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Centre for Health, Medicine and Society - School of Arts and ...
Centre for Health,
Medicine and Society:
Past and Present
Periodic Report 2006-2009
School of Arts and Humanities
Oxford Brookes University
Centre for Health, Medicine and Society:
Past and Present
Periodic Review 2006 – 2009
The Centre for Health, Medicine and Society: Past and Present
Tonge Building
Oxford Brookes University
Headington Campus
Oxford OX3 0BP
Tel: 01865 483489
Fax: 01865 483707
email: email@example.com
Periodic Review 2006 – 2009
1. Introduction 1
2. Centre Personnel 4
3. Individual Entries 7
4. Postgraduate Students 66
5. Visitors 74
6. Grants 75
7. Teaching 83
8. Seminars, Workshops and Conferences 84
9. Outreach 92
1. Introduction
This report for the Centre for Health, Medicine and Society: Past and Present at Oxford
Brookes University spans the period from January 2006 to August 2009, which has been
a time of significant development for the Centre. Following a Wellcome Trust
Enhancement Award in 2003, the Centre received a Wellcome Trust Strategic Award in
2007, which provides core support over a five-year period for the medical historians,
enabling them to pursue research in a number of related areas under the designated
overarching theme of the award: 'Healthcare in Public and Private'. During the period
under review, a number of externally funded projects have been brought to successful
completion and new research projects have been launched, including projects funded by
the Strategic Award.
The research achievements of staff in terms of publications and research dissemination
are reported in section 3. While many of the core staff who were listed in the last report
for the Centre are still in post, there have been a number of important staff changes in
the Centre during the period under review. Dr Glen O'Hara, senior lecturer in Modern
History, came to Oxford Brookes in January 2005 and joined the Centre. Dr Tom Crook
joined the Centre when he came to Oxford Brookes in September 2005, initially on a
short-term contract. This was made permanent at senior lecturer level in May 2007. In
2007 Professor John Stewart, one of the founding members of the Centre, left to
become Professor of Health History at Glasgow Caledonian University and Director of
the Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare in Glasgow. Waltraud Ernst –
formerly Reader in History at the University of Southampton – joined the Centre in
December 2007 as the new Professor in the History of Medicine. In September 2007 we
were also pleased to welcome Dr Anna Maerker, who was appointed to a new post in
the History of Medicine and she is now a senior lecturer. Prior to her appointment, Dr
Maerker was a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in
Berlin. Dr Peter Jones was appointed to a one-year lectureship in the History of
Medicine in September 2008 and this has now been extended for a further year, with
funding from a Wellcome Trust Research Leave Award to Dr Elizabeth Hurren. Before
joining Oxford Brookes he was a Research Fellow on the Westminster Pauper
Biographies Project. Dr Elizabeth Hurren will be taking research leave for the academic
year 2009-10, but she will continue in her important role as Chair of the University
Research Ethics Committee. We are pleased to report that Dr Katherine Watson has
been appointed to a new lectureship in the History of Medicine, with effect from
September 2009. Dr Watson has been a longstanding member of the Centre, first as a
research associate while holding the post of Research Manager for the School of Arts
and Humanities, and then as Postdoctoral Research Fellow from August 2007 to August
2009, funded by a Wellcome Trust Research Leave Award. Dr Sam Sneddon replaced
Dr Watson as Research Manager for the School from September 2007 to February 2009
and during this time she was a research associate of the Centre. Dr Sneddon is now
Research Facilitator for the Division of Social Sciences of the University of Oxford.
In 2007, Drs Viviane Quirke and Marius Turda were appointed to RCUK Academic
Fellowships in Twentieth-century Biomedicine and Pharmaceuticals, and Twentiethcentury
Central and Eastern European Bio-Medicine, respectively. Dr Viviane Quirke
had previously held a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship and Dr Turda a European
Community Marie Curie Intra-European Award, both at Oxford Brookes. In September
2009, Drs Alysa Levene and Tim McHugh will have completed a five-year period funded
by a RCUK Academic Fellowship Award and a Wellcome Trust University Award,
respectively, and they will both assume full teaching roles as senior lecturers in the
History Department. Dr Levene was awarded a Brookes Teaching Fellowship in 2009 for
a project on using assessment to bridge the first year transition for undergraduate
The Centre is grateful to the Wellcome Trust for funding a number of postdoctoral
fellowships, and doctoral and master studentships. This Centre now has an active
community of fellows and postgraduate students enrolled on the MPhil/PhD programme
in the History of Medicine. Drs Yolanda Eraso and Ina Scherder started their fellowships
in September 2007, and Dr Kim Price in 2008. Both Drs Eraso and Price had previously
held doctoral studentships in the Centre funded by the Wellcome Trust and the AHRC,
respectively. Dr Scherder joined Oxford Brookes after completing her doctorate at the
University of Trier. From September 2008 to June 2009, Dr Projit Mukharji was a
postdoctoral fellow working with Professor Ernst, funded by a Wellcome Trust grant
transferred from the University of Southampton. Dr Mukharji has now taken up a post at
McMaster University, Canada. Details of the fellowships and studentships are given in
the report.
In addition to postdoctoral research fellows, the Centre has had a number of
postgraduate researchers employed on specific, grant-funded projects. Alison Stringer
has worked as a researcher for Professor Steve King's Wellcome Trust funded project
on the sick poor in England in the 18th and 19th centuries, and Dr Helen Sweet as a
senior researcher for Professor Anne Digby's Wellcome Trust funded pilot project on
outreach at McCord Hospital, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. In July 2009 Dr Tudor Georgescu,
who previously held a Wellcome Trust doctoral studentship in the Centre, commenced
work as a researcher on Dr Marius Turda's one-year Wellcome Trust funded pilot project
on Romanian eugenics. Dr Anna von Villiez is currently the Research Officer for
Professor Paul Weindling's three-year AHRC funded project on victims of human
experiments under National Socialism, which started in October 2007. Two AHRC
doctoral studentships are also associated with this award.
During the period under review, the Centre has been host to a number of international
visitors who have come to work on collaborative research projects with staff in the
Centre, in many cases funded by grants made available through the Centre. Professor
Estēe Dvorjetski, a Visiting Professor of Oxford Brookes University since 2004, is a
regular visitor and she will be spending the first semester of the coming academic year
in Oxford. Other international visitors have come from France, India, Japan, Norway,
Romania and the United States. In addition to the connections established with our
visitors, the Centre has a number of research associates whose collective expertise is
greatly valued.
As part of the Strategic Award, the Centre has received funding for an administrator (Dr
Carol Beadle) and a new half-time post of Outreach Officer. In October 2008 we were
pleased to appoint Jane Szele to this post. Jane has extensive experience, gained in the
United States, in academic and museum administration and development. Previous
posts held by Jane before joining the Centre include: consultant at the Harvard Museum
of Natural History; and adviser to the Patan Academy of Health Sciences, Kathmandu,
Nepal. Jane has worked energetically to raise the profile of the Centre by developing an
outreach programme, and she has also been actively involved in recruitment for the new
History of Medicine degree.
The History Department runs a History of Medicine MA course and also offers a range of
modules in the History of Medicine for the undergraduate programme in History. An
exciting development for the Centre has been the validation in April 2008 of a combined
honours degree in the History of Medicine, and it is now open for recruitment in
September 2010. The course is innovatory in the range and specialism of the modules it
offers, and we are proud of the way that it reflects and shares the research expertise of
the Centre's staff. We should also like to report on a new PhD training programme in the
History of Medicine, launched in October 2006 and run jointly by staff in the Centre at
Oxford Brookes and the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, with
the support of the Wellcome Trust.
The past few years have been extremely productive for the Centre in terms of research,
publications, dissemination and outreach, as will be apparent from this report. The
Centre would like to thank the Wellcome Trust for their generous funding and support.
Acknowledgement is also due to the AHRC, the British Academy, the British Council, the
European Union and the Leverhulme Trust for funding a wide range of research projects.
As well as support from external funding bodies, the Centre has received important
funding from the University – from the Central Research Fund – and the Institute of
Historical and Cultural Research, based within the School of Arts and Humanities.
Funding and support from Oxford Brookes is gratefully acknowledged.
For most of the period under review Professor Steve King has been director of the
Centre. At a time when Professor King was also coping with an onerous workload as
Assistant Dean for Research in the School of Arts and Humanities, Professor Anne
Digby acted as co-director, taking on some of the responsibilities for the Centre, and for
a period in 2008, Professor Waltraud Ernst was also director. Staff in the Centre would
like to acknowledge Professor King's leadership in ensuring the continuing success of
the Centre in teaching, research and outreach work. In October 2009, Professor King will
be leaving Oxford Brookes to become Professor of Economic and Social History in the
School of Historical Studies at the University of Leicester. His colleagues at Oxford
Brookes wish him well in his new post.
CAB – August 2009
2. Centre Personnel
Academic Staff
Dr Tom Crook
Senior Lecturer in Modern British History
Professor Anne Digby
Research Professor in History
Professor Waltraud Ernst
Professor in the History of Medicine
Dr Elizabeth Hurren
Senior Lecturer in the History of Medicine
Dr Peter Jones
Lecturer in the History of Medicine
Professor Steven King
Professor of History
Dr Alysa Levene
Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History
Administrative Staff
Dr Carol Beadle
Centre Manager
Dr Anna Maerker
Senior Lecturer in the History of Medicine
Dr Tim McHugh
Wellcome Trust Researcher/Lecturer in the History of
Dr Glen O'Hara
Senior Lecturer in Modern History
Dr Viviane Quirke
RCUK Academic Fellow in 20th-century Biomedicine and
Dr Marius Turda
RCUK Academic Fellow in 20th-century Central and
Eastern European Bio-Medicine
Dr Katherine Watson
Lecturer in the History of Medicine since 1500
Professor Paul Weindling
Wellcome Trust Research Professor in the History of
Jane Szele
Outreach Officer
Postdoctoral Fellows
Dr Yolanda Eraso Wellcome Trust funded (3 years) – start date September 2007
Dr Projit Mukharji Wellcome Trust funded (3 years) – transferred from University
of Southampton; start date at OBU 09/08; left in 07/09 to take
up post in Canada.
Dr Veenu Pant Research Fellow from Jaipur, India – based in Centre 2008-09
Dr Kim Price Wellcome Trust funded (3 years) – start date July 2008
Dr Ina Scherder Wellcome Trust funded (3 years) – start date September 2007
Dr Tudor Georgescu Wellcome Trust funded Researcher, start date Spring
Dr Anna von Villiez AHRC funded Project Officer (3 years), start date Autumn
Dr Helen Sweet Wellcome Trust funded Senior Researcher, July 2008 –
November 2008
Alison Stringer Wellcome Trust and OBU funded Researcher, 2005-2009
Professor Estēe Dvorjetski
Visiting Professor
Research Associates
Dr Mike Emanuel Dr Annie Skinner
Georgina Ferry Judy Slinn
John Perkins Dr Sam Sneddon
Dr Tapti Roy
3. Individual Entries – Academic Staff
Dr Tom Crook
Senior Lecturer in the History of Medicine
History of public health, statistics and administrative ethics, especially as these relate to
the formation of the modern liberal state.
Tom Crook's main research interests focus on the formation and exercise of modern
liberal governance during the nineteenth century, and in particular:
• the creation and interaction of administrative authority and public sovereignty – in
short, the relations between bureaucracy and democracy;
• the generation of information and the evolution of expert 'systems';
• the government and privatisation of bodies and associated techniques (washing,
for instance) and spaces (cubicles);
• the government and conceptualisation of marginal (or 'pathological') people,
processes and places – for instance, tramps and prostitutes.
Current projects
Articles on the following: the mid-Victorian debate on the 'centralisation' of sanitary
government; the reform and regulation of common lodging houses; and the liberal state
and its toleration of 'evil', especially espionage and prostitution.
'Craft and the dialogics of modernity: the Arts and Crafts Movement in late-Victorian and
Edwardian England', Journal of Modern Craft, 2, 1 (2009), 17-32.
'Accommodating the outcast: common lodging houses and the limits of urban
governance in Victorian and Edwardian London', Urban History, 35, 3 (2008), 414-436.
'Norms, forms and beds: spatialising sleep in Victorian Britain,' Body and Society:
Special Edition on Sleep, 14, 4 (2008), 15-36.
'Putting matter in its right place: dirt, time and regeneration in mid-Victorian Britain',
Journal of Victorian Culture, 13, 2 (2008), 200-222.
'Sanitary inspection and the public sphere in late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain: a case
study in liberal governance', Social History, 32, 4 (2007), 369-393.
(with Malcolm Crook) 'The advent of the secret ballot in Britain and France: from
public assembly to private compartment', History, 92, 308 (2007), 449-471.
'Power, privacy and pleasure: Liberalism and the modern cubicle', Cultural Studies, 21,
4/5 (2007), 549-569.
'"Schools for the moral training of the people": public baths, liberalism and the promotion
of cleanliness in Victorian Britain', European Review of History/Revue européenne
d'Histoire, 13, (2006), 21-47.
Research Dissemination
(with Malcolm Crook) 'Reforming voting practices in a global age: the making and
remaking of the "Australian ballot" in Britain, France and America'. Presented to the
Groupe d'Analyse Politique (GAP), séminaire de recherche 'La construction sociale de
l'opération électorale', 21 January 2009, University of Paris X, Nanterre.
'Global space and the revenge of the singular: Baudrillard, globalization and violence.'
Presented to the DOSSier event, 'Violence and Space', 10 October 2008, Oxford
Brookes University.
'Suspect figures: Statistics and public trust in Victorian England.' Presented to the
conference 'Norms, Numbers and the People: Statistics and the Public Sphere in
Modern Britain, 1750-2000', 5-6 September 2008, Oxford Brookes University.
'Modernity's blind spots: Liberalism and secrecy.' Presented to the conference
'Provoking Questions: Patrick Joyce and the Politics of Social and Cultural History', 27-
28 March 2008, University of Manchester.
'Liberalism, evil, modernity: towards a research agenda.' Presented to the workshop
'Crime, Religion and History' workshop, 16 January 2008, Oxford Brookes University.
Professor Anne Digby
Research Professor in History
British social history from the eighteenth century to the present; social history of
medicine and the history of African medicine.
Professor Anne Digby's research ranges widely over the landscape of British social
history from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries: from schooling and society to the New
Poor Law, agrarian society in the nineteenth century to welfare policy in the twentieth.
However, her primary current interest is in the social history of medicine.
Areas of research include:
• South African medicine;
• medical markets and healthcare systems;
• history of British social policy and welfare;
• history of psychiatry.
Anne Digby and Professor Kay de Villers (retired
surgeon) at the book launch of 'At the Heart of Healing:
Groote Schuur Hospital', at the Faculty of Health
Sciences, University of Cape Town, November 2008.
Her main research interest is
the medical history of southern
Africa. She has been
particularly interested in
medical pluralism and
interactions between western
and indigenous medicine in
South Africa. Her book,
Diversity and Division in
Medicine: Health Care in South
Africa from the 1800s, was
published in 2006 by Peter
Lang. Professor Digby has
recently completed a project
with historians from the
University of Cape Town on the
history of Groote Schuur
Hospital, funded by a Wellcome
Trust International Collaborative
Research Initiative Award. The
resulting book, At the Heart of
Healing in Cape Town: Groote Schuur Hospital, 1938-2008 (Johannesburg, Jacana),
jointly authored with Howard Phillips, and with the assistance of Harriet Deacon and
Kirsten Thomson, was published in November 2008. Currently, she is beginning to work
on the structural imbalances in recent South African medicine and how and why these
developed historically. Questions to be examined include: Why were so many public and
private resources concentrated in urban areas? How successfully did agencies such as
mission hospitals, health centres and clinics, outreach from institutions (including some
collaboration with healers), and the activities of certain members of the medical and
nursing professions – more especially their black members – modify this in order to
provide services for rural inhabitants?
'The global and the local: Groote Schuur Hospital
within a changing South Africa, Lancet, 374, 9692
(2009), 778-779.
At the Heart of Healing in Cape Town: Groote
Schuur Hospital, 1938-2008 (Jacana, November,
2008) Joint author, Howard Phillips. Also with the
assistance of Harriet Deacon and Kirsten
'Western medicine and witchcraft in South Africa:
initiatives at Victoria Hospital, Lovedale', in Mark
Harrison and M. Jones (eds), From Western
Medicine to Global Medicine: The Hospital
Beyond the West (Orient Longman, 2008).
'Vision and vested interests: national health
service reform in South Africa and Britain during
the 1940s and beyond', Social History of
Medicine, 21, 3 (2008) 485-502.
'The medical history of South Africa: an overview',
History Compass, 6, 5 (2008), 1194-1210.
'Some early black doctors in South Africa', South African Medical Journal, (2007), 252-3,
345-6, 424-8, 508-9, 577-80.
'Medicine, race and the general good: the career of Thomas N. G. Te Water (1857-
1926), South African doctor and medical politician', Medical History, 51,1 (2007), 37-58.
'Shaping new identities: general practitioners in Britain and South Africa', in K. Maynard
(ed.), Medical Identities (Berghahn Books, 2007), pp. 14-35.
Diversity and Division in Medicine: Health Care in South Africa from the 1800s (Peter
Lang, 2006).
'The economic significance of the National Health Insurance Act of 1911', in S. Sheard
and M. Gorsky (eds), Financing British Medicine, 1750-2000 (Studies in the Social
History of Medicine, Routledge, 2006).
