There's no one thing, but for historians, it's generally something that was created at the time of the event. Try searching using terms like: biography [also use for autobiographies], newspapers, "personal papers" [use for archival material], correspondence [use for letters], personal diaries, photographs, videos, interviews, pamphlets, artwork, sources [a common one!], and many other types of things!
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) has a large and extensive history of medicine collection. As part of the library's mission to provide access and preserve its collection of books, ephemera, pamphlets, posters, etc, the library has created several digitized collections. Below are four particularly relevant and rich collections for the work in your course.
More information about the History of Medicine divisions is found here.
Questions? Contact reference@carleton.edu
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