Skip to Main Content

John Warner, PhD

Avalon Professor in the History of Medicine and Professor of American Studies and of History; Chair, History of Medicine

Research Summary

History of medicine; Medical education; Professionalism; Public health; Clinical medicine; Experimental life science, Visual cultures of medicine

Extensive Research Description

  • Current research:
    • A book with the working title The Quest for Authenticity in Modern Medicine.
    • A study of the transformation of the hospital patient chart, 19th through 21st centuries, tentatively titled Bedside Stories: Clinical Narrative and the Grounding of Modern Medicine.
    • A book-length study tentatively titled The Death of James Jackson, Jr. and the Birth of the American Clinic.

Research Interests

History; History of Medicine; Public Health

Selected Publications

  • Translating the Body: The History of Medical Education in Southeast Asia,co-edited with Hans Pols and Michele Thompson (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2017).
  • "Health, Healing, and Medical Education in Southeast Asia,"in Hans Pols, Michele Thompson, and John Harley Warner, eds., "Translating the Body: The History of Medical Education in Southeast Asia" (Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2017), with Hans Pols and Michele Thompson.
  • "The Art of Medicine in an Age of Science: Reductionism, Holism, and the Doctor-Patient Relationship in the United States,1890-1960,"in Nanami Suzuki, ed., Healing Alternatives: Care and Education as a Cultural Lifestyle (Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology, 2014), Senri Ethnological Reports, No. 120: 55-91.
  • Epistemology in the Time of CholeraWarner J. Epistemology in the Time of Cholera Science 2013, 342: 1448-1449. DOI: 10.1126/science.1243728.
  • The Humanizing Power of Medical History: Responses to Biomedicine in the 20th-Century United StatesWarner J. The Humanizing Power of Medical History: Responses to Biomedicine in the 20th-Century United States Procedia - Social And Behavioral Sciences 2013, 77: 322-329. DOI: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.03.090.
  • "Remapping the History of Medicine,"Health and History 15 (2013): 1-4. With Naomi Rogers.
  • Picturing Medical Progress from Pasteur to Polio: A History of Mass Media Images and Popular Attitudes in America (review)Warner J. Picturing Medical Progress from Pasteur to Polio: A History of Mass Media Images and Popular Attitudes in America (review) Bulletin Of The History Of Medicine 2011, 85: 151-153. DOI: 10.1353/bhm.2011.0002.
  • "Dissection: Photographs of a Rite of Passage in American Medicine 1880-1930,"2009; with James M. Edmonson.
  • Anatomical dissection and the professional formation of American doctors: historical perspectivesWarner J. Anatomical dissection and the professional formation of American doctors: historical perspectives The FASEB Journal 2006, 20: a1300-a1300. DOI: 10.1096/fasebj.20.5.a1300-d.
  • "Locating Medical History: The Stories and Their Meanings,"Baltimore and London, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, March 2004, co-edited with Frank Huisman, paperback edition, 2006.
  • "Against the Spirit of System: The French Impulse in Nineteenth-Century American Medicine,"Princeton University Press, 1998. New paperback edition (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, Fall 2003)
  • "Major Problems in the History of American Medicine and Public Health,"Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001; co-editor with Janet A. Tighe.
  • Managing clinical uncertaintyWarner J. Managing clinical uncertainty Nature 1997, 390: 669-670. DOI: 10.1038/37750.
  • The case books of Dr. John Snow Medical HistoryWarner J. The case books of Dr. John Snow Medical History Medical History 1996, 40: 382-383. PMCID: PMC1037134, DOI: 10.1017/s002572730006138x.
  • A history of medicineWarner J. A history of medicine Medical History 1993, 37: 355-356. PMCID: PMC1036766, DOI: 10.1017/s0025727300058646.
  • Motherhood in the Old South: pregnancy, childbirth, and infant rearingWarner J. Motherhood in the Old South: pregnancy, childbirth, and infant rearing Medical History 1991, 35: 373-374. PMCID: PMC1036504, DOI: 10.1017/s0025727300054028.
  • Chandos Michael Brown, Benjamin Silliman: A Life in the Young Republic. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. Pp. xvi + 377. ISBN 0-691-08533-1. $29.95.Warner J. Chandos Michael Brown, Benjamin Silliman: A Life in the Young Republic. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. Pp. xvi + 377. ISBN 0-691-08533-1. $29.95. The British Journal For The History Of Science 1991, 24: 104-105. DOI: 10.1017/s0007087400028521.
  • Technology and American medical practice 1880–1930: an anthology of sourcesWarner J. Technology and American medical practice 1880–1930: an anthology of sources Medical History 1990, 34: 353-354. PMCID: PMC1036165, DOI: 10.1017/s0025727300052662.
  • Studies in the history of alternative medicineWarner J. Studies in the history of alternative medicine Medical History 1990, 34: 223-225. PMCID: PMC1036084, DOI: 10.1017/s0025727300050791.
  • Doctor Dock: teaching and learning medicine at the turn of the centuryWarner J. Doctor Dock: teaching and learning medicine at the turn of the century Medical History 1989, 33: 138-138. PMCID: PMC1035783, DOI: 10.1017/s0025727300049097.
  • Fifty years of medicine at the University of Michigan, 1891–1941Warner J. Fifty years of medicine at the University of Michigan, 1891–1941 Medical History 1988, 32: 479-480. PMCID: PMC1139936, DOI: 10.1017/s0025727300048766.
  • Inventing the NIH: federal biomedical research policy, 1887–1937Warner J. Inventing the NIH: federal biomedical research policy, 1887–1937 Medical History 1988, 32: 337-338. PMCID: PMC1139888, DOI: 10.1017/s0025727300048298.
  • ”Hydropathic Highway to Health”: women and water-cure in antebellum AmericaWarner J. ”Hydropathic Highway to Health”: women and water-cure in antebellum America Medical History 1987, 31: 380-381. PMCID: PMC1139769, DOI: 10.1017/s0025727300047141.