'Changing welfare cultures in region and state', Twentieth Century British History, 17, 3
(2006), 297-322.
'Self-medication and the trade in medicine with a multi-ethnic context: a case study of
South Africa from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries', Social History of
Medicine, 18 (2005), 439-457.
Research Dissemination
Co-organiser (with Waltraud Ernst and Projit Mukharji) 'Crossing Colonial
Historiographies: Histories of Colonial and Indigenous Medicines in Transnational
Perspective', held at St Anne's College, Oxford, 15-17 September 2008. [Book to be
published by Cambridge Scholars, 2010.]
Conference papers
'The in-between world of healthcare "middles" in South Africa'. Presented at the
workshop 'Inside/Outside: Intermediaries, Subordinates and the Practice of Public
Health in the British Empire', Wellcome Unit for History of Medicine, University of Oxford,
5 June 2009.
'Nursing in the writing of hospital history'. Presented at the international scientific
colloquium on 'The History of the Hospital as a Biomedical and Social institution in
Africa', University of Basel, 3-4 January 2008.
'Exporting the British hospital model: the South African case'. Presented at the
conference 'Japanese / British / American Hospitals Conference', Tokyo, January 2007.
Seminar papers
'Vision and vested interests: national health service reform in South Africa and Britain
during the 1940s and beyond', All Souls College, University of Oxford, Economic and
Social History seminar, October 2008.
'Researching the history of Groote Schuur Hospital', (joint presentation with Howard
Phillips), University of Cape Town School of Health Sciences, March 2006.
'Divine drudgery or practice makes perfect?: mission nursing in South Africa', (joint
presentation with Helen Sweet), Dept of Historical Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal,
Durban, South Africa, April 2005.
Professor Waltraud Ernst
Professor in the History of Medicine
History of western science, psychiatry and medicine; inter-relationship between modern
medicine and indigenous healing from the eighteenth to the twentieth century.
Main historical period covered: ca. 1750-2000.
• 'the body' and 'the mind' in historical, social and cultural context
• Asian medicine, tradition and modernity
• history and culture of alternative medicine in Europe
• history and culture of psychiatry and mental healing
• science, magic and religion in comparative perspective
• historical and cultural constructions of 'normality' and 'abnormality'
• In Professor Ernst's work on the social history of western medicine and science
ca. 1750 - 2000, she is particularly interested in the inter-relationship between
biomedicine and other paradigms of healing. Applying a multidisciplinary
perspective to research topics and in writing she explores the various dimensions
involved in the construction of what counts as 'health', 'illness' and
'medicine/science' at different times and places: the political/state perspective;
institutions; medical professions and 'folk' traditions; the patients' perspective;
scientific theories and practices; myths, beliefs and representations.
Current Projects
Professor Ernst is completing her
book 'Mental Illness and
Colonialism. Patients' Lives and
Discourses of Power During the
Age of British Imperialism in South
Asia, 1800-1947', which is due to
be published by Manchester
University Press in 2010. She
explores the ways in which the
lives of mentally ill people and
their families were affected by
wider social and political
circumstances during the age of
British imperialism in India and
how their stories in turn reflect the
socio-political context within which
they were set. A close reading of
patients' cases and their individual
circumstances will be employed.
The intention is to illuminate the
Waltraud Ernst on a visit to an Ayurvedic healing shrine
in India, photographed with a healer and a translator
(August 2009).
relations between the personal, and the social and political, in regard to the main
discourses that engulfed patients and their families.
Professor Ernst is also engaged on a project on 'Colonial Medicine and Indigenous
Health Practices in Southern and Eastern Princely States of India, ca. 1880-1960',
funded by a Wellcome Trust International Collaborative Research Initiative grant, with
two collaborators based in Mumbai/Mysore and Delhi/Orrisa respectively. Many
intriguing questions have been raised since the 1980s on the history and place of
western medicine in South Asia during the age of British colonialism; for example the
role of medicine as a 'tool of empire' or 'water-carrier of colonialism' has been assessed.
Yet, by focusing their analyses almost exclusively on the areas rendered 'pink' on the
contemporary maps of Empire on the Subcontinent, namely on 'British India', the derived
insights fail to consider that about two fifths of India were administered, more or less
independently, by Indian states. The existing literature on 'Princely India', on its part, has
tended to focus on political histories and the spectacular/decadent sides of Indian
Maharajas' lives. The project puts medicine in the Indian States at the centre of analysis.
It will not simply add yet another set of case-studies to the historiography of colonial
medicine, or merely use unexplored source material available in India, Europe and
America. Rather, it strives to contribute a new critical dimension to current debates. By
focusing on areas in 'Indian India', rather than those under direct British colonial control,
the project is expected to lead to a more balanced appraisal of the role of medicine
during the colonial era.
Member of the editorial board of History of Psychiatry (Sage).
Editor with B. Pati, India's Princely States. People, Princes and Colonialism (London and
New York: Routledge, 2007). [To be reprinted in an Indian version by Primus Books:
Delhi, 2009.]
'Madness and colonial spaces. British India, 1800-1947', in Leslie Topp, James Moran
and Jonathan Andrews (eds), Madness, Architecture and the Built Environment (London
and New York: Routledge, 2007).
'Beyond East and West. From the history of colonial medicine to a social history of
medicine(s) in South Asia', Social History of Medicine, 20, 3 (2007), 505-524.
Editor, The Normal and the Abnormal. Historical and Cultural Perspectives on Norms
and Normativity (London and New York: Routledge, 2006).
'The normal and the abnormal. Reflections on norms and normativity', in Waltraud Ernst
(ed.), Histories of the Normal and the Abnormal (London and New York:
Routledge, 2006), pp. 1-39.
'Colonial/medical power: lunatic asylums in Bengal, c. 1800-1900', Journal of Asian
History, 40, 1 (2006), 49-79.
'Feminising madness - Feminising the Orient: gender, madness and colonialism, c.
1860-1940', in S. Kak and B. Pati (eds), Exploring Gender: Colonial and Post-colonial
India (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial and Museum Library, 2005), pp. 57-92.
Research Dissemination
Talks at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences at Calcutta (CSSSC), resulting in
History of Medicine resources links, teaching and research links, some of which will be
History of Medicine focused.
Talks at the Centre of Modern Oriental Studies (ZMO), Berlin, presenting work on history
of medicine and exploring future collaboration on medical publishing/printing, March
P. B. Mukharji and W. Ernst, 'In good health. The history of medicine in India: British
perspectives', Biblio: a Review of Books, 12, 9/10 (2007).
Conference organisation
Co-organiser (with Anne Digby and Projit Mukharji) 'Crossing Colonial Historiographies:
Histories of Colonial and Indigenous Medicines in Transnational Perspective', held at St
Anne's College, Oxford, 15-17 September 2008. [Book to be published by Cambridge
Scholars, 2010.]
Conference papers
Workshop on 'Situating the Subaltern in South Asian Medical History', Warwick
University; paper on 'Artichokes, the enigma of health and the subaltern in the history of
medicine', 7-8 May 2009.
Opening Plenary Lecture, Conference on 'Imagining and Practising Imperial and
Colonial Medicine, 1870-1960', St Anthony's College, Oxford, 10-12 January 2008.
Presidential Keynote Address, 6 th International Conference on Traditional Asian
Medicine, University of Texas at Austin, 2006.
Dr Elizabeth Hurren
Senior Lecturer in the History of Medicine and Chair of the University Ethics Committee
History of anatomy and the body from antiquity to the twentieth century; history of
poverty and society in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; history of 'the politics
of place' and local democracy; the history of body trafficking of pauper corpses to train
medical students under the New Poor Law, circa 1832 to 1929.
Dr Hurren's research expertise has six interwoven-strands:
• The history of nineteenth century poverty and the experience of being poor
• The New Poor Law and public health politics in Victorian Britain
• The history of death and dying in Britain
• The history of anatomy and the body since antiquity
• Medical ethics, coroners, research and "body" debates in biomedicine
• The history of the brain and scientific breakthroughs
• Women and childbirth from Tudor England to Modern Incubator
Current Projects
Dr Hurren has six projected research activities in the period from 2008 to 2010:
1. In 2008, research was completed on how paupers became staple dissection
subjects of a 19th-century medical education. A unique database has been
compiled of the body-trafficking networks in leading provincial and London
medical schools. This is the subject of a forthcoming book contracted to Palgrave
Macmillan – Dying for Victorian Medicine: English Anatomy and its Trade in the
Dead Poor, 1832 to 1929, (September 2010). Writing-up is funded by a
Wellcome Trust Research Leave Award in 2009/10 of £45,000.
2. In semester one 2010, a new project funded by the recent Wellcome Trust
Strategic Award, of which Dr Hurren was a co-applicant, will be launched. It has
two facets: the care and use of the poor for medical research in major teaching
hospitals and the subsequent history of the Strangeways Laboratory at
3. In 2009/10, academic articles have been produced on the social history of 19th
century coroners and their professional jurisdiction over the corpse.
4. In 2009/10, an academic article has also been produced on the history of
anatomists and their public engagement work in the 19th century.
5. In 2009/10, a Wellcome Trust Broadcast Award of £10,000 in conjunction with
Pier Productions Ltd was won to pitch the production of a television programme
on the 'History of the Body', currently under consideration with BBC's
6. In 2008/9, Dr Hurren won a Leverhulme Trust Study Abroad Fellowship for
£5,235 and an award of 2,500 euros from the EHESS Paris. She took up a
prestigious Overseas Scholarship to work on the comparative history of anatomy
in England and France in May 2009 and returns again in November 2009 to give
guest lectures and complete the project.
Joint-editor of the Pickering and Chatto series, The Body, Gender and Culture: from
Early Modern Times to the Modern World.
E. T. Hurren, A. Gestrich, S. A. King and L.
Raphael (eds), Poverty and the Development of
Health-Care in Modern Europe, (Rodopi,
forthcoming 2010).
E. T. Hurren, 'World without welfare? The late-
Victorian Poor Law reconsidered', in S. A. King
and R. M. Smith (eds), Poverty, Poor Relief and
Welfare in England from the 17th to the 20th
century, (Boydell and Brewer, forthcoming
E. T. Hurren, Dying for Victorian Medicine:
English Anatomy and its Trade in the Dead
Poor, 1832 to 1929, (Palgrave, Macmillan,
forthcoming September 2010).
with I. Scherder, 'Dignity in death? The dead
body as an anatomical object in England and
Ireland, circa 1832 to 1900', in Steven King and
Andreas Gestrich (eds), The Dignity of the Poor:
Concepts, Practices, Representations, (Oxford
University Press, forthcoming 2010), 1-52.
E. T. Hurren, Protesting About Pauperism: Poverty, Politics and Poor Relief in Late-
Victorian England, 1870-1914 (Royal Historical Society, Boydell & Brewer, 2007).
E. T. Hurren, 'A radical historian's pursuit of rural history: The political career and
contribution of the Rev. Dr. John Charles Cox, c. 1848 to 1919', Rural History 19, 1
(2008), 81-103.
E. T. Hurren, 'Whose body is it anyway? Trading the dead poor, coroners' disputes and
the business of anatomy at Oxford University, 1885-1929', Bulletin of the History of
Medicine, 82, 4 (2008), 775-819.
E. T. Hurren, 'The business of anatomy and being poor: why have we failed to learn the
medical and poverty lessons of the past?' in A. Gestrich, S. A. King, and L. Raphael
(eds), Being Poor in Modern Europe, (Peter Lang, 2006), 352-87.
E. T. Hurren, 'Selling and buying the dead poor to train English doctors, 1870-1900',
Journal of Social Studies, (Stein Rokkan Centre), (2006), 1-16.
E. T. Hurren and S. A. King, '"Begging for a burial": form, function and conflict in
nineteenth-century pauper burial', Social History, 30, 3 (2005), 321-341.
E. T. Hurren, 'Poor Law versus Public Health: diphtheria and the challenge of the
crusade against outdoor relief to public health improvements in Victorian England, 1879-
1900', Journal of the Social History of Medicine, 28, (2005), 399-414.
Research Dissemination
Conference papers
'Women and Childbirth', keynote medical history conference paper presented at Henry
VIII and the Tudor Court 1509-2009, Hampton Court Palace, 13-15 July 2009.
'World without welfare: pauper perspectives of medical care under the late-Victorian
poor law', presented at Narratives of Poverty: English Pauper Letters 1780-1840 in
Comparative Perspective, Hagen Conference, Germany, 4-7 October 2007.
Seminar papers
'A Tale of Two Cities: Dying, Dissection, and Anatomy in London and Paris', May 2009,
EHESS, Paris – invited speaker, conference paper, and seminar.
'Whose body is it anyway? Trading the poor to train English doctors at Oxbridge, 1870-
1929'. Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, Oxford, Hilary Term, 2007.
'Anatomy and the trade in the dead poor in the Midlands, 1832-1929', Birmingham
University, School of Medicine and Medical History, Spring 2006.
Media impact
In 2009, Dr Hurren carried out the following public engagement activities:
• BBC 'Making History' on Radio 4, historical expert on the history of medicine for
the series 2008/9, produced by Nick Patrick for Pier Productions Ltd.
• Historical consultant on 'Henry VIII: 1509-2009' at Hampton Court – filming and
writing popular articles on the history of medicine – see web links:
• Historical consultant 'Henry Week' on BBC Radio 4 produced by Julian May –
see BBC iPlayer link – 'Hidden Henry, Medicine and Health', 25 th May 2009. The
programme was 'Pick of the Week' in the Guardian and had a platform audience
of 4.5 million (CD copy available).
• Historical consultant for a 'Little Neck', a play set in Henry VIII's court and
performed by the Goat and Monkey Theatre Company, staged at Hampton Court
Palace, September and October 2009, Wellcome Trust funded (£59,400).
• Keynote speaker on the History of Medicine at the 'Henry VIII and the Tudor
Court, 1509-2009', 14 th July 2009 at Hampton Court.
• Historical consultant and panel expert for '60 Minutes of Sex' Oxfordshire
Science Festival 2009, chaired by Judith Hann (formerly of 'Tomorrow's World')
in April 2009.
• Guest speaker, A Night at the Museum Event: 'Death and Dissection in Oxford',
History of Science Museum, Broad Street, Oxford, May, 2009.
• Provided historical input on Apercu Productions Ltd podcasts produced for the
History of Medicine Centre at Oxford Brookes – see web link:
Dr Peter Jones
Lecturer in the History of Medicine
Dr Jones is currently working on a number of research strands relating to demotic history
in the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, including pauper letters and other
'narratives of the poor', welfare and relief in kind (especially clothing and textiles),
popular protest and popular consciousness, and the experience of the poor in the
workhouse under the Old Poor Law.
P. Jones and S.A. King, 'The particular claim of a woman and a mother': gender,
belonging, and rights to medical relief in England 1800-1840s', in S. A. King and A.
Gestrich (eds), Narratives of Sickness and Poverty in Europe 1780-1938 (Berghahn,
'Finding Captain Swing: protest, parish relations and the state of the public mind in
1830', International Review of Social History (forthcoming, 2009).
'"I cannot keep my place without being deacent": pauper letters, parish clothing and
pragmatism in the South of England, 1750-1830', Rural History, 20 (1) 2009, 31-49.
'Swing, Speenhamland and rural social relations: the 'moral economy' of the English
crowd in the nineteenth century', Social History, 32 (3) 2007, 271-290.
'Clothing the poor in early-nineteenth-century England', Textile History, 37 (1) 2006, 7-37.
Research Dissemination
'Finding Captain Swing: the anatomy of metonymy', Captain Swing Reconsidered: forty
years of rural history from below (Southern History Society conference), Reading, 21
March 2009.
'Rethinking the workhouse as a total institution', Cultures of Institutional Welfare
Workshop, Oxford, 5 December 2008.
'Understanding Mortality in the Eighteenth-Century City: London at street level',
American Association for the History of Medicine Annual Conference, Rochester, New
York, 11 April 2008.
'Protest and the Parish: Contextualising popular protest in the early-nineteenth century',
Economic History Society Annual Conference, Nottingham, 30 March 2008.
'Rowntree Revisited: Poverty, welfare and the life-cycle in London, 1725-1824',
European Social Science History Conference, Lisbon, Portugal, 27 February 2008.
''I cannot keep my place without being deascent': playing by the rules of the 'pragmatic
parish', Narratives of Poverty: English Pauper Letters 1780-1840 in Comparative
Perspective, Hagen, Germany, 4-7 October 2007.
'Finding Captain Swing: the mythical leader and the public mind', Social History
Conference, Reading, 31 March-2 April 2006.
'The Search for Captain Swing: populism, politics and protest in early-nineteenth-century
England', Research Seminar, University of Birmingham, 22 March 2006.
'Popular Culture and the Rural Rebellion of 1830', public lecture at the Hampshire
Record Office, Winchester, November 2005.
Professor Steven King
Professor of History, Chair of the Wellcome Trust History of Medicine Grant Panel,
Assistant Dean for Resources in the School of Arts and Humanities. (From October
2009, Professor of Economic and Social History, School of Historical Studies, University
of Leicester.)
Industrialization, urban history, historical demography; material culture, health, poverty
and consumption in the eighteenth century.
Professor King's research interests are varied, spanning a range of periods, themes and
countries, but may be grouped under four broad headings:
• The history of European industrialisation, with a particular focus on the
demography and family and kinship characteristics of industrial populations
during the period 1650-1850.
