe collected recipes for balms, distillations and elixirs to treat all manner of ailments.

Part of Being a Domestic Goddess in 17th-Century Europe Was Making Medicines

Housewives’ essential role in health care is coming to light as more recipe books from the pre-Industrial Revolution era are digitized

Covid-19

The Fever That Struck New York

The front lines of a terrible epidemic, through the eyes of a young doctor profoundly touched by tragedy

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Covid-19

How Navajo Physicians Are Battling the Covid-19 Pandemic

Combining traditional medicine and modern science, these courageous doctors have risen to the challenge

Technicians at Canada's main polio vaccine supplier at the time, Connaught Laboratories, working on a step of vaccine formulation in 1955.

The Great Canadian Polio Vaccine Heist of 1959

A theft more than 60 years ago shows how sought-after scarce vaccine doses have been in past epidemics

Since scientists haven’t yet found evidence that the vaccines provide mucosal immunity, someone who is vaccinated and has no symptoms of illness may be carrying the live SARS-CoV-2 virus and spreading it to others when they cough, breath or sneeze.

Covid-19

Why It’s Important to Still Wear a Mask After Covid-19 Vaccination

Vaccinated people should still wear masks around unvaccinated individuals to prevent transmission

A patient holds a sample test tube for Chlamydia testing.

Covid-19

How Covid-19 Has Hurt the Effort to Track STDs

As gonorrhea, syphilis and chlamydia have hit their highest marks in decades, many STD contact tracers have shifted to work on the pandemic

Quarterback Trent Edwards of the Buffalo Bills suffers a concussion after getting hit during the first half of an NFL game.

How a Damaged Drainage System May Lead to More Severe Concussions

Emerging research suggests that even mild hits to the head may damage tiny lymphatic vessels that clear toxic chemicals and cellular debris from the brain

An 1802 engraving, The Cow Pock—or—the Wonderful Effects of the New Inoculation plays on the fears of a crowd of vaccinees.

History Shows Americans Have Always Been Wary of Vaccines

Even so, many diseases have been tamed. Will Covid-19 be next?

A volunteer donates blood during an event at the Field Museum in Chicago in May, 2020.

What Scientists Are Learning About Covid-19 Using the Nation’s Blood Supply

Labs and blood banks collect millions of blood samples each month, offering a distinctive source of data on the disease

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