Note:

Below you will find a few suggestions for searching this topic. These suggestions aren't the only way to find materials, but they may help to get you started.

Crohn's Disease

I. Find Background

  • The Cambridge World History of Human Disease
    Use "Search within this book" to search for Crohn's disease. This results in an entry for Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Crohn's is one of two diseases discussed in this entry, along with ulcerative colitis. Open the pdf to read the article. There is a lot of good material, but take care to note which sections are dealing with one or the other of the two diseases, and which sections deal with both. Also note the bibliography at the end of the article, especially for primary sources.
  • History of Science, Technology & Medicine
    A search for Crohn's disease results in 19 citations to books and journal articles, several of which look useful. If you see a reference you are interested in, we can help you find the article or book.

II. Search the Library Catalog 

  1. Open the library catalog (rather than searching from the library home page)
  2. Type in Crohn's disease and use the pull-down menu to select Subject. This brings up 20 results. 

Find Scholarly Journal Articles

  • PubMed
    There is a lot of material here. The difficulty may be in narrowing the search enough to make it effective. You can add terms to focus on some specific aspect of Crohn's (etiology, diagnosis, treatment, etc.). Search tip: Try crohn's disease and overview
    PsycInfo
    There is a good amount of material here if you are interested in the psychological/psychosocial  aspects of the disease. Search: Crohn's disease and use the pull-down menu to change from [All Fields] to [Subjects].Can limit to Peer Reviewed (see left-hand column),  if desired.

IV. Finding current and historical "popular" (written for the general public) magazine and newspaper articles.

Finding current articles

  • Proquest Research Library
    Enter your search terms: "crohn's disease"
    Place quotation marks around phrases;
    From the list of results, filter to Magazines; and select a time period;
    Under Publication Titles, select "more" to select specific magazines.
    If you wish, use the date limits on the right to restrict to a particular date range;
  • Access World News
    Select a geography, e.g. United States;
    Add some topic terms;
    You may wish to use the pull-down menu to limit your topic terms to the Lead/First Paragraph;

V. Finding historical articles

When does the phrase "crohn's disease" first appear in popular press?

Proquest Historical Newspapers
Includes some papers going back to the 19th century. When does the phrase "crohn's disease" first appear?

  1. Select the Advanced Search.
  2. Type in "crohn's disease"
  3. Scroll down to choose Document types, (Articles, maybe Ads?)
  4. If you wish, use the date limits on the right to restrict your results to a particular date range.

* Don't forget! There are a number of really good references to primary source material in the Cambridge World History of Human Disease entry. (See top of this page) If there's something you are interested in, we can help you find it. Just ask!