• The history of British and European poverty and welfare, with a particular focus
on the regionality of welfare, the clothing of the poor, pauper letters, the
administration of relief and the experience of being poor in the period 1700-1920.
• History of medicine, with a particular focus on the medical history of industrial
England, the sick poor, narratives of sickness, the medical marketplace and
doctor-patient relationships in the period 1650-1850.
• Local history, with a particular focus on family and community history in the
period 1700-1900.
Current Research Projects
• The English sick poor, 1700-1850.
• Legal and contractual disputes and the definition of rights of patients and the
duties of doctors in eighteenth and nineteenth century England.
• Sickness narratives. Focussing initially on Britain and Europe (with partners in
Bergen, Trier, Galway, and Paris) but expanding over time to include
collaborative work with colleagues working on oral histories in South Africa and
India, this project will analyse the form, content, rhetoric and usage of sickness
narratives (letters, diaries etc).
• The meaning and experience of European mortality rates, focussing on the
tendency for the worst mortality risks to be concentrated in a narrow range of
• The Marriage patterns and experiences of the poor 1750-1850.
• The clothing of the European poor 1750-1850.
• British and European pauper letters 1800-1920.
Editor of Family and Community History
Member of the editorial board for International Journal of Regional and Local Studies
S. A. King, 'The dignity of the sick poor in English pauper letters 1810-1840', in A.
Gestrich and S. A. King (eds), The Dignity of the Poor in European Narratives 1780-
1940 (Forthcoming, Oxford University Press, 2010).
S. A. King, '"I attended him three or four times a day and sent others": The residential
and household arrangements of the English sick poor 1800-1840', in P. Sharpe and J.
McEwan (eds), Accommodating Poverty: The Households of the Poor in England,
C.1650-1850 (Palgrave, forthcoming 2010).
S. A. King, 'Too poor to marry? "Inheritance", the poor and marriage/household
formation in rural England 1800-1840s', in Anne-Lise Head-König, Péter Pozsgai and
Jürgen Schlumbohm (eds), Inheritance Practices, Marriage Strategies and Household
Formation in European Rural Societies (Brepols, 2008), pp. 23-54.
S. A. King and J. W. Stewart (eds), Welfare Peripheries (Peter Lang, 2007)
S. A. King, 'Friendship, kinship and belonging in the letters of urban paupers 1800-1840',
Historical Social Research, 33 (2008), 249-77.
R. Dyson and S. A. King, '"The streets are paved with idle beggars": Experiences and
perceptions of beggars in nineteenth century Oxford', in B. Althammer (ed.), Bettler in
Der Modernen Stadt (Peter Lang, 2007), pp. 71-102.
S. A. King and J. W. Stewart, 'Introduction: Making and unmaking the welfare
peripheries', in S. A. King and J. W. Stewart (eds), Welfare Peripheries (Peter Lang,
2007), pp. 1-42.
S. A. King, 'Regional patterns in the experiences and treatment of the sick poor, 1800-
40: Rights, obligations and duties in the rhetoric of paupers', Family and Community
History, 10 (2007), 61-75.
S. A. King, 'Accessing drugs in the eighteenth-century regions', in L. Curth (ed.), From
Physick to Pharmacology: Five Centuries of British Drug Retailing (Ashgate, 2006), pp.
S. A. King, T. Nutt and A. Tomkins, Voices of the Poor: Poor Law Depositions and
Letters, as Volume 1 of Narratives of the Poor in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Pickering
and Chatto, 2006)
A. Gestrich, S. A. King and L. Raphael (eds) Being Poor in Modern Europe (Peter Lang,
S. A.King, 'Pauvreté et assistance. La politique locale de la mortalité dans l'Angleterre
des XVIII e et XIX e siècles', Annales Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 61, 1 (2006), 31-62.
E. T. Hurren and S. A.King, '"Begging for a burial": form, function and conflict in
nineteenth-century pauper burial', Social History, 30, 3 (2005), 321-341.
Research Dissemination
Professor King has presented his research at numerous conferences and
meetings both nationally and internationally. Recent destinations have
included Bergen, Hagen, Trier, Salzburg, Glasgow, London, Leicester,
Dublin, Bologna, Budapest, Paris, Amsterdam and Vienna.
Dr Alysa Levene
Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History
• Child health, welfare and mortality
• Poverty and illegitimacy in the eighteenth century
• Pauper apprenticeship
• Child abandonment in early modern Europe
Dr Levene's research focuses on the health and welfare of poor children in early modern
Europe. Her monograph, Childcare, health and mortality at the London Foundling
Hospital, 1741-1800: 'Left to the mercy of the world' (Manchester University Press,
2007) is an examination of the survival prospects and rearing of infants abandoned to an
institution in eighteenth-century London. She is currently working on a project analysing
the different ways poor children and their families could access welfare support in early
modern London. Her interests cover wet-nursing, medicine and hospital care,
workhouses, the structure of poor families, and the way that children were treated by
charity and poor law officials.
She has also published on the mortality implications of poverty and illegitimacy among
poor infants in London, on pauper apprenticeship, and on the history of poverty in the
eighteenth century.
Member of Local Population Studies editorial board, and book reviews editor since
January 2008.
'Between less eligibility and the NHS: the changing
place of poor law hospitals in England and Wales,
1929-1939', Twentieth Century British History, 20
(2009), 322-345.
'Honesty, sobriety and diligence': master-apprentice
relations in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
England', Social History, 33, 2 (2008), 183-200.
'Children, childhood and the workhouse: St
Marylebone, 1769-81', London Journal 33, 1 (2008),
Levene, Childcare, Health and Mortality at the
London Foundling Hospital, 1741-1800: 'Left to the
Mercy of the World' (Manchester University Press,
'Can you catch smallpox from hospital records?
Avoiding the plague in archives on health', Society
of Archivists newsletter, (June 2007).
'Saving the innocents: nursing foundlings in Florence and London in the eighteenth
century', in J. Henderson, P. Horden and A. Pastore, (eds), The Impact of Hospitals,
300-2000 (Peter Lang, 2007), 375-94.
'The survival prospects of European foundlings in the eighteenth century: the London
Foundling Hospital and the Spedale degli Innocenti of Florence', Popolazione e Storia, 2
(2006) 61-83.
'William Cadogan: an eighteenth-century common-sense guide to childcare', History
Today (November 2006), 30-36.
Levene (general editor), Narratives of the poor in eighteenth century Britain, (Pickering
and Chatto, April 2006), and editor of Volume 3, Institutional responses: the London
Foundling Hospital.
'Family breakdown and the 'welfare child' in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain',
History of the Family 11 (2006), 67-79.
'What can Dade registers tell us about infant mortality in the later eighteenth century?',
Local Population Studies, 76 (Spring 2006), 31-42.
Research Dissemination
Organiser: symposium 'Health and Philanthropy in Early Modern Europe', Oxford
Brookes University, 18 May 2009.
Conference papers
'"Excluded for their own good?" Children and workhouses in eighteenth-century London',
Social History Annual Conference, University of Warwick, 3-5 April 2009.
'Nurture versus the law: poor children, their families and the laws of settlement in late
Old Poor Law London', Urban History Group Annual Conference, 2-3 April 2009.
'Medical care for children in London workhouses', Symposium on Medicine and the
Workhouse, University of Birmingham, November 2008.
'The Scientific study of childcare at the London Foundling Hospital in the eighteenth
century', 'Sick of London' conference, organised by the Society of Archivists, London
Metropolitan Archive, October 2008.
'Medical charity, family and the locus of care in eighteenth-century England', Annual
Conference of the Voluntary Action History Society, University of Liverpool, July 2008.
'Healthcare for poor children in eighteenth-century London', Child Health in its Historical
Context, Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland, University of Ulster, May 2008.
'Religion, health and welfare: abandoned babies in eighteenth-century Europe'. Seminar
paper, Glasgow Caledonian University, November 2007.
'Pauper apprenticeship and the Old Poor Law in eighteenth-century London', North
American Conference on British Studies, Nov 2007, San Francisco.
'Feeding and childcare in foundling hospitals', Rank Prize Fund Symposium on infant
nutrition, October 2007, Windermere.
'Child fostering and the London Foundling Hospital in eighteenth century England',
Network for Early European Research Conference, July 2007, University of Western
Australia, Perth.
'Children as out-patients in the eighteenth century' (and panel convenor, 'Child health
and medicine before paediatrics'), "In the Name of the Child", The Social and Cultural
History of Children and Youth, June 2007, Linköping University, Norrköping, Sweden.
'Pauper apprenticeship, the industrial economy, and the Old Poor Law in London',
Economic History Society annual conference, March/April 2007, University of Exeter.
'Civic pride, urban networks and poor children: the foundling hospitals in London and
Florence in the later eighteenth century', European Association of Urban History's
International Conference on Urban History, Institute of Urban History, Stockholm, August
'The Foundling Hospital of London and the Innocenti of Florence: Some Comparisons',
Social Science History Association conference, Amsterdam, March 2006.
'Foundling children and their health in town and country in the eighteenth century', Local
Population Studies Society annual conference, University of Hertfordshire, April 2006.
'Fostering, feeding and foundlings in four eighteenth-century English parishes',
Economic History Society annual conference, University of Reading, March 2006.
'William Cadogan: an eighteenth-century common-sense guide to childcare', Royal
College of Paediatrics and Child Health annual conference, University of York, March
Dr Anna Maerker
Senior Lecturer in the History of Medicine
Material culture of medicine and
science in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries; anatomical
models; collections and museums; the
history of expertise.
Dr Maerker's research focus is on the
material and visual culture of medicine
and science in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. In particular, she
is interested in the role of collections,
museums, and models, for the
circulation of knowledge and for the
articulation of scientific and medical
Auzoux factory painting workshop, 1897
Current Projects
• The commercial production and circulation of anatomical models, ca. 1800-1914.
• A book on anatomical models and expertise around 1800; articles on models and
popular culture in Enlightenment Vienna, on expertise and welfare reform in lateeighteenth-century
Bavaria, and on the global marketing and circulation of
anatomical models in the nineteenth century.
'"Turpentine hides everything": Autonomy and organization in anatomical model
production for the state in late eighteenth-century Florence', History of Science, 45, 3
(2007), 257-286.
'The anatomical models of La Specola: Production, uses, and reception', Nuncius:
Journal of the History of Science, 21, 2 (2006), 295-321.
'The tale of the hermaphrodite monkey: The "taxonomist's regress", state interests and
natural historical expertise between museum and court in late-eighteenth-century
Tuscany', British Journal for the History of Science, 39, 1 (2006), 29-47.
'Uses and publics of the anatomical model collections of La Specola, Florence, and the
Josephinum, Vienna, around 1800', in Marco Beretta (ed.), From Private to Public.
Natural Collections and Museums (Nantucket: Science History Publications 2005), pp.
'Mechanistische Konzepte, 'virtual witnessing' und die Funktion von Öffentlichkeit in der
Wohlfahrtsmaschine Rumfords', in Volker Hess, Eric Engstrom, Ulrike Thoms (eds),
Figurationen des Experten: Ambivalenzen der wissenschaftlichen Expertise im
ausgehenden 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2005), pp. 191-
Research Dissemination
Congress 'The Body: Simulacra and Simulation – models, prosthetics and interventions',
European Association of Museums of the History of Medical Sciences, Edinburgh:
'Circulating anatomies: the production and distribution of anatomical models in
comparative perspective' (September 2008).
European Society for the History of Science, biannual meeting, Vienna: 'Artistic or
accurate? Anatomical models between craft and mass production' (September 2008).
Three Societies Meeting: Joint meeting of BSHS, CSHPS, HSS, Oxford: 'Consumption
as participation? The commercial production and uses of anatomical models in
comparative perspective' (July 2008).
Workshop 'Anatomy and Wax', Medical University of Vienna: 'Trouble in Monkeyland:
models, satire, and professional identity at the Josephinum' (June 2007).
Annual meeting of the HSS, Minneapolis: 'The wrong toy for the job: Anatomical models
between education and entertainment in late-eighteenth-century Vienna', (November
Dr Timothy J. McHugh
Wellcome Trust Researcher/Lecturer in the History of Medicine
History of early modern France; French medicine and rural peasants.
Dr McHugh has researched the social and administrative history of hospitals for both the
sick and able-bodied poor in Early Modern France. His research on such institutions has
focussed on three themes:
• the relationship between elites and the poor in urban institutions;
• the medicalisation of hospitals for the sick poor during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries; and
• re-evaluating the role played by the state in the creation of institutions of social
Dr McHugh is undertaking research into the social value of medicine and of medical
practitioners in rural society in France during the Ancien Régime, using the province of
Brittany as a region of study. His research addresses how both learned and popular
forms of medicine were perceived by all levels of rural society from aristocratic landlords
to the poor. The study assesses the relationship between medicine, social welfare,
religion and popular culture in a rural context. A fundamental aim of the project is to
assess the importance placed on the provisioning of medical charity by those who held
seigneurial authority over villages as part of their efforts to fulfil their religious obligations
and to exert social control on their estates. The early part of the research has revealed
the significant role played by charity in the provisioning of medical services to rural
communities in Brittany between 1598 and 1789, furthering our knowledge of the degree
of medicalisation of society during the period.
Charity and Medicine in Rural Brittany, 1532-1789
(Ashgate Press, forthcoming 2010/2011).
'State, seigneurs and sickness', English Historical
Review, (forthcoming 2010).
'Parish priests as medical agents in 18th Century
Brittany', Bulletin of the History of Medicine
(forthcoming 2010).
'Women's rural medical work in Early Modern Brittany',
Journal of the History of Medicine, (forthcoming 2010).
'Creating charitable networks in rural Brittany, 1600-
1789', French Historical Studies, (Special Issue,
forthcoming 2010).
Hospital Politics in Seventeenth-Century France (Ashgate Press, History of Medicine in
Context Series, 2007)
'Establishing medical Men at the Paris Hôtel-Dieu, 1500-1715', Social History of
Medicine, 19, 2 (2006), 209-224.
Dr Glen O'Hara
Senior Lecturer in Modern History
Modern economic and social history since the First World War, with particular regard to
British governments' policies in those policy areas. Britons' engagement with the
maritime world.
Dr O'Hara is primarily interested in British central governments' economic and social
policies, focusing especially on the period since the First World War. In 2007 he
released a book about British economic and social planning in the 1960s; an edited
collection about the Wilson governments of those years was published by Routledge in
2006. His next book will be a study of Britons and the maritime world. It is entitled 'A Star
to Steer By': Britain and the Sea since 1600, and will be published late in 2009.
Current projects
International policy and research networks in the post-Second War era; British views of
other countries' economic and social policies; 'Britain and the sea since 1600'.
Articles on statistics and statistical reform; public opinion polling; the creation of the
'Ombudsman' or Parliamentary Commissioner; a broader, synthetic, study of maritime
Britain since 1600.
History Editor for Reinvention, an online, peer-reviewed journal published through the
Reinvention Centre for Undergraduate Research, a collaborative Centre for Excellence
in Teaching and Learning based at the University of Warwick and Oxford Brookes
'Attempts to "modernise": nationalisation and the nationalised industries in post-war
Britain', in F. Amatori, R. Millward and P. A. Toninelli (eds), Re-Appraising State-Owned
Enterprise: A Comparison (London: Routledge, forthcoming, 2011).
"This is what growth does": British views of the European economies in the prosperous
"Golden Age" of 1951-1973', Journal of Contemporary History, 44 (2009), forthcoming.
'"The sea is swinging into view": modern British maritime history in a globalised world',
English Historical Review CXXIV (2009), forthcoming.
'"What the electorate can be expected to swallow": nationalisation, transnationalism and the
shifting boundaries of the state in post-war Britain', Business History, 51, 4 (2009), 1-28.
(With Niall Ferguson, Harvard University), 'Do Not Count on the Tories Winning Just
Yet', Financial Times, 29 June 2009.
'The Anglo-American loan agreement of 1945', MSN Online Encyclopedia 2009.
'The intellectuals' ideal: British views of Scandinavia in the 1950s and 1960s', in Jan
Eivind Myhre (ed.), Intellectuals and the Public Sphere: Britain and Scandinavia since
the Second World War (Oslo: Oslo University Press, 2008), pp. 91-122.
'"Applied socialism of a fairly moderate kind": Scandinavia, British policymakers and the
post-war housing market', Scandinavian Journal of History 33, 1 (2008), 1-25.
From Dreams to Disillusionment: Economic and Social Planning in 1960s Britain
(Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007).
'Towards a new Bradshaw: economic statistics and the British state in the 1950s and
1960s', Economic History Review 60, 1 (2007), 1-34.
(With Dr. Helen Parr, Keele University), The Modernisation of Britain? Harold Wilson and
the British Labour Governments of 1964-1970 (London: Routledge, 2006). This volume
has also been published as a special issue of Contemporary British History 20, 3
(September 2006).
'Social democratic space: the politics of building in "Golden Age" Britain, c.1950-1973',
Architectural Research Quarterly 10, 3/4 (2006), 285-90.
'"Dynamic, exciting, thrilling change": the Wilson Government's economic policy 1964-
1970', Contemporary British History 20, 3 (2006), 383-402.
'Living with the neighbours?: The New Cambridge Economic History of Britain and the
renovation of economic history', English Historical Review 121, 490 (2006), 183-89.
