About

Emotions and Disease

This exhibition highlights achievements and turning points on a well-traveled historical road. How we talk about emotions and disease has changed, as scientists and physicians transformed medicine. Perceptive observers have regularly returned to the study of the interactions of body and mind in medicine. Emotions and Disease points to a promising future that includes integrative medicine, a field incorporating science-based mind-body treatments into all aspects of medical care.
Exhibition directors Esther M. Sternberg, M.D., formerly with the National Institute of Mental Health, and Elizabeth Fee, Ph.D., former chief of the History of Medicine Division at National Library of Medicine, with visiting curators Anne Harrington, Ph.D. (Harvard University) and Theodore M. Brown, Ph.D. (University of Rochester, NY) produced this exhibition, which opened in the NLM Rotunda Gallery November 13, 1996–May 1, 1997. Generous support from the Charles A. Dana Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Fetzer Institute, and the National Institute of Mental Health made this exhibition possible.
In 2000, Sanita Kacker and Young Rhee from the History of Medicine Division adapted the script and images of the assets that were on display in 1997 to an online exhibition.
In 2021, the Exhibition Program refreshed the earlier online exhibition.