A guide to the archive · Medicine
The treatment. The evidence. The consequences.
Medical harm can begin in a hospital routine, a medicine’s formulation or a decision about which evidence is enough. These histories follow those decisions and the people affected by them, then examine how practice and oversight changed.
Start with three different questions: how did a ward become safer, why did a familiar drug become a poisonous mixture, and what happened when a reviewer asked for stronger evidence? Each article links the records and research behind its account.
1847–1861 · 2 min read
How did a hospital routine spread harm?
In 1847, Semmelweis introduced chlorine-based hand disinfection in a Vienna maternity clinic, and deaths from childbed fever fell sharply. Follow the comparison between wards and the reception of his findings. He faced resistance, but also had supporters; the familiar lone-genius version leaves out that complexity.
Read the supporting sources →1937 · 3 min read
Why did a familiar drug become a deadly mixture?
The liquid sulfanilamide preparation sold in 1937 used poisonous diethylene glycol as its solvent and had not undergone toxicity testing. More than 100 people died. The article follows the evidence, the search for distributed bottles and the gap in federal law that the disaster exposed.
Read the supporting sources →1957–1962 · 2 min read
What difference could one review make?
Frances Kelsey repeatedly sought stronger evidence for the original U.S. thalidomide application despite company pressure. Researchers then linked the drug to severe birth defects. Read why withholding that market approval mattered, and why it does not mean that nobody in the United States was exposed.
Read the supporting sources →