'A journey without maps: the regional policies of the British Labour Government of 1964-
1970', Regional Studies 39, 9 (2005), 1183-96.
Research Dissemination
Organiser. 'Health Care and the People', Glasgow Caledonian University, January 2009.
'From Planning to Participation: Envisioning the NHS, c.1962-c.1974', Glasgow
Caledonian Centre for the History of Medicine Seminar Series, 'Healthcare in Theory
and Practice in Twentieth Century Britain', Glasgow, November 2008.
Organiser. 'Numbers, Norms and the People: Statistics and the Public Sphere in Modern
Britain', Oxford Brookes University, September 2008.
'Attempts to Reform and Modernise Britain's State-Owned Enterprises and
Manufacturing Industries, 1951-1979', Fondazione Instituto per la Riconstruzione
Industriale Conference on State-Owned Enterprise, Rome, May 2008.
'Numbers, Experts and Ideas: International Organisations, International Surveys and
Perceptions of the Outside World in Britain, c.1950-1970', Economic History Society
Annual Conference, Exeter, March 2007.
'Britain Loses Confidence in Itself: Turning Towards the Scandinavian Example in the
1950s and 1960s', University of Oslo Forum for Contemporary History Seminar, Oslo,
November 2006.
'Social Democratic Space: The Politics of Building in "Golden Age" Britain, c.1950c.1973',
Architectural Humanities Research Association International Conference on the
Politics of Making, Oxford, November 2006.
'The Intellectuals' Ideal: British Views of Scandinavia in the 1950s and 1960s', University
of Oxford Modern European History Research Centre/ University of Oslo Forum for
Contemporary History Workshop, Oxford, May 2006.
Member, Advisory Committee, UK National Archives Cabinet papers Digitisation Project
Dr Viviane Quirke
RCUK Academic Fellow in Twentieth-Century Biomedicine
History of science, technology and medicine in Britain and France in the twentieth
century, with a special focus on the history of drug discovery and the pharmaceutical
Current Projects
• As part of her RCUK Fellowship Dr Quirke is currently working on the history of
company-hospital relations in Britain, France and the US, with particular interest
in the development of cancer chemotherapy.
• She is engaged in a British Council/Alliance Française Partnership Programme
with Jonathan Simon and Floriane Blanc in the University of Lyon 1 to study the
history of diphtheria antitoxin in Britain and France.
• She is a member of the ESF 'Drugs' Research Networking Programme, and cochair
of the working group on 'Cardiovascular Diseases and Cancer' with Carsten
Timmermann (CHSTM, Manchester).
• She is also working on a number of books and articles, based on her recent
Wellcome-Trust funded project (see below).
Recent Research
• In 2006-7 Dr Quirke carried out research on the archives of the Burroughs
Wellcome Co. with Professor Roy Church for a project funded by the Wellcome
• Between 2003 and 2006 she was engaged in a post-doctoral research project
funded by the Wellcome Trust. This was on the history of the development of
drug treatments for chronic diseases in Britain and France, focussing mainly on
the post-war research programmes of two pharmaceutical companies: ICI
Pharmaceuticals in Britain, and Rhône-Poulenc in France.
Editor of the Newsletter of the Historical Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry since
'The standardisation of pharmaceutical R&D in the second half of the twentieth century:
ICI's Nolvadex Development Programme in historical and comparative perspective', in
C. Bonah and A. Rasmussen (eds), Drug Standards, Standard Drugs (Paris: Glyphe,
forthcoming 2009).
V .M. Quirke and Judy Slinn (eds), Perspectives on 20th-century Pharmaceuticals (Peter
Lang, forthcoming 2009).
'Les relations franco-britanniques et l'industrie pharmaceutique: une perspective
internationale sur l'histoire de Rhône-Poulenc', Cahiers d'histoire et de philosophie des
sciences (forthcoming 2009).
'Drug discovery', in Akira Irive and Pierre Yves
Saunier (eds) Dictionary of Transnational History
(Palgrave, 2009).
'Anglo-American relations and the co-production
of American "hegemony" in pharmaceuticals', in
H. Bonin and F. de Goey (eds), American Firms in
Europe (Geneva, Droz, 2009), pp. 363-84.
'The material culture of British pharmaceutical
laboratories in the golden age of drug discovery',
International Journal for the History of Engineering
and Technology, 72 (2009), 298-317.
V. Quirke and J. P. Gaudillière, 'The Era of
biomedicine: science, medicine and public health
in Britain and France after World War Two',
special issue of Medical History, 52, 4 (2008),
Collaboration in the Pharmaceutical Industry:
changing relationships in Britain and France,
1935-1965 (London/New York, Routledge,
October 2007).
'From chemistry to pharmaceuticals, and from pharmaceuticals to biotechnology: the
many transformations of ICI in the twentieth century', in I. Malaquias, E, Hombrurg and
M. E. Callapez (eds), Chemistry, Technology and Society, (Lisbon: Sociedade
Portuguesa de Quìmica, 2006).
'Putting theory into practice: James Black, receptor theory, and the development of the
beta-blockers at ICI', Medical History, 50, 1 (2006), 69-92.
'Chemistry and the pharmaceutical industry', Ambix, 53 (2006), 167-171.
Research Dissemination
Organiser.'Treating the heart, treating cancer: medicines and the standardization of
chronic disease', ESF-funded workshop to be held at Manchester University, Nov.-Dec.
'Developing penicillin, patenting cephalosporin, and transforming biomedical research in
Britain: the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford, 1930s-1970s' ('Living
Properties' Workshop, Max Planck Institute Preprint, Berlin, in press).
'From antibiotics to cancer chemotherapy: the transformation of Rhône-Poulenc in the
era of biomedicine' (ESF Antibiotics workshop preprint, Madrid, 16-18 June 2009).
Organised. Joint Oxford University, Maison Française d'Oxford, and Oxford Brookes
University History of Chemistry Seminar Series: 'Mastering Nature? Chemistry in History'
(Trinity 2008, Trinity 2009).
Organised workshop, 'Cancer and innovation. How to deal with cancer? Cancer,
innovation and politics', Maison Française d'Oxford, 4 Feb. 2009.
'The impact of Thalidomide on the British pharmaceutical industry: the case of Imperial
Chemical Industries', in J.-P. Gaudillière and V. Hess (eds), Ways of Regulating:
therapeutic agents between plants, shops, and consulting rooms (Max Planck Institute
Preprint 363, Berlin, 2009), pp. 125-41.
'Foreign influences, and the creation of a modern pharmaceutical industry in Britain and
France in the first half of the twentieth century' (proceedings of the 3rd conference of the
European Society for the History of Science, Vienna, Austria, September 2008,
forthcoming in 2009).
Organiser: 'Pharmaceutical styles of thinking and doing: French and British spheres of
influence in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries', session for 3 rd Conference of
the European Society for the History of Science, Vienna, Austria, 9-13 Sept. 2008.
Organiser: 'The Importance of Place: connecting disciplines in and around Oxford',
session for Three Societies meeting (Joint meeting of BSHS, CSHPS, HSS), Oxford
University, 4-6 July 2008.
Dr Marius Turda
RCUK Academic Fellow in 20th Century Central and Eastern European Bio-Medicine
History of eugenics, racism and biopolitics from around 1800 to 1945, with a particular
emphasis on Central and Southeastern Europe.
Dr. Turda's main research interests can be summarised in three interrelated groups:
1. Bio-Medicine and Political Ideologies (comparative history of race, social
Darwinism and nationalism; comparative history of eugenics and racial
2. Modernist Projects of Racial Regeneration (theories of ethnic specificity and
national character; ethnic utopias).
3. Historiography and Theories of History in Eastern and Central Europe
Current projects
Founder and member of the international 'Working Group on the History of Racial
Sciences and Biomedicine in Central and Southeast Europe (19th and 20th Centuries)'
based at Oxford Brookes University.
Member of the Editorial Board (Political Religions) of Religion Compass (see,
Modernism and Eugenics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming).
A Healthy Nation: Eugenics, Race and Biopolitics in Hungary, 1904-1944 (Budapest:
Central European University Press, forthcoming).
(with Robert Pyrah) Minority, Marginality, Periphery: Culture and Identity in East and
Central Europe (Oxford: Legenda, forthcoming).
(with Christian Promitzer and Sevasti Trubeta) Hygiene, Health and Eugenics in
Southeastern Europe to 1945 (Budapest: Central European University Press,
(with Diana Mishkova) Anti-Modernism: Radical Revisions of Collective Identity
'History of medicine in Eastern Europe, including Russia', in Mark Jackson (ed.), The
Oxford Handbook of the History of Medicine (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
forthcoming 2010).
'Academic history writing in the Balkans to 1945', in Juan Maiguaschca, Stuart Macintyre
and Attila Pok (eds), vol. IV, The Oxford History of Historical Writing (forthcoming).
'Controlling the national body: ideas of racial purification in interwar Romania', in
Christian Promitzer, Sevasti Trubeta and Marius Turda, (eds), Hygiene, Health and
Eugenics in Southeastern Europe to 1945 (forthcoming).
'Rasse, Eugenik und Nationalismus in Rumänien während der 1940er Jahre', in Brigitte
Mihok (ed.), Völkermord in Transnistrien, 1941-1944. Deportation, Rettung und
Erinnerung (forthcoming).
'Race, science and eugenics in the twentieth century', in Alison Bashford and Phillipa
Levine (eds), The Handbook of the History of Eugenics (forthcoming).
'"To end the degeneration of a nation": debates on eugenic sterilization in interwar
Romania', Medical History, 53, 1 (2009), 77-104.
'The biology of war: eugenics in Hungary, 1914-1918', Austrian History Yearbook, XL
'National Historiographies in the Balkans, 1830-1989', in Stefan Berger and Chris Lorenz
(eds), The Contested Nation: Ethnicity, Class, Religion and Gender in National Histories
(Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008), pp. 463-489.
'Conservative palingenesis and cultural modernism in early twentieth-century Romania',
in M. Feldman and M. Turda (eds) Clerical Fascism' in Interwar Europe (Oxford:
Routledge, 2008).
Eugenism si antropologia rasiala in Romania, 1874-1944 (2008).
'Recent scholarship on race and eugenics', The Historical Journal, 51, 4 (2008), 1115-
'Politics, religion, gender and historiography: Eastern European perspectives',
Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 9, 1 (2008), 129-136.
'Focus on social history of medicine in Central and Eastern Europe', Social History of
Medicine, 21, 2 (2008), 395-401.
(with Paul Weindling) 'Blood and Homeland':
Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and
Southeast Europe, 1900-1940 (Budapest:
Central European University Press, 2007).
'Eugenics, race and nation in Central and
Southeast Europe, 1900-1940: a historiographic
overview', in Marius Turda and Paul Weindling
(eds), 'Blood and Homeland': Eugenics and
Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeast
Europe, 1900-1940 (Central European University
Press, 2007), pp. 1-22.
'The first debates on eugenics in Hungary,
1910-1918', in Marius Turda and Paul Weindling
(eds), 'Blood and Homeland': Eugenics and
Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeast
Europe, 1900-1940 (Central European University
Press, 2007), pp. 185-221.
'Victor Babeş', 'Ioan Cantacuzino', 'Gheorghe Marinescu', 'Mihai Ciucă', in W. F. and
Helen Bynum (eds), Dictionary of Medical Biography, vol. 1 (A-B), vol. 2 (C-G), vol. 4 (M-
R) (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2007), pp. 141-142; 303-304; 349-350; and 848-849.
'From craniology to serology: racial anthropology in interwar Hungary and Romania',
Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences, 43, 3 (Fall 2007), 361-377.
'Race, politics and nationalist Darwinism in Hungary, 1880-1918', 'Ab Imperio' Quarterly:
Studies of New Imperial History and Nationalism in the Post-Soviet Space, 1 (2007),
'The nation as object: race, blood and biopolitics in interwar Romania', Slavic Review,
66, 3 (Fall 2007), 413-441.
'Craniometry and racial identity in interwar Transylvania', Anuarul Institutului de Istorie
'George Barit', Cluj Napoca, XLV (2006), 161-172.
'Heredity and eugenic thought in early twentieth-century Hungary', Orvostörténeti
Közleméney. Communicationes de Historia Artis Medicinae, 52,1-2 (2006), 101-118.
'"A New Religion": eugenics and racial scientism in pre-World War I Hungary',
Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 7, 3 (2006), 303-325.
'New Perspectives on Romanian Fascism: Themes and Options', Totalitarian
Movements and Political Religions, 6, 1 (2005), 143-150.
Reviews have been published in: Social History of Medicine, Totalitarian Movements
and Political Religions, Patterns of Prejudice, Bulletin of the History of Medicine,
American Historical Review, Historical Journal, and Journal of the History of Medicine
and Allied Sciences.
Research Dissemination
Keynote paper on 'Ethnic Modernism and Scientific Nationalism: Reflections on
Biopolitics in Interwar Romania', Romanian Studies Graduate Student Conference,4
March 2008, Indiana University, Bloomington.
XVIth International Conference, Council for European Studies at Columbia University, 6-
8 March 2008, Chicago. Paper presented 'Anthropology in Contested Territories:
Transylvania, 1918-1944'.
Organiser together with Sonia Horn of the international conference 'Medicine within and
between the Empires (Habsburg and Ottoman)', Medical University of Vienna,
Josephinum, 20-2 November 2008.
Organiser together with Magdalena Gawin of the international conference, 'Eugenics,
Modernisation and Biopolitics', the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Science
Warsaw, 18-19 April 2008. Paper presented: 'Eugenic Sterilisation in Hungary, 1904-
Organiser together with Tudor Georgescu and Chris Davis of the international
conference, 'Greater Romania's National Projects: Ideological Dilemmas, Ethnic
Classification, and Political Instrumentalisation of Ethnic Identities', Oxford Brookes
University, 10-13 April 2008.
Organiser together with Christos Papadopoulos of the international symposium
'Medicine in the Balkans: Ideas and Practice to 1945', The Wellcome Trust Centre for
the History of Medicine at UCL, 24-25 January 2008.
'Hygiene-Health Politics-Eugenics: Engineering Society in Twentieth Century
Southeastern Europe', 31 May-2 June 2007, Freie Universität Berlin. Paper presented
'Eugenic Sterilisation in Romania, 1914-1937'.
'Crises as Opportunities in Interwar Health?', University of Granda, 27-28 April 2007.
Paper presented 'Eugenics and Public Health in Interwar Romania'.
Organiser together with Sevati Trubeta (Osteuropa Institut der Freien Universität Berlin)
and Christian Promitzer (Karl-Franzens Universität Graz, Institut für
Geschichte/Abteilung für Südosteuropäische Geschichte) of the international conference
on 'Hygiene - Health Politics- Eugenics: Engineering Society in Twentieth-century
Southeastern Europe', Osteuropa Institut der Freien Universität Berlin, 31 May - 2 June
'Social Medicine, Medical Geography and Health Care for Indigenous Peoples: "Ethnic
Pathology" (Max Kuczynski, 1925) in Germany, Russia, Latin America and beyond',
Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, 24-26 November 2006. Paper presented 'Rural
Biology in Interwar Romania: A Peripheral Case in Ethnic Pathology?'.
Organiser together with Matt Feldman of the conference, 'Clerical Fascism in Interwar
Europe', Oxford Brookes University, 7-9 April 2006.
Co-founder and convenor of a new seminar series on Central Europe held at the
University of Oxford.
Dr Katherine Watson
Lecturer in the History of Medicine since 1500
History of crime in Britain; Western forensic
medicine and science in the post-medieval
Katherine D. (Cassie) Watson was awarded her
DPhil in 1994 for a thesis which investigated the
role of scientific expertise in the late Victorian
period. The theme of 'expertise' recurs in her
current work, which focuses on topics where
medicine, crime and the law intersect. Her main
areas of research are:
• The history of crime in Britain since the
early 18th century (especially a) criminal
poisoning and related offences and, b)
child murder), with a particular emphasis
on the gender and social background of
victims and perpetrators, the responses
of the legal system, investigative
practices, and regional variations in
these trends.
• The history of medicine in post-1700
Britain, particularly the development of
forensic medicine and the careers of its
• The history of chemistry post-1750,
especially in relation to toxicology and
forensic techniques.
Dr Watson is continuing her work on poisoning crimes in the form of a series of detailed
case studies, and is developing a major comparative project (jointly with Anne-Marie
Kilday, Principal Lecturer in History) on child murder in Britain circa 1700-1914. She is
currently working on a new project, funded by the Wellcome Trust: 'Medicine and
Justice: medico-legal practice in England and Wales 1700-1914'. She organised an
international conference on the history of violence, which took place in Oxford in July
2005: '"Assaulting the Past": Placing Violence in Historical Context'.
Managing Editor & Editorial Board Member, Crimes and Misdemeanours; Deviance and
the law in historical perspective (e-journal).
K. D. Watson and Philip Wexler, 'History of toxicology', in P. Wexler (ed.), Information
Resources in Toxicology, 4th ed. (Sandiego and London: Elsevier, 2009), pp. 11-29.
Inquest at Tilehurst, Berkshire, 1817:
diagram by surgeon Widdows Golding
K. D. Watson, 'Is a burn a wound? Medico-legal aspects of the crime of vitriol throwing',
in I. Goold and C. Kelly (eds), Lawyer's Medicine: The Legislature, the Courts and
Medical Practice, 1760-200 (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2009), pp. 61-78.
