Everyone loves a good mystery, and Howard Kushner is no exception. The Nat C. Robertson Distinguished Professor of Science and Society in the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts at Emory College, with a joint appointment in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education at the Rollins School of Public Health, Kushner is forging new ground in the applied history of medicine. Collaborative in nature, this innovative field brings together academic scientists, health care providers, and public health practitioners to solve medical mysteries. Applied history of medicine is pragmatic and investigatory, crossing disciplinary and evidentiary boundaries. If you ask what Kushner does for a living, he'll tell you: "I'm a problem solver."

As the faculty advisor to the Master of Public Health students in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education, Kushner has the opportunity to work closely with students beyond traditional classroom interactions. He has engaged a number of them in research with the Kawasaki Foundation, funded by the National Institutes of Health. As part of this grant, he and colleagues at the University of California, San Diego are developing a website and a film on the history of Kawasaki Disease (KD). Together, these projects represent the culmination of a decade of research by Kushner into the history of this puzzling rash and fever illness that develops in early childhood. KD is the greatest cause of acquired pediatric heart disease in the developed world. Kushner and his colleagues have shown that the original case definition for the disease, written in the 1960s, was too restrictive. "We ran across a number of children who didn't meet the stated criteria for the disease, but who developed coronary artery symptoms nonetheless," he says. "So either there wasn't a good diagnosis, or the case definition was too narrow, and left out too many children." By showing that the case definition was historically situated, and not a timeless decree, Kushner and his colleagues helped persuade scientists and physicians that the definition needed to be expanded and made more sensitive. A stronger case definition has the potential to enable more accurate diagnoses and, it is hoped, more effective treatments for children. Currently, Kushner is completing Looking for Dr. Kawasaki's Disease: An Applied History of Medicine.

He also has a longstanding interest in the medical mystery surrounding involuntary movement disorders. In A Cursing Brain? The Histories of Tourette Syndrome (1999), he challenged the conventional wisdom that genetic inquiry alone could solve the riddle of Tourette's. "So many scientists became focused on finding a gene for Tourette's that they overlooked the broader history of the disorder and other associated symptoms," he says. The nineteenth-century definition for the syndrome, for example, specifically excluded viral infections as a possible cause. But Kushner found that other nineteenth-century movement disorders with similar presenting signs – the tics and involuntary movements commonly associated with Tourette's – may have had a post-infectious connection, and in particular a link to the antibodies for strep bacteria associated with rheumatic fever. By uncovering the complicated diagnostic history of these associated syndromes, Kushner and his colleagues have pressed clinicians and scientists to broaden their definition of ‘what counts' for a positive Tourette's diagnosis. "When you widen the research, you widen the opportunities for possible treatments," he says. "Using history as a tool, we are opening up a new set of questions."

These findings and methods are beginning to enjoy broad crossover appeal. Two of Kushner's recent articles, "History as a Medical Tool" in Lancet (2008) and "The Two Emergences of Kawasaki Disease & Its Implications for the Developing World" in Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal (2008), testify to the growing interest in applied history of medicine. So also does the recent interest of the Emory School of Medicine in developing teaching modules on the history of medicine for medical students. Kushner is writing a number of these history modules. "We can build bridges at Emory," he says. "We can have real collaboration. That's not always possible elsewhere."

Once those collaborative bridges are built, a faculty member may spend a lot of time walking back and forth between departments – and Kushner has racked up more mileage than most. But he's already planning future collaborations, including a historical analysis of the benefits versus risks of long-term prescription drugs, especially statins; and a study of the effectiveness of generic medications in relation to their brand-name counterparts. This semester, he is teaching an interdisciplinary course, "Madness, Brain, Sanity," for undergraduate and graduate students across the university.

Kushner and his collaborators are investigating some of modern medicine's most puzzling mysteries. Their research also serves as a reminder of the enduring value of historical thinking. The past may hold the key to understanding why, despite the availability of modern technology and treatment, some diseases continue to confound us.