Health and Healing in North Carolina

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• Learn more about health, herbal medicine, history, medicine, and North Carolina.

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This website is an adaptation of the former North Carolina Museum of History exhibit “Health and Healing Experiences in North Carolina.” The site features a dynamic and interactive timeline that chronicles the health issues and practices in North Carolina from the use of herbal remedies in the 1500s to modern medicine. The site will also provide downloadable teacher’s lesson plans developed by the North Carolina Museum of History.

The timeline provides information in textual, visual, and audio formats. The timeline begins in 1520 and runs through the present day. The topics in the timeline are categorized as one of two types of issues. The institutional topics are associated with the socialization or industrialization of health care. The domestic topics are associated with things readily available in the home or garden, or relating to self-serve medicine. You can explore the timeline chronologically or by topic. Some of the many topics include Slave Medicine, Cherokee healing, Civil War, Kitchen Medicine, Midwifery, Herbal Remedies, Medicare and Medicaid, Health Insurance, mineral springs, and various medical procedures.

This site could be used in a number of interesting ways in the classroom.

• Use as a resource when studying North Carolina history and culture
• Use when studying medicine and health care in any context
• Give context to reading period literature that deals with medicine or health care
• Compare/contrast to other cultures and medical traditions from around the world