R. J. Flanagan and K. D. Watson, 'A petition to Mr. Peel: Gideon Mantell and the trial of
Hannah Russell', Medicine, Science and Law, 49/3 (2009), 1-17.
K. D. Watson, 'Religion, community and the infanticidal mother: evidence from 1840s
rural Wiltshire', Family and Community History, 11 (2008), 116-33. This article appears
in a special issue of the journal, co-edited by A-M. Kilday and K. D. Watson, on the
theme of 'Infanticide, Religion and Community in the British Isles, 1720-1920' - see the
Introduction pp.84-99.
M. C. Usselman, D. G. Leaist and K. D. Watson, 'Dalton's disputed nitric oxide
experiments and the origins of his atomic theory', ChemPhysChem, 9 (2008), 106-10.
K. D. Watson, 'Introduction' and 'Serial homicide and civilization' in Assaulting the Past:
Violence and Civilization in Historical Context (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007),
pp. 1-17, 286-303.
K. D. Watson, 'Response – "Moral Pestilence": same-sex criminal cases in mid-Victorian
England', in George S. Rousseau (ed.), Children and Sexuality: the Greeks to the Great
War (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 200-05.
K. D. Watson (ed.), Assaulting the Past: Violence and Civilization in Historical Context
(Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007).
K. D. Watson, Crime Archive: Dr Crippen (The National Archives, 2007).
K. D. Watson, 'Criminal poisoning in England and the origins of the Marsh test for
arsenic', in J. R. Bertomeu-Sanchez and A. Nieto-Galan (eds), Chemistry, Medicine and
Crime: Mateu J. B. Orfila and His Times (Science History Publications, 2006), pp. 183-
K. D. Watson, 'Medical and chemical expertise in English trials for criminal poisoning,
1750-1914', Medical History, 50 (2006), 373-90.
Research Dissemination
Consultant on 'Thomas Nash and infanticide' for Crime Secrets, ITV Wales, October
Organiser of a session on 'Women and Violence in the British Isles' for an international
conference on Women and Crime in Britain and North America since 1500, Lyon, 12-13
September 2008.
'Women, violence and the criminal law in Wales, 1730-1900', Women and Crime in
Britain and North America Conference, Lyon, 12-13 September 2008.
Consultant on 'Seddon' and 'forensic medicine' for Forensic Casebook, ITV London, July
'Serial Homicide in Twentieth Century Britain', The Bishopsgate Institute, 5 April, 2008.
'Losing face: vitriol throwing, shame and stigma in Britain, 1820-1900', European Social
Science History Conference, Lisbon, February 2008.
Consultant on 'Crippen' and 'Seddon' for The Crime Museum, Brighter Pictures,
Endemol UK, January 2008.
'Before CSI: Crime, Medicine and Science in History', Cherwell School, Oxford, 12
March 2008; Newcastle Science Festival, 17 March 2007; Reading University Café
Scientifique, 27 February 2007.
'Medicine and justice: medico-legal practice in 18th and 19th century England and
Wales', British Society of Criminology Conference, September 2007.
Consultant on poisons and poisoners for Scarlet Television series in preparation for the
History Channel, August 2006.
Organiser of a session on 'Child Murder in North-Atlantic Europe, 1700-1900' for the
European Social Science History Conference, Amsterdam, 22-25 March 2006.
'Crimes of the blackest dye? Judicial responses to child murder in England and Wales,
1700-1900', European Social Science History Conference, Amsterdam, 22-25 March
Professor Paul Weindling
Wellcome Trust Research Professor in the History of Medicine
History of eugenics; public health organization; twentieth century disease patterns.
Professor Paul Weindling's research covers evolution and society, public health, and
human experimentation post-1800. He has especial interests in eugenics, human
experiments, corporate philanthropies like the Rockefeller Foundation, and medical
refugees. Research in progress is as follows:
1. Arising from research on Nazi medical war crimes and the origins of informed
consent, he is trying to establish how many victims of Nazi human experiments
there were, and who they were. The aim is to establish a comprehensive analysis
for reference purposes.
2. European Medical Refugees in Great Britain, 1930s to 50s. This research is
based on a database of nearly 4,800 medical refugees, as well as textual
archives held in the Centre. The aim is to evaluate the place of the refugees in
the overall context of the modernisation of British medicine. The records cover
medical researchers, medical practitioners, dental surgeons, psychoanalysts,
psychologists, nurses, and all other health-related occupations. Children are
included who came as refugees to the UK.
3. International Health in the Twentieth Century. This project examines the shift
from international sanitary agreements to major organisations for international
health. The Rockefeller Foundation played a key role in the interwar period, and
raises controversies concerning imperialism and the social implications of
professionalisation. A crucial issue is the extent that international organisations
were expected to be subservient to governments or whether they could take
autonomous initiatives.
4. Eugenics as an International Movement. This study considers the origins of
eugenics as an organised movement on an international basis. Particular
attention is paid to the spread of eugenics societies and their membership, and to
the support for eugenics of philanthropists and foundations.
5. "Sage of Anxiety". This is a biographical project on the remarkable life of John
West Thompson. This confronts the issue of medical science in the post-
Holocaust era.
(with Volker Roelcke and Louise Westwood, eds), Psychiatry in Transition: German,
British and United States Psychiatry in Comparative Perspective (Rochester NY:
Rochester University Press, forthcoming 2010).
'Alien psychiatrists. Britain and its psychiatric refugees 1933-45', in Louise Westwood,
Paul Weindling and Volker Roelcke (eds), Psychiatry in Transition: German, British and
United States Psychiatry in Comparative Perspective (Rochester, NY: Rochester
University Press, forthcoming 2010).
John W. Thompson, Psychiatrist in the Shadow of the Holocaust (Rochester, NY:
Rochester University Press, forthcoming 2009).
'German eugenics and the wider world', in Alison Bashford and Philippa Levine (eds), The
Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics (New York: Oxford University Press,
'A city regenerated: eugenics, race and welfare in interwar Vienna', in Deborah Holmes
and Lisa Silverman (eds), Interwar Vienna: Culture between Tradition and Modernity
(New York: Camden House, forthcoming 2009).
'Regenerating Mitteleuropa: methodological and theoretical reflections on eugenics,
hygiene and health politics in Central and Southeast Europe', in Christian Promitzer,
Marius Turda, Sevasti Trubeta (eds), Hygiene – Health Politics / Eugenics: Engineering
Society in Twentieth-century Southeastern Europe (Budapest: Central European
University Press, forthcoming).
'The extraordinary career of the virologist Eugen Haagen', in Marion Hulverscheidt and
Anja Laukotter (eds), Infektion und Institution: Zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte des Robert
Koch-Instituts im Nationalsozialismus (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2009).
'Genetics, eugenics and the Holocaust', in Ron Numbers (ed.), Biology and Ideology
(Chicago University Press, 2009)
'Migration, race et génocide: l'émergence d'un nouveau discours sur les droits de
l'homme', in Pilar Gonzale-Bernaldo, Manuela Martini and Marie-Louise Pelus-Kaplan
(eds), Étrangers et Sociétés: contacts et regards croisés (Rennes: Presse Universitaire
de Rennes, 2009), pp. 265-70.
'Medical refugees in Britain and the wider world', Social History of Medicine, 22, 3 (2009).
'Medical refugees and the modernisation of twentieth-century British medicine', Social
History of Medicine, 22, 3 (2009).
'The fractured crucible: images of the scientific survival. The defence of Ludwik Fleck', in
Johannes Fehr, Nathalie Jas and Ilana Löwy (eds), Penser avec Ludwik Fleck –
Investigating a Life Studying Life Sciences (Zurich: Ludwik Fleck Centre, Collegium
Helveticum, 2009), pp. 47-62.
(with Olga Amsterdamska, Christian Bonah, Cornelius Borck, Johannes Fehr, Michael
Hagner, Marcus Klingberg, Ilana Löwy, Marina Schundler, Florian Schmaltz, Thomas
Scnelle, Antke Tammen, and Claus Zittel), 'Medical science in the light of a flawed study
of the Holocaust: A comment on Eva Hedford's paper on Ludwik Fleck', Social Studies
of Science, 38 (2008), 937-944.
Die Wirkung des Nürnberger Ärzteprozesses auf die Medizin- und Pflegeethik
(Frankfurt/M: Mabuse, 2008).
'The League of Nations, the Rockefeller Foundation, and public health in Europe in the
interwar period', in Giannis Kyriopolous (ed., Dimosia ygeia kai koinonike politiki: O
Eleftherios Nenizilos kai I epohi tou (Athens: Papazisi, 2008), pp.79-94.
'Human experiments and Nazi genocide: a problematic legacy', Review of Bioethics
'The Nazi medical experiments', in Ezekiel J. Emanuel (ed.), Oxford Textbook of Clinical
Research Ethics (Oxford: OUP, 2008), pp. 18-30.
'Alice Ricciardi von Platen', The Guardian (13 March, 2008).
'Deadly Medicine. Creating the Master Race'. Exhibition at the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum, 2004 to October 2005 (essay review), Social History of Medicine, 21,
1 (2008), 208-212.
'Foreword' to Michal Simunek and Dietmar Schultze (eds), Die Nationalsozialistische
'Euthanasie' im Reichsgau Sudetenland und Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren 1939-
1945 (Prague: Institute of Contemporary History of the Academy of Sciences, 2008).
'The origins of the hospice in the shadow of the Holocaust', Giving, 2 (2008), 157-162.
'Entschädigung der Sterilisierungs- und Euthanasie-Opfer nach 1945', in Klaus-Dietmar
Henke (ed.), Tödliche Medizin im Nationalsozialismus. Von der Rassenhygiene zum
Massenmord (Cologne: Böhlau, 2008), pp. 31-46.
'Medical refugees as practitioners and patients: public, private and practice records',
Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies. Refugee
Archives: Theory and Practice, 9 (2008), 141-156.
'Foreword: Volk and Forschung: A Science for the Nation', in Michael Fahlbusch and
Ingo Haar (eds), Handbuch der völkischen Wissenschaften (Munich: Saur, 2008), pp. 3-
'"For the Love of Christ". The French Vatican Mission to Germany', Journal of
Contemporary History, vol. 43, 3 (2008) – Special issue 'Relief and Rehabilitation',
Guest Editor Jessica Reinisch.
'Un internationaliste visionnaire confronté aux réalités de la guerre froide: John W.
Thompson et le programme de l'UNESCO pour l'Allemagne, 1945-1955', 60 ans
d'histoire de l'UNESCO. Actes du colloque international 16-18 Novembre 2005 (Paris:
'Zwischen Forschung und Genozid. Der Nürnberger Ärzteprozess 1946/47: Raphael
Lemkins Standpunkt über Menschenversuche und Genozid', Acta Historica Leopoldina,
48 (2007), 79-87.
'Blood', 'Demographic Policy', 'Eugenics', 'Euthanasia', 'H.F.K. Gunther', 'Health',
'Medicine' in Cyprian Blamires (ed.), Historical Encyclopaedia of World Fascism (ABC,
Clio, 2007).
(Editor with M. Turda ) 'Blood and Homeland': Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in
Central and Southeast Europe, 1900-1940 (Budapest: Central European University
Press, 2006).
'Ansteckungsherde. Die deutsche Bakteriologie als wissenschaftlicher Rassissmus,
1890-1920', in Philipp Sarasin et al. (eds), Bakteriologie und Moderne. Studien zur
Biopolitik des Unsichtbaren 1870-1920 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2006), pp. 354-
'German overtures to Russia, 1919-1925. Between racial expansion and national
coexistence', in Susan Solomon (ed.), Doing Medicine Together. Germany and Russia
between the Wars (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006), pp. 35-60.
'Medical refugees in Wales 1930s-50s', in Pamela Michael and Charles Webster (eds),
Health and Society in Twentieth-Century Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press,
2006), pp. 183-200.
'Central Europe confronts German racial hygiene: Friedrich Hertz, Hugo Iltis and Ignaz
Zollschan as critics of German racial hygiene', in M. Turda and P. Weindling (eds),
'Blood and Homeland': Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeast
Europe, 1900-1940 (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2006).
'The evolution of Jewish identity: Ignaz Zollschan between Jewish and Aryan race
theories, 1910-1945', in Geoffrey Cantor and Marc Swetlitz (eds), Jewish Tradition and
the Challenge of Darwinism (Chicago University Press, 2006), pp. 116-136.
'From medical war crimes to compensation: the plight of victims of human experiments',
in Wolfgang Eckart (ed.), Man, Medicine and the State (Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 2006),
pp. 237-249.
'"Belsenitis". Liberating Belsen, its hospitals, and selection for re-emigration, 1945-1948',
Science in Context, 19, 3 (2006), 401-418. (Special issue on Medical Borders: Historical,
Political and Cultural Analyses).
'As origenes da participação da América Latina na Organizaçãao da Saúde da Liga das
Nações, 1920-40 [The League of Nations Health Organisation and Latin America]',
História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos, 13, 3 (2006), 555-570.
'Leo Alexander', in W.U. Eckart and C. Gradmann (eds), Ärztelexikon - Von der Antike bis
zum zwanzigsten Jahrhundert (Berlin: Springer Verlag, 3 edn, 2006), pp. 6-7.
Research Dissemination
Keynote Opening Address: 'Historicising Bioethics: Informed Consent, Context and
Physician-Patient Relations', 11th Biennial Conference, Australian and New Zealand
History of Medicine Society, Perth, 29 September 2009.
'Wounding Victims and the Nazi Human Experiments', War Wounds conference.
Australian National War Memorial, Canberra, 24 September 2009.
Contributor to the programme 'Mendelssohn, the Nazis and me', broadcast on BBC
Four, 26 June 2009.
'Race, Eugenics and National Identity: from Racial Surveys to Racial States', Opening
Lecture for Baltic Eugenics conference, Riga, 7 May 2009.
'The Nuremberg Medical Trial: Origins, Aims, Legacies', Nuremberg Trials Conference,
Frankfurt an der Oder, 23 April 2009.
'Compensation, Care and Communion: Contrasting Views of Victims of Nazi Medical
Experiments', Scolion inter-disciplinary conference on Pain, Jerusalem, 24 March 2009.
'Nazi Human Experiments: From Medical War Crimes to Informed Consent', Hebrew
University Medical School, 23 March 2009.
'German Racial Research in Comparative Perspective', Wroclaw University Medical
Faculty, 20 January 2009.
'Reliving the Trauma: Compensating Victims of Nazi Human Experiments 1950-70',
Beyond Camps and Slave Labour conference, Imperial War Museum, 8 January 2009.
'The Royal Society and Refugee Medical Scientists: the Contribution of A.V. Hill,
In Defence of Free Learning: the Past and the Present'. Council for Assisting Refugee
Academics 75 th Anniversary Conference [conference co-organiser], British Academy,
London, 5 December 2008.
'Confronting Nazi Eugenics and the Racial State' Pybus Seminar, Newcastle University,
1 November 2008.
'German Racial Research in Comparative Perspective'.
'Science, Planning, Expulsion: The National Socialist General Plan for the East',
University of Toronto European Studies Conference, 15 October 2008.
'From the "Nameless Dead" to Naming Victims: Research Methods and Problems'.
Oxford Brookes (Organiser), 25 September 2008.
'Czechoslovak Medical Refugees in the UK, 1938-45'
'Exile in and from Czechoslovakia during the 1930's and 1940's', Centre for German
Exile Studies, University of London, 19 September, 2008.
'From Prosecution to Historiography': Summer Workshop on the Nuremberg Trials,
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC – invited participant
1 August: Public lecture: 'Victims, Witnesses and the Legacy of the Nuremberg Medical
Trial', USHMM, 20-30 July 2008.
'Fighting Tuberculosis: William Osler's Engagement with Public Health in Oxfordshire',
British Society for the History of Science/ History of Science Society/ Canadian Society
for the History of Science Joint Conference, Oxford, 4 July 2008.
'Doctors and Nurses: Contrasting Responses to the Refugee Crisis of the 1930s'
'Reconstituting a Traumatized Community. The German-Speaking Refugees of the
1930s and their Legacy to Britain', BARGE (='British Archival Resources Relating to
German-Speaking Refugees, 1933-1950'), Closing Conference, British Academy,
London, 24 June, 2008.
'A Terminal Case? Cold War Politics and the 1951 Closure of the International Health
Division of the Rockefeller Foundation'. WHO Global Health History Seminar, Geneva,
12 June, 2008.
'Austrian Medical Refugees and the Modernisation of British Medicine, 1930s-50s',
Vienna, 'Vortrag im Josephinum', 28 May 2008.
' "Artfremd" or Complementarity in Eugenic Collaborations: Siegfried Wellisch and His
Contribution to Sero-Anthropology'. Conference to mark the opening of the exhibition
'Eugenics – the Fight against the Degeneration of the Race', Warsaw University Library.
18 April 2008.
'Races et Racisme: Mobilizing Science Against the Racial State'. Council for European
studies. Sixteenth International conference, Chicago, 7 March 2008.
'Auden, Anxiety and Poetic Doctoring', Medical Humanities Lecture, Durham University,
18 February 2008.
'The International Career of the Virologist, Eugen Haagen', Robert Koch Institute under
National Socialism, Berlin, 19 January 2008.
