David Hertzberg is a U.S. cultural historian specializing in the history of medicine, with a particular interest in how encounters with health and illness have been transformed in the 20th century's consumer culture. His work explores these issues in the context of modern prescription pharmaceuticals, especially sedatives, stimulants, and painkillers.  Among other places, this work has appeared in American Quarterly, American Journal of Public Health, The Atlantic Monthly Online, and in a book, Happy Pills in America: From Miltown to Prozac (Johns Hopkins, 2009). He is currently working on a history of prescription drug abuse in the 20th century.