Choosing a Topic
Picking a specific topic to study is something very difficult for me. I have always had such wide interests in history that I didn’t even know how to begin narrowing down a specific topic to study. I knew that whatever I ended up picking it had to be something that was important to me and that I truly had a passion for otherwise I would lose interest along the way. I started to think about the things in my life that were important to me and how I might incorporate them into a topic to study. What I came up with was medicine.
6 years ago, I became extremely ill and was diagnosed with fibromyalgia which is a chronic pain disorder. Since then medicine has come to play a huge part in my life and I want to know more about how we established common medical practices. While my topic is still broad I’m thinking, I would like to look at the divide between eastern and western medicine. I’ve learned from personal experience that both are equally important and I would like to know more about the history that has led to them being keep so separate from each other.
Tiffany, since it’s Western Civ, we do need to stick to the western medical history, but it occurs to me that your condition might encourage a focus on pain relief? I know we’re heading into the realm of anesthesia once we get to the 19th century, and opiates. Just a thought…