An historical or medical librarian would be helpful with this type of search. Consider beginning your paper during a humanities course in medical school, during the summer months after the first or second years of medical school, or during an elective month. For those who might be interested, there are funds available to conduct research at various history of medicine libraries in the United States, including the New York Academy of Medicine, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the Archives and Special Collections on Women in Medicine in Philadelphia, the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, and the Countway Library in Boston, although you need not have funding to use these libraries. A good medical librarian would again be helpful in identifying collections locally that might be of particular use to you in your research project. Original research means scholarly investigation based on primary sources, e.g., manuscripts, correspondence, diaries, patient records, documents, as well as contemporary printed texts such as books, medical journals, and newspapers.
Original research goes beyond reliance on secondary accounts of other scholars.
Chris Feudtner, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The Relative Fates of Metchnikoff's Lactobacillus Therapy and Underlying Conception of Man. Scott Harris Podolsky, Harvard Medical School. A Comparison of Prohibition in 1914 and the Anti-Alcohol Campaign of 1985. Gabriella Gosman, Yale University School of Medicine.