'Anxiety, Social Adjustment and Maternal Attachment, 1930-1960: A Biographical
Thread in Anglo-American Psychiatry'. University of Warwick, History of Medicine series,
5 February 2008.
'Nazi Medicine and its Ethical Legacy', University of Crete Symposium, 'Experimentation
with Human Subjects: The Moral Limits of Biomedical Research', Heraklion, 17
December 2007.
'Nazi Eugenics', Mémorial de la Shoah, Paris, panel 'Nazi medicine, from 1933 to 1939',
9 December 2007.
'Anxiety, Stress and Social Adaptation, 1930s – 1950s: Physiological Testing and
Psychological Disorders', Exeter, 6 December 2007.
'The League of Nations, Rockefeller Foundation and Public Health in Europe in the
Interwar Period'. Public Health and Social Policy: Eleftherios Venizelos and his Time,
Athens. Keynote address. 8 November 2007.
BBC Television: See Hear! Contributor to programme on the 'Deaf Holocaust'
(7 November 2007).
'From "Medical War Crimes" to "Enlightened Consent": the Origins of the Nuremberg
Code', University of Bristol, Medical Humanities Seminar, 31 October 2007.
'How Fit Are You? What Race Are You? The inception of eugenics in XIX century and
the application of racist theories to science'. Festival Storia, Saluzzo/ Turin: Meeting on
history of race theory, 14 October 2007.
'Reframing German Eugenics'. The Social and Political Transformations of Biology, The
Faraday Institute, St Edward's College, Cambridge University, 17-19 September 2007.
'Contesting Race: International anti-racist networks of biomedical scientists in the 1930s
and 40s. Ernst Rüdin and the Congrès international de la population, Paris 1937.'
Establishing Medical Genetics. Programs, Practices, Political Contexts, ca 1910-1960,
University of Giessen, 29 June 2007.
'Regenerating Mitteleuropa: Methodological and Theoretical Reflections', Hygiene-
Health Politics – Eugenics: Engineering Society in Twentieth-century South-eastern
Europe, Free University Berlin, 31 May 2007.
'European Medical Refugees and the Modernisation of British Medicine, 1930s-50',
History of Medical Migration Symposium, University of Ulster/ Centre for the History of
Medicine in Ireland, 2 May 2007.
'Medical Refugees in the UK and the Crisis of Medical Provision in the 1930s'. Crisis as
Opportunities in Interwar Health, Granada, 28 April 2007.
'Problems of Documenting Medical Refugees: Public, Private and Practice Records'.
Refugee Archives: Theory and Practice, Centre for German Jewish Studies, University
of Sussex, 11-13 April 2007.
' "Our Racial Friends": Disease, Degeneration and Social Darwinism, 1860-1940'. The
Legacies of Charles Darwin, Public Lecture Series, Institute of Advanced Study, Durham
University, 29 January 2007.
'The Holocaust, Medicine and Medical Ethics'. International Conference in Memory of
Dr. Tomi Spencer. 'Human Experimentation and its Victims', 24 January 2007.
'Fleckfieberforschung am RKI im Spannungsfeld von medizinischer und militärischer
Forschungsinteressen'. Das Robert Koch-Institut im Nationalsozialismus – eine
wissenschaftliche Bestandsaufnahme, Berlin, 20 January 2007.
'Blood and Homeland', Lecture and Book Launch: Semmelweis Library, Budapest and
Institut f d Wissenschaft des Menschens, Vienna, 30 November – 1 December 2006.
'Forging an International Coalition against Racism 1918-40'. Social medicine, medical
geography and health care for indigenous peoples: "Ethnic Pathology" (Max Kuczynski,
1925) in Germany, Russia, Latin America and beyond, 24-26 November 2006.
' "For the Love of Christ": the Politics of Catholic Post-war Relief in Germany under Allied
Occupation', 2 Balzan Workshop: Relief and Rehabilitation in the Immediate Aftermath
of War, Birkbeck College London, 16 June 2006.
'Migration, Race and Genocide: The Emergence of a Human Rights Discourse'.
Etrangers. Colloque, Université Paris VII, 1 June 2006.
'The International Coalition for Combating Nazi Racism'. EHESS Seminar, Paris, 22
March 2006.
'The Rockefeller Foundation's International Health Division and the Cold War', EHESS
seminar, 14 March 2006.
'Child Victims of the Nazi Medical Experiments', Imperial War Museum/ Wiener Library
Workshop, 24 February 2006.
'Informed or Enlightened Consent? Ethics at the Nuremberg Trials', Harvard Population
Ethics Lecture, 2 February 2006.
'Historicizing Research Ethics: The Harvard Grant Study on Social Adjustment, and
Clinical Research in the 1930s". Harvard History of Science Seminar, 1 February 2006.
'The Nuremberg Medical Trial and the Origins of Informed Consent', Penn State University
[Invited Lecture], 30 January 2006.
3. Individual Entries – Postdoctoral Fellows
Dr Yolanda Eraso
Wellcome Trust Research Fellow
Argentine and Latin-American medical discourse in the twentieth century: psychiatry,
cancer, eugenic ideas; gender and welfare; social representations of motherhood
(narratives and visual images).
Current Projects
As part of a Wellcome Trust Fellowship Dr Eraso is currently working on public and
philanthropic initiatives in the fight against female cancer in Argentina, 1920-1960. She
investigates how gender variables have operated on the perception of cancer as a
'female disease', the development of state and philanthropic cancer care policies, and
the nature of medical treatments and medical specialisms.
Dr Eraso is also editing a book on 'Gender and Welfare in Latin America', which
analyses the provision of welfare before the emergence of the welfare state, with
particular emphasis on female charities/beneficent organisations. In addition, she is in
the process of writing a monograph that deals with the way in which medical
representations of maternity have been implicated, echoed and/or contested in certain
areas of the social and cultural field, in particular, literature, press and visual images.
Member of the Editorial Board: Clinical Medicine: Case Reports (see: http://www.lapress.com/Clinical-Medicine-Case-Reports-j91)
Y. Eraso (ed.), Mujeres y Asistencia Social en Latinoamérica, siglos XIX y XX.
Argentina, Colombia, México, Perú y Uruguay, (forthcoming Alción Editora, 2009).
[Women and Welfare in Latin America, XIX-XX centuries]. Chapter 1: 'Introducción:
Mujeres y asistencia social, problemáticas y perspectivas históricas', and Chapter 7:
'Maternalismo, religión y asistencia: La Sociedad de Señoras de San Vicente de Paul en
Córdoba, Argentina'.
Y. Eraso, 'A burden to the state'. The reception of the German "active therapy" in an
Argentinian colony-asylum', in Waltraud Ernst and Thomas Mueller (eds), Transnational
Psychiatries. Social and Cultural Histories of Psychiatry in Comparative Perspective, c.
1800-2000 (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, forthcoming 2009).
Y. Eraso, 'Migrating Techniques, Multiplying Diagnoses: The Contribution of Argentina
and Brazil to Cervical Cancer "early detection" Policy', História, Ciências, Saúde –
Manguinhos, [Bilingual publication: English and Portuguese] (forthcoming 2009).
Y. Eraso, 'Género y Eugenesia: Hacia una taxonomía médico-social de las mujeresmadres
en la década del treinta', in Historias de Luchas, Resistencias y
Representaciones. Mujeres en la Argentina, siglos XIX y XX (Universidad Nacional de
Tucumán, 2007), pp. 267-89.
Y. Eraso, 'Biotypology, endocrinology and sterilisation: the practice of eugenics in the
treatment of Argentinian women during the 1930s', Bulletin of the History of Medicine,
81, 4 (2007), 793-822.
Research Dissemination
Presented paper 'Sex hormones and breast cancer: therapeutic practices in peripheral
places', and organised panel session 'Sites, Contexts and Contingencies in Cancer
Research and Therapies' for the Annual Conference of the British Society for the History
of Science, University of Leicester, 2-5-July 2009.
In July 2009 Dr Eraso participated with a group of health professionals, researchers and
consumers to set up a 'Consumer Research Partnership (CRP)' within the Thames
Valley Cancer Network (NHS). The purpose of the CRP is 'to ensure active involvement
of consumers in cancer research based partly or fully in Thames Valley, in order to
improve its quality and value.' The group will help to shape the design and conduct
of future research into any aspect of cancer.
'Transferring diagnostic techniques: the trajectories of colposcopy and Pap test in
Argentina and Brazil 1934-1960'. Presented at workshop 'How cancer changed:
expanding the boundaries of medical interventions', CERMES & Institut National du
Cancer - Paris, April 2009.
'"Accustoming The Eye To See What Is Observed". Politics, specialisms and tensions in
the use of diagnostic methods for the detection of cervical cancer in Argentina'.
Presented at workshop 'How to deal with cancer? Research, Innovation and Politics',
Maison Françasie d' Oxford, Oxford University, 4 February 2009.
'Medical styles, diverging spaces: The detection and treatment of gynaecological cancer
in Argentinian women, 1920-1960', Gender, Health and Medicine in Historical
Perspective, Centre for Medical History, University of Exeter, July 2008.
'"A mother is needed!" The newspaper as welfare provider in Córdoba (Argentina) in the
twenties', annual conference of the Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS),
University of Nottingham, April, 2006.
Dr Projit B. Mukharji
Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes 2008-2009.
(From July 2009, Assistant Professor of History, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario,
Histories of 'indigenous' South Asian healing cultures; vernacularizations of biomedicine;
South Asian modernities; dynamics of subalternity; South Asia in the eyes of the British
subalterns; histories of sport and leisure in South Asia; histories and memories.
• Main historical period covered: c. 1707-1947
• 'Indigenous' Healing in South Asia
• Vernacular forms of 'western'/ biomedicine
• Perceptions of British India on the streets of Imperial Britain
• Histories versus memories
• Microhistories of cricket and football in South Asia
Dr Mukharji's forthcoming book Nationalizing the Body (Anthem) revisits some of the
best known episodes of colonial South Asian medical history through the vernacular
writings of South Asians who practised 'western' medicine. The book interrogates how
through their writings and practice, these doctors actually produced the bodies, spaces,
objects, sites etc. that constituted the 'nation'. The book looks therefore at the productive
aspects of power, rather than – as is more common in the extant studies – at the
repressive aspects. In so doing it also de-centres and de-idealizes the nation, seeing it
instead as being constituted by the material realities of 'national bodies', 'national
spaces', 'national objects' etc., rather than as abstract ideas and ideologies. The book
thereby simultaneously argues that 'western' medicine (and modernity) is neither a
uniform nor homogenous entity. There are instead many vernacular 'western' medicines
(and many modernities). Moreover not all these 'western' medicines could have been
described as 'state medicine'. Indeed the most robust strains of vernacular 'western'
medicine in colonial Bengal were constituted in the medical market. Yet the market and
state were not here oppositionally positioned. Instead they were often mutually
constitutive, intersecting and relational. In short the book explores how South Asian
doctors working at the intersection of the state and the market, through their practices
and writings, appropriated and adopted 'western' medicine and deployed it to produce
the material realities of the nation.
Dr. Mukharji is currently working on a second book, A Social History of Healing in South
Asia (Routledge). This book seeks to go beyond the predominant framework of
understanding South Asian 'indigenous' healing through the study of various 'medical
systems', i.e. Ayurveda, Unani Tibb, Siddha etc. Borrowing liberally from medical
anthropology, this book challenges the discrete, homogenised images of distinct
'medical systems'. Instead it recounts a plural and heterogeneous field of 'indigenous'
healing and documents and analyses the diverse impacts of 'modernity'. It also reinserts
'indigenous' healing into the social fabric of South Asian societies by using the
concept of 'articulations' developed by actor network theoreticians to trace the
constitutive links that each of these healing praxes had with 'non-medical' actors, forces,
Nationalizing the Body: The Medical Market, Print and Daktari Medicine, (London and
New Delhi: Anthem Press, forthcoming 2009).
A Social History of Healing [Title t.b.c.] (London and New Delhi: Routledge, forthcoming
'Ambiguous imperialisms: British subaltern attitudes towards the "Indian War" of 1857', in
Crispin Bates and Andrea Major (eds), [Title t.b.c.] (New Delhi: Sage, forthcoming 2009).
(Co-editor with Dolores Martinez) Football: From England to the World (London:
Routledge, 2008).
'Pharmacology, "indigenous knowledge", nationalism-few words from the epitaph of
subaltern science', in Mark Harrison and Biswamoy Pati (eds), Society, Medicine and
Politics: Colonial India, 1850-1940s (London: Routledge, 2008).
'"Feeble Bengalis" and "Big Africans": African players in Bengali club football', in Dolores
Martinez and Projit Mukharji (eds), Football: From England to the World, (London:
Routledge, 2008).
'Jessie's dream at Lucknow: Popular memorializations of dissent, ambiguity and class in
the heart of the Empire', Studies In History, 24,1 (2008).
'Dilemmas of modernity: Ayurvedic education in twentieth century Bengal', Wellcome
History, 38 (2008) 12-13.
'Bangali Ayurbed: Shastriyo Chikitsha-r Nimnoborgiyo Itihaash' (Bengali Ayurveda:
Subaltern histories of a classical medical tradition) [in Bengali], Special issue on History
of Medicine, Ababhaas (Bengali Journal), Calcutta, 2008. [Forthcoming in Bengali].
'"Ekti Prachin Jati-r Obokkhoy": Uponibeshik Bharot-e Malaria o Jati-Tottvo, 1860-1930',
Translation into Bengali of David Arnold, '"An Ancient Race Outworn': Malaria and Race
in Colonial India, 1860-1930', Special issue on History of Medicine, Ababhaas (Bengali
Journal), Calcutta, 2008. [Forthcoming in Bengali].
'Can the subaltern sing? The "Indian War" in nineteenth-century British broadsides', in
Sharmistha Gooptu and Boria Majumdar (eds), Revisiting 1857: Myth, Memory, History
(New Delhi: Roli Books, 2007).
'Structuring plurality: Locality, caste, class and ethnicity in nineteenth-century Bengali
dispensaries', Health and History 9, 1 (2007).
'Going beyond elite medical traditions: the Case of Chandshi', Asian Medicine: Tradition
and Modernity, 2, 2 (2006).
Research Dissemination
Co-organiser (with Anne Digby and Waltraud Ernst) 'Crossing Colonial Historiographies:
Histories of Colonial and Indigenous Medicines in Transnational Perspective', held at St
Anne's College, Oxford, 15-17 September 2008. [Book to be published by Cambridge
Scholars, 2010.]
(Editor with W. Ernst), 'In good health. The history of medicine in India: British
perspectives', Biblio: a Review of Books, 12, 9/10 (2007).
Dr Veenu Pant
Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes 2008-09
The development of indigenous medicine in Rajasthan and its role in public health,
Dr Pant's research is concerned with issues of colonial hegemony and paramountcy in
relation to medicine in the Princely States of Rajasthan during the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. She is particularly interested in the impact of British proximity
and surveillance on different rulers and the development of Princely state policies.
Current Projects
Dr Pant is currently writing a monograph on 'Ayurveda and Public Health in the Princely
States of Rajasthan'. She is also working on a comparative study of Ayurveda in the
Princely States of Jaipur and Bikaner during the rules of Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh Ji
and Sawai Madho Singh Ji of Jaipur and Maharaja Sir Ganga Singh Ji of Bikaner.
Research Dissemination
'State Policies and Indigenous Medicinal System in Erstwhile Bikaner State of
Rajasthan', paper presented at the conference 'Crossing Colonial Historiographies:
Histories of Colonial and Indigenous Medicines in Transnational Perspective', Oxford,
September 2008.
'Indigenous Medicine and Empire: India under British Rule', Gettysburg College,
Gettysburg, USA, 2007.
Dr Kim Price
Wellcome Trust Research Fellow
Dr Price is interested in the relationship between medical practitioner and patient,
particularly, expectations, rights and duties and how this affects the – constantly shifting
– idea of a 'standard of care'. His research began with public health and welfare in
nineteenth-century England, before focusing on the poor-law medical officers, who
straddled the oft-conflicting spheres of private and public medical practice. Despite the
bias, if carefully handled, medical conflicts are an excellent resource for 'dissecting' the
contact point of doctor and patient. Far from misleading, isolated events, conflicts can
reveal a great deal about the expectations and rights of both patient and doctor – a
snapshot of 'frontline' medical practice and its fault lines. In turn, this focus has led to a
current, Wellcome-funded, research on medical negligence and the perspective of the
patient under the New Poor Law. At present, this means that Dr Price is researching
medico-legal issues and British judiciary practice, bioethics, poverty and sickness and
the relationship of welfare to public and private medicine. In time, he will expand this
research, comparatively, into the private medicine of the US and the public medicine of
the UK's NHS, offering a more complete history of medical negligence, malpractice and
conflict than has hitherto been available for those two countries. The research will be of
use to medical historians, but it will also serve medico-legal practitioners and health
professionals because it will add historical context to present-day debates on private and
public medicine, and the perceived 'culture of litigation'.
Dr Price is currently in the process of publishing three articles from his PhD thesis and
will be publishing a book on pre-NHS medical negligence from research conducted
during the Wellcome Trust fellowship at Oxford Brookes University.
Price, K., 'Towards a history of medical negligence', Lancet, (forthcoming, Autumn 2009)
Research Dissemination
Presentation offering practical advice on how to get through the PhD viva process at
'Viva Survivor', workshop (led by Steve King), at the Institute of Historical Research,
London, 4 December 2008.
Advisor to the Action against Medical Accidents (AvMA)
Advisor to the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA, NHS) report on the UK's World
Health Organisation Patient Safety Champions scheme
Dr Ina Scherder
Wellcome Trust Research Fellow
Irish medical history; history of anatomy and poverty in the nineteenth century; body
supply, medical education and professionalisation in Ireland.
Dr Ina Scherder's research focuses on the history of anatomy in Ireland in the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. Dr Scherder is particularly interested in how extensive the
supply of and demand for corpses was and how supply routes were organised amongst
competing Irish medical schools. She reconstructs the ebbs and flows in body supply to
the Schools and explores the relationship between body supply and the medical
curriculum, and the importance of anatomical training for professional status, locating the
Anatomy Act, body supply and anatomical practice in the specific religious, political and
socio-cultural context of Ireland.
Current Projects
The impact of the Anatomy Act in Ireland: Body supply, medical education and
professionalisation in Ireland: 1832 to 1921. From August to October 2009, Dr Scherder
will be a stipendiary visiting fellow in the Department of Archeology, History, Cultural
Studies and Religion at the University of Bergen, funded by the Research Council of
I. Scherder and E. T. Hurren, 'Dignity in death? The dead body as an anatomical object
in England and Ireland, circa 1832 to 1900', in Steven King and Andreas Gestrich (eds),
The Dignity of the Poor: Concepts, Practices, Representations, (Oxford University Press,
forthcoming 2010), pp. 1-52.
I. Scherder, 'Galway workhouse scandals: pauper bodies and the Galway School of
Anatomy', in E. T. Hurren, S. A. King and A. Gestrich (eds), Narratives of Poverty and
Sickness in Europe (Berghahn, forthcoming 2010).
I. Scherder, 'The impact of the 1832 Anatomy Act in Ireland – central anatomy returns
1832 to 1921', in C. Breathnach (ed.), Visual, Material and Print Culture in Nineteenth-
Century Ireland (Four Courts Press, forthcoming 2009).
I. Scherder, 'Die Kommunale Armenfürsorge in Galway. Eine Studie zum
Zusammenhang der Entwicklung von Armenadministration und lokaler Verwaltung in
Irland, 1838-1921', Trier ediss (2008). [The Galway Workhouses. Poor relief and local
government in Ireland, 1838-1921]
I. Scherder, review of K.D.M. Snell: Parish and Belonging. Community, Identity and
Welfare in England and Wales, 1700-1950 [Cambridge University Press, 2006], in:
sehepunkte 7 (2007), No 7/8.
I. Scherder, 'Galway workhouses in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: function and
strategy', in A. Gestrich, S. A. King and L. Raphael (eds), Being Poor in Modern Europe.
Historical Perspectives 1800-1940 Bern [et al.] 2006, pp. 181-198.
Research Dissemination
Academic consultant for BBC Northern Ireland TV documentary on Burke and Hare.
'The impact of the 1832 Anatomy Act in Ireland – central anatomy returns 1832 to 1921',
paper given at the SSNCI annual conference 'Visual, Material and Print Culture in
Nineteenth-Century Ireland', at University of Limerick, 26-27 June 2008.
'The Impact of the Anatomy Act in Ireland, 1832: Pauper bodies and the Galway School
of Anatomy', paper given at the ESHSI annual conference 'Medicine, Science and
Society in Ireland', at Queen's University Belfast, November, 17-18 2006.
3. Individual Entries – Researchers
The Centre has a number of researchers associated with specific grant-funded projects.
Dr Tudor Georgescu
Tudor Georgescu was awarded his PhD from Oxford Brookes in 2008. In 2009 he
started work on two projects: a Wellcome Trust funded pilot project 'Romanian Eugenics
in its International Context, 1918-1944', (Principal Investigator, Marius Turda); and, an
AHRC funded project 'Victims of Human Experiments under National Socialism: Victims,
Perpetrators and Post-war Trials', (Principal Investigator, Paul Weindling and Co-
Investigator Marius Turda).
Dr Anna von Villiez
Anna von Villiez was awarded her doctorate from the University of Hamburg. She is a
research officer for an AHRC funded project 'Victims of Human Experiments under
National Socialism: Victims, Perpetrators and Post-war Trials', (Principal Investigator,
Paul Weindling and Co-Investigator Marius Turda).
Alison Stringer
Alison Stringer studied for an MA in History of Medicine at Oxford Brookes. She has
worked as a researcher on the Wellcome Trust funded project 'Sickness, Poverty and
Medical Relief in England, 1750-1851', (Principal Investigator, Steve King), and has
continued to work with Professor Steve King on the sick poor.
Dr Helen Sweet
After the award of her PhD from Oxford Brookes in 2003, Helen Sweet was a research
officer at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford, from March
2003 to December 2006. She has continued her connection with the Unit as a research
associate. From July to November 2008, Helen was a researcher in the Centre at Oxford
Brookes for the Wellcome Trust funded pilot project 'Outreach at McCord Hospital,
Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, circa 1950-2000', (Principal Investigator, Professor Anne
Digby). Helen Sweet and Anne Digby have plans for future collaborative research on
South African medicine.
3. Individual Entry – Visiting Professor
Professor Estēe Dvorjetski
Ancient History and Archaeology, University of Haifa, Israel
The title of Visiting Professor of Oxford Brookes University was conferred upon Estēe
Dvorjetski in September 2004. Since then she has been a regular visitor to the Centre.
Professor Dvorjetski's research ranges widely over the eastern Mediterranean basin
during the Biblical era throughout the Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and early
Moslem periods focusing on historical, medicinal and archaeological aspects. Her
interests are varied and her most immediate research is in the ancient history of
medicine. She is currently working on a monograph Public Health and Preventive
Medicine in the Holy Land: Historical-Archaeological Analysis.
Professor Dvorjetski has published more than 70 articles and chapters in books on daily
life, thermo-mineral baths, history of medicine, leisure-time activities, ecology, historical
geography, numismatics, and history of art. Her recent book, entitled Leisure, Pleasure
and Healing: Spa Culture and Medicine in Ancient Eastern Mediterranean (Brill, 2007)
focuses on daily life, healing cults, medical recommendations and treatments at the
curative spas during the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and early Moslem periods and
examines the social history of medicine at the therapeutic baths. It is based on Hebrew,
Aramaic, Syriac, Greek, Latin, and Arabic texts, Rabbinic documents, pilgrims travelbooks,
the Genizah fragments, cartographic evidence, and archaeological findings.
E. Dvorjetski and A. Berman, 'Geva-Gaba: The Numismatic Finds from Khirbet el-
Hârithîyye and Tel Abu-Shusha as Historical Source', Israel Numismatic Research,
5 (2010).
E. Dvorjetski and K. Abu-Much, 'From Maioumas-Shuni to Al-Burg-Miamis: The
Historical Geography of the Suburb of Caesarea', in K. Abu-Much (ed.), Maioumas-
Shuni throughout the Ages (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and National Fund of
Israel, 2010).
E. Dvorjetski, 'Maioumas-Shuni and the Maioumas Festivals and their Affinity to
Maioumases and Theatres in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin', in K. Abu-Much (ed.),
Maioumas-Shuni throughout the Ages (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and
National Fund of Israel, 2010).
E. Dvorjetski, 'The Historical Geography of Sussita-Hippos in the Decapolis', in A. Segal
(ed.), Tenth Season of Excavations at Sussita-Hippos (University of Haifa: Zinman
Institute of Archaeology, 2010).
E. Dvorjetski, 'Public Health in Ancient Palestine: Lavatories – Historical and
Archaeological Aspects', in A.E. Killebrew and A. Segal (eds), Art and Archaeology
during The Second Temple, The Mishna and The Talmud. Festschrift in Honour of Prof.
Rachel Hachlili (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2010).
E. Dvorjetski, 'Hammei-Tiberias and the Tormented Patients of Tiberias in Light of the
Cairo Genizah Fragments and Medieval Arabic Sources' (Sent for publication).
E. Dvorjetski, 'Between the Valley of Zebulun and the Valley of Jezreel: The Historical
Geography of Geva-Geba-Gaba-Jaba', in A. Segal, J. Mlynarczyk and
M. Burdajewicz (eds), Sha'ar Ha'Amakim (Gaba): Excavations of the Hellenistic Site in
Kibbutz Sha'ar Ha'Amakim (Gaba) 1984-1998 – Final Report, Chapter 1, (Haifa: Zinman
Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, 2009), pp. 8-30 (Hebrew); pp. 6-34 (English
E. Dvorjetski, '"Once Happened to be in A Certain Inn": Aims and Deeds of Our Sages at
Hammat-Gader', in Z. Safrai (ed.), Galilee Studies (Bar-Ilan University: Zehut Makom
Press, 2009), pp. 56-77 (Hebrew).
E. Dvorjetski, 'Medical Properties of the Thermo-Mineral Waters in the Levant', in A.N.
Angelakis, R. Drusiani and P. Laureano (eds), International Water Association, 2nd
International Symposium on Water and Wastewater Technologies in Ancient
Civilizations, Bari, Italy, 2009, pp. 1-15.
E. Dvorjetski, Leisure, Pleasure and Healing: Spa Culture and Medicine in Ancient
Eastern Mediterranean (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2007).
E. Dvorjetski, 'Leisure-Time Activities in Roman Palestine and Provincia Arabia:
Historical-Archaeological Analysis', in K.E. Hendrickson and N.C.J. Pappas (eds),
Interpreting the Past: Essays from the 4th International Conference on European
History, Part II: Society and Culture in Antiquity (Athens: ATINER, Athens Institute
for Education and Research, 2007), pp. 37-48.
E. Dvorjetski, 'Animals as Coin-Type in the Land of Israel in the Roman Period: Art and
Propaganda', in B. Arbel, J. Terkel and S. Menashe (eds), Human Beings and Other
Animals in Historical Perspective (Jerusalem: Carmel Publishing House, 2007), pp. 99-
131 (Hebrew).
E. Dvorjetski, 'Christians at the Thermo-Mineral Baths in Roman-Byzantine Palestine',
ARAM Periodical, 18-19 (2006-2007), 13-32.
Research Dissemination
'Medical Properties of the Thermo-Mineral Waters in the Levant in Antiquity',
International Symposium on 'Water and Wastewater Technologies in Ancient
Civilizations', Bari, Italy, 28-30 May 2009.
'Military and Medical History of Gadara as reflected by the City-Coins', ARAM 25 th
International Conference on The Decapolis: History and Archaeology, The Oriental
Institute, University of Oxford, UK, 7-10 July, 2008.
'Physicians-Patients Relationship in the Graeco-Roman World: An Introductory Session',
Centre for Health, Medicine and Society, Oxford Brookes University, UK, 4 November,
'The Coins of Gadara as Historical Documents and their Affinity to the Thermo-Mineral
Baths of Hammat-Gader', Israel Numismatic Society, Maritime Museum, Haifa, Israel, 29
May, 2007.
'Leisure-Time Activities in Roman Palestine and Provincia Arabia: Historical-
Archaeological Analysis', The 4 th International Conference on History: From Ancient to
Modern, Athens Institute for Education and Research, Athens, Greece, 28-31
December, 2006.
3. Individual Entries – Research Associates
Dr Mike Emanuel
Dr Mike Emanuel worked for over thirty years in the pharmaceutical industry and was
Regional Head of Clinical Operations at Johnson and Johnson (formerly Janssen) with
responsibility for clinical trials in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. As part of this role
he worked and taught extensively on clinical trial design, trial implementation and ethics.
He is currently Deputy Director of the UK Clinical Research Network within the NHS. He
is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Medicine and an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of
Clinical Research. For 10 years he held a post as Research Associate at the Wellcome
Institute for the History of Medicine where he published mainly on the history of, and the
rise in, allergic disease.
Georgina Ferry
Georgina Ferry is a well respected science writer and broadcaster. After she studied
experimental psychology at Oxford she worked briefly for a science publisher before
joining New Scientist magazine as a section editor, writing regularly on biomedical
science and women in science. Soon afterwards she began to present science
programmes on BBC Radio 4 and researched, wrote and presented radio
documentaries and series such as 'No Science Please – We're British'. Since then she
has worked mostly as a freelance writer, editor and broadcaster. From 2000 to 2007 she
edited the Oxford University alumni magazine, Oxford Today, and since 1998 has written
four scholarly books for a non-specialist audience: Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life (Granta
Books,1998); (with John Sulston), The Common Thread: A Story of Science, Politics,
Ethics and the Human Genome (Bantam Books, 2002); A Computer called LEO: Lyons
Teashops and the World's First Office Computer (Fourth Estate, 2004), Max Perutz and
the Secret of Life (Chatto & Windus, 2007).
Georgina Ferry is on the board of Oxford Inspires, the cultural development agency for
Oxfordshire, which explicitly includes scientific activities and arts-science collaborations
in the events it promotes. She has also run courses for scientists on engaging with the
media in an effort to increase their understanding of the constraints under which
journalists work.
John Perkins
John Perkins, who retired as Dean of Arts and Humanities at Oxford Brookes in 2004, is
a historian of science who works on chemistry in France, 1750-1810. He is interested in
the wider cultural, political and economic contexts in which chemistry was practiced and
in which the chemical revolution occurred, as well as the relations between chemistry,
pharmacy and medicine and the role of apothecaries in the development of chemistry.
His most recent publication is 'Chemistry courses, the Parisian chemical world and the
Chemical Revolution, 1770-90', Ambix 57 (March 2010). He is one of the convenors of
the Oxford History of Chemistry Seminar Series and Treasurer of the Society for the
History of Alchemy and Chemistry.
Dr Tapti Roy
History of the politics of rebellion in central India and of the culture of print and
performance in Bengal; modernity in relation to persisting conventions from 'pre-modern'
Main historical periods covered: nineteenth century, and the present
Dr Roy's current work concerns the culture of printing in Bengal in the first 50 years of
the introduction of this new technology of book production. She examines the initiative
and enterprise of members of the local Bengali community in transmuting manuscripts
into print. One of the aims of her project is to re-examine the categories of 'popular' and
'elite' in the domain of literature and the spaces that were shared and claimed by both
while negotiating the imperatives of the colonial state and its officials. 'Popular' books in
nineteenth-century Bengal are often simplistically posited in opposition to those written
by the literati, however, Dr Roy believes the relationship between high and lowbrow was
much more nuanced. This is best mapped out if one looks at the uses that literary
writings were put to, particularly for reading and performance. Another aspect of this
project deals with the history of one particular bookseller and a publishing house that
traces itself back to the 1870s. By scrutinizing the books that it continues to produce, the
production process and costing, its writers and standards of writing, its customers and
users, it is possible to engage with the scope and meaning of 'popular literature' in the
present day. 'Popular culture', by its very nature, beckons different sections of people to
participate and therefore is bound to include both the elite and the popular. The nature of
participation and the conditions of inclusion need to be teased out. Dr Roy intends to
turn this current project into a larger, collaborative one that covers also regions outside
Bengal and employs a comparative perspective in order to test her argument on the
nature and dynamics of the 'popular' in literary culture.
'Uprising in Bundelkhand', in R. Llewellyn Jones (ed.), 1857 Revolt and Resistance
(Mapin Publications, forthcoming)
'Rereading the Texts. Rebel Writings in 1857-58', in Sabyasachi Bhattacharya (ed.),
Rethinking 1857 (Orient Longman, 2007)
Judy Slinn
Reader, Business School, Oxford Brookes University.
Judy Slinn's research interests combine the perspectives of a business historian with an
interest in corporate strategy issues. She has a particular focus on the pharmaceutical
and biotechnology industries and on professional service firms.
Relevant Publications
V .M. Quirke and Judy Slinn (eds), Perspectives on 20th-century Pharmaceuticals (Peter
Lang, forthcoming 2009).
J. Slinn, 'Patents and the UK pharmaceutical industry between 1945 and the 1970s',
History and Technology, 24, 2 (2008), 191-205
J. Slinn, 'A Cascade of medicine: the marketing and consumption of prescription drugs in
the UK 1948-2000', in .L. F. Curth (ed.) From Physick to Pharmacology (Ashgate, 2008),
pp. 143-169.
J. Slinn, 'Patents and the UK pharmaceutical industry between 1945 and the 1970s',
History and Technology, (Special Issue) 24, 2 (June 2008), 191-205.
Research Dissemination
'Dynamic capabilities in the UK pharmaceutical industry'. Paper presented at the
Management History Research Conference, Oxford Brookes University, July 2007.
'Globalization and the pharmaceutical industry'. Paper presented at the Association of
Business Historians, June 2006.
Dr Annie Skinner
Dr Skinner worked in health and social care research before she was awarded her PhD
'Growing Old in Oxford, 1930-1960' from Oxford Brookes University in 2003. Within the
context of national legislative changes the thesis discovers how Oxford City responded
to these, and juxtaposes how families cared for their older relatives during the transition
from the poor law to the welfare state. A key focus of the thesis examined how one of
the pioneers of geriatric medicine, Dr Lionel Cosin, made significant contributions to
improve health and welfare for old people in post-war Oxford. By using oral histories,
alongside documentary sources, the thesis examined changing professional attitudes to
older people's care; and explored how caring for old people at a time of great social
change was influenced by the local workhouse.
Since completion of her PhD she has worked on a variety of local history projects.
These included a Young Roots oral history project on childhood, funded by the Heritage
Lottery Fund (HLF), and an educational graveyard trail, also funded by the HLF. The
educational graveyard trail was carried out in Ss Mary and John Churchyard,
(constructed in 1876), in east Oxford. Through researching memorials and graves in the
churchyard and the lives of people and organizations they were associated with, she has
built a picture of the history of the community (see, http://www.ssmjchurchyard.org.uk/)
Dr Skinner's research interests include history of ageing, oral history and local history.
She is currently researching the development of the suburb in east Oxford and has
written a book on the area, Cowley Road, A History, published by Signal Books, Oxford.
She has given various presentations on her work at conferences and to local residents
associations, carers' centres and other groups.
Dr Sam Sneddon
Dr Sam Sneddon held the post of Research Manager in the School of Arts and
Humanities from September 2007 to February 2009, replacing Dr Cassie Watson while
on Wellcome Trust funded research leave. During that time Dr Sneddon was a research
associate of the Centre and that association has been continued. Her research interests
are in: the social history of disease; historical epidemiology and historical demography;
and, infant mortality.
Dr Sneddon currently holds the post of Research Facilitator in the Social Sciences
Division of the University of Oxford.
4. Postgraduate Students
At Oxford Brookes there is a thriving postgraduate community in the History of Medicine.
The History Department offers a taught Masters programme in the History of Medicine
(see section 6) and many of our MA students go on to pursue a PhD at Oxford Brookes.
The Centre offers a range of PhD topics that reflect the specific research interests of its
staff. Staff in the Centre are always willing to discuss any research proposal with
potential applicants to the MPhil/PhD programme, provided that it is in a relevant area
and there is supervisory capacity. The Centre has a good record in obtaining funding for
postgraduate students and helping them pursue an academic career in the History of
Medicine. Two current postdoctoral fellows in the Centre recently completed their
doctorates at Oxford Brookes.
MA Awards
The following students have successfully completed the MA in the History of Medicine:
Richard Biddle* (Funded by an AHRC Master's Award)
Charlene Dekens* (Part-time 2003/2005)
Emily Yeats* (Funded by a Wellcome Trust Master's Award)
Derek McMillan*
Bruce Balmer* (Funded by a Wellcome Trust Master's Award)
Graham Baker* (Funded by a Wellcome Trust Master's Award)
George Campbell Gosling* (Funded by a Wellcome Trust Master's Award)
Marnie Moran
Tashia Scott
Lynsey Cullen* (Funded by a bursary from the Wellcome Trust Strategic Award)
Fraser Joyce (Funded by a Wellcome Trust Master's Award)
John O'Brien (Part-time 2006/2008)
Lauren Paice (Funded by a bursary from the Wellcome Trust Strategic Award)
Rosemary Smith (Part-time 2006/2008)
Daniel Wrapson
[* passed with distinction]
The following students will complete the MA in the History of Medicine in 2009:
John Hall (Part-time 2007/2009)
Carol Flynn (Part-time 2007/2009)
Natalie Hanson (Funded by a bursary from the Wellcome Trust Strategic Award)
Paula Bowles (Part-time 2007/2009)
Emily Rootham (Funded by a bursary from the Wellcome Trust Strategic Award)
Elizabeth Sparrow (Funded by a Wellcome Trust Master's Award)
PhD awards
Postgraduate students in History of Medicine awarded the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy during the review period are listed below, with the thesis title, director of
studies (DoS) and funding source:
Yolanda Eraso, 'Medical discourse and social representations of motherhood in the city
of Cordoba (Argentina), 1900-1946'. DoS: Professor Anne Digby. (Funded by a
studentship as part of the Wellcome Trust Enhancement Award, 2003, and an Overseas
Research Student award.)
Richard Dyson, 'The nature of urban poverty: an Oxford case study c. 1760-1835'. DoS:
Professor Steven King.
Fiona Hutton, 'Medical education and the Anatomy Act in nineteenth-century England'.
DoS: Professor Steven King.
John Zamet, 'The German and Austrian refugee dentists: the response of the British
authorities 1933-45'. DoS: Professor Paul Weindling.
Lynn Sorge-English, 'Staymakers of London: production, consumption, and body
transformation, 1680-1810'. DoS: Professor Steve King.
Kim Price, 'A regional, quantitative and qualitative study of the employment, disciplining
and discharging of workhouse medical officers of the New Poor Law throughout
nineteenth-century England and Wales'. DoS: Professor Steven King. (Funded by an
AHRC doctoral studentship, 2004.)
Tudor Georgescu, 'The eugenic fortress: the Transylvanian Saxon Experiment with
'national renewal' in interwar Romania'. DoS: Professor Paul Weindling. (Funded by a
Wellcome Trust doctoral studentship, 2005.)
Elaine Bevan, '"It was our place to bow and to be at their bidding." Servants and servant
keepers in 19th-century Lancashire'. DoS: Professor Steven King.
The following students will be submitting doctoral theses for examination in 2009/2010:
Richard Biddle, 'Dissecting the medical marketplace: The development of medicine in
Portsmouth ca. 1780-1900'. DoS: Professor Steven King. (Funded by a Wellcome Trust
doctoral studentship, 2005.)
Tim Philipson, 'The sick poor and the quest for medical relief in Oxfordshire ca. 1750-
1850'. DoS: Professor Steven King. (Funded by a Wellcome Trust doctoral studentship,
Martin Ramsbottom, 'Poor Relief in Three Lancashire Townships - 1800 to 1860'.
DoS: Professor Steven King.
Anne Shepherd, 'The public and private institutionalisation of the insane in late
nineteenth-century Surrey. Gender and class at Brookwood Asylum and Holloway
Sanatorium'. DoS: Professor Anne Digby.
Other students currently registered on the MPhil/PhD History of Medicine programme
are listed below.
Full-time students:
Bruce Balmer, 'Health provision for the sick poor of South-East Leicestershire between
1750 and 1834'. DoS: Professor Steven King. (Funded by a Wellcome Trust doctoral
studentship, 2006.)
Lynsey Cullen, 'Patient case records of the Royal Free Hospital'. DoS: Professor Steven
King. (Funded by a Wellcome Trust doctoral studentship, 2008.)
George Campbell Gosling, 'Co-ordinating diversity: The mixed economy of healthcare in
Bristol, 1918-1948'. DoS: Dr Glen O'Hara. (Funded by a Wellcome Trust doctoral
studentship, 2007.)
Nichola Hunt, 'Nameless victims? – The Soviet experience of Nazi medicine: statistics
stories and stereotypes'. DoS: Professor Paul Weindling. (Funded by an AHRC doctoral
studentship, 2007.)
Fraser Joyce, 'Naming the dead: establishing the identity of the unknown body in Britain,
1800-1936'. DoS: Dr Katherine Watson. (Funded by a Wellcome Trust doctoral
studentship, 2008.)
Aleksandra Loewenau, 'The Impact of concentration camp experiences on Polish
inmates: the aftermath of the Nazi medical experiments'. DoS: Professor Paul
Weindling. (Funded by an AHRC doctoral studentship, 2007.)
Part-time students:
Michael James, 'The effect on family life during the late Georgian period of indisposition,
medication, treatments and the resultant physical and psychological outcomes'. DoS:
Professor Steven King.
Alison Stringer, '"For his assiduous attention in a very sickly year. . .": The role of
parochial practice in the professionalisation of medicine in 18th- and 19th- century
England'. DoS: Professor Steven King.
Sylvia Whitmarsh, 'The working-class suffragette: Annie Kenney, and her role within the
Women's Social and Political Union. A critical biographical analysis'. DoS: Professor
Steven King.
The following students have enrolled as part-time students but are not yet registered on
the MPhil/PhD programme:
Beryl Loughran, DoS: Professor Steven King.
Julia Smethurst, provisional title: 'The Transmission of trauma: a study of Mengele's
twins and generational trauma.' DoS: Professor Paul Weindling.
Jenny Wright, provisional title: 'Recruitment of medical women in the 1960s and 1970s'.
DoS: Professor Anne Digby.
History of Medicine PhD training programme
In addition to the theoretical and practical training provided by the University, PhD
students have the opportunity to attend a national training course. For the past three
years, the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL and the Centre for
Health, Medicine and Society: Past and Present at Oxford Brookes have been running a
course for History of Medicine PhD students in the UK, with the support of the Wellcome
Trust. The sessions, which are held on Saturdays at UCL, have covered such useful
topics as presentation skills, publication, funding, the job market and the PhD viva. The
course has also provided an excellent opportunity for meeting other students in the field.
Staff from the Centre have contributed sessions to the programme.
Postgraduate symposia
Each year students in the School of Arts and Humanities organise postgraduate
symposia where students from across the School contribute papers.
The following History of Medicine postgraduate students gave presentations in 2008-09:
Winter Symposium, 6 December 2008
Nichola Hunt, 'Nameless victims: Nazi human experiments on Russians in World War II:
statistics, stories and stereotypes'.
Spring Symposium, 9 May 2009
Fraser Joyce: 'Transitions in medico-legal practice and their influence on the role of the
community in the identification process'.
Michael James: 'Mistress of a Georgian household – dominant as carer but compliant as
Lynsey Cullen: 'The Royal Free Hospital: from out-patient dispensary to pioneering
voluntary institution'.
History of Medicine research student conference
A History of Medicine Research Student Conference was held at the Wellcome Trust
Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL on the 19th and 20th June 2008. The
conference was jointly organised by the Centre for Health, Medicine and Society: Past
and Present at Oxford Brookes and the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of
Medicine at UCL, with support from the Wellcome Trust, the AHRC, the Royal Historical
Society and the Merton Trust. George Campbell Gosling played a key role in the
organisation of the conference. The keynote address was given by Professor Anne
Hardy from UCL, and staff from the Centres at Oxford Brookes and UCL chaired
individual themed sessions. The following students from Oxford Brookes presented
Nichola Hunt, 'Nameless victims? Nazi human experiments on Russians in World War II:
statistics, stories and stereotypes'.
Aleksandra Loewenau, 'The complexity of the Dr Wladislaw Dering case'.
Richard Biddle, 'Health and the naval dockyards, Portsmouth c.1823-1869'.
Alison Stringer, 'Conflict and negotiation: Poor Law medical contracts and the balance of
power, 1750-1834'.
Bruce Balmer, 'The age of mentalities and the knell of the Old Poor Law'.
George Campbell Gosling, '''Open the other eye": Civic duty and hospital contributory
schemes in Bristol, c.1927-1948'.
Other conferences
George Campbell Gosling presented a paper "'Social ownership consumerism and the
NHS: Foundation Trusts in intellectual context' at the workshop 'Health Care and the
People', held at Glasgow Caledonian University from 13 to 14 January 2009.
Tudor Georgescu has presented a number of conference papers and a selection is listed
'Alfred Csallner and Saxon Dysgenic Crises in Interwar Transylvania.' Presented at the
conference 'Hygiene – Health Politics – Eugenics: Engineering Society in Twentiethcentury
Southeast Europe.' Freie Universität Berlin, 31 May 31-2 June 2007.
'Interwar Transylvanian Saxon "National Biology" and Visions of Racial Regeneration:
The Eugenic Attempt to Refashion and Rejuvenate the Saxon "Nation" in Romania.'
Presented at the symposium 'Medicine in the Balkans: Evolution of Ideas and Practice to
1945.' Royal Asiatic Society London, 24-25 January 2008.
'Of Politics and Eugenics: The Transylvanian Saxon fascist "Self-Help" movement and
its embrace of eugenic visions of national regeneration in interwar Romania.' Presented
at the 'Sixteenth International Conference of the Council for European Studies.'
University of Chicago, 6-8 March 2008.
'Transylvanian Saxon Visions of Racial Regeneration in Interwar Romania.' Presented at
the conference 'Eugenics – Modernisation and Biopolitics.' Institute of History of the
Polish Academy of Science Warsaw, 17-19 April 2008.
The Voluntary Action History Society
PhD students and staff in the Centre have participated in events organised by the
Voluntary Action History Society (VAHS), which was formed in 1991 to advance the
historical study and understanding of voluntary action and of charitable and voluntary
organisations. The VAHS is based in the UK but has an international membership. The
Society carries out a number of activities including: monthly seminars held at the
Institute of Historical Research (IHR), London; postgraduate workshops and training
events; biennial research conferences; and occasional conferences and symposia.
George Campbell Gosling is an active committee member of the VAHS. He is the
seminar convenor for the VAHS and is a founding member of the postgraduate and
early-career sub-committee. On 27 April 2009, he presented a paper at the IHR entitled,
'"Towards unification"? The hospital contributory scheme problem in Bristol before 1948'.
Lynsey Cullen will be giving a paper at the IHR on 28 September, entitled 'The first lady
almoner: the appointment, position and findings of Miss Mary Stewart at the Royal Free
Hospital, 1895-1899'. The VAHS seminar series is to be included in the IHR's 2009-10
pilot project of podcasting seminars, and Lynsey Cullen will have the distinction of being
the first seminar speaker to be podcast.
A VAHS workshop for postgraduates and early-career researchers on the theme
'Medicine and Charity in History' was held at Oxford Brookes on 21 February 2009. The
workshop featured papers on a range of subjects – such as voluntary hospitals in
modern Britain, medical charity in medieval Europe, American public health campaigns,
abortion, and philanthropy in cancer research – followed by a roundtable discussion led
by Professor Anne Digby and Professor Steven King. George Campbell Gosling has
been successful in obtaining a grant of £1,830 from the Economic History Society to
support a planned series of quarterly workshops modelled on the February 2009 event.
The next workshop, to be held at the University of Birmingham on 13 November 2009,
will be on the theme of 'Campaigning in Contemporary History'.
Postgraduate students' selected publications
[Publications for Yolanda Eraso and Kim Price are listed in the section on Research
R. Biddle, 'From optimism to anger: Reading and the local consequences arising from
the hospital plan for England and Wales 1962', Family and Community History, 10, 1
(2007), 5-18.
R. Biddle, 'Naval shipbuilding and the health of dockworkers c. 1815-1871',
(Forthcoming, Family and Community History, 12, 2009). [Part of a special edition of the
journal, emanating from the Wellcome Trust History of Medicine Research Student
Conference, June 2008.]
R. Dyson, 'Who were the poor of Oxford in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries?', in A. Gestrich, S. King and L. Raphael (eds), Being Poor in Modern
Europe. Historical Perspectives 1800-1940 (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2006), pp. 43-68.
M. Feldman, M. Turda and T. Georgescu (eds), Clerical Fascism in Interwar Europe.
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2008).
T. Georgescu, 'Discursul eugenic Sasesc Transilvanean, 1885-1944 ('Transylvanian
Saxon eugenic discourse, 1885-1944' [in Romanian]), Cuvantul, 3 (2008), 6-8.
T. Georgescu, 'Fortareata eugenica: comunitatile sasesti din Transilvania in anii 1933-
1940' ('The eugenic fortress: The Transylvanian Saxons 1933-40' [in Romanian]), in
Sorin Antohi (ed.), România Mare Revisited: Imaginar, Istorie, Memorie (Greater
Romania Revisited: Imagination, History, Memory) (Bucharest: Polirom, forthcoming
T. Georgescu, 'The eugenic fortress: Alfred Csallner and the Transylvanian Saxon
eugenic discourse in interwar Romania', in Marius Turda, Sevasti Trubeta, and Christian
Promitzer (eds), Hygiene, Health and Eugenics in Southeast Europe to 1945 (Budapest:
Central European University Press, forthcoming 2010).
T. Georgescu, 'Pursuing the Fascist promise: the Transylvanian Saxon "self-help" from
genesis to empowerment, 1922-1935', in Robert Pyrah and Marius Turda (eds), Culture
and Identity in Central Europe (Oxford: Legenda, forthcoming 2010).
T. Georgescu and M. Turda (eds), 'Race and anthropology in interwar Central and
Eastern Europe', (special issue) Focaal (forthcoming, 2010).
T. Georgescu, The Eugenic Fortress: The Transylvanian Saxon Experiment with
'National Renewal' in Interwar Romania. Budapest: Central European University Press,
forthcoming (2010).
G. C. Gosling and S. Soanes, 'Healthcare and the Community in Modern Britain: An
Introduction', focus issue of Family and Community History, 12, 2 (forthcoming
November 2009).
G. C. Gosling, '"Co-operate! Co-ordinate! Unify!" The 1920 proposal to amalgamate the
medical charities of Bristol', Southern History, vol. 29 (2007), 83-106.
G. C. Gosling, 'The patient contract in Bristol's voluntary hospitals, c.1918-1929',
University of Sussex Journal of Contemporary History, 11 (2007). Available from
F. Hutton, 'The working of the 1832 Anatomy Act in Oxford and Manchester', Family and
Community History, 9, 2 (2006), 125-139.
M. James, 'A Georgian gentleman: child care and the case of Harry Tremayne, 1814-
23', Family and Community History, 9, 2 (2006), 79-90.
A. Shepherd, 'Mental Health Care and Charity for the Middling Sort: Holloway
Sanatorium 1885-1900', in A. Borsay, and P. Shapely (eds), Medicine, Charity and
Mutual Aid. The Consumption of Health and Welfare in Britain, c1550-1950 (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2007), pp. 163-182.
A. Stringer, 'Depth and diversity in parochial healthcare: Northamptonshire 1750-1830',
Family and Community History, 9, 1 (2006), 43-54.
S. King and A. Stringer, 'The dignity of the sick poor in English pauper letters, 1810-
1840', in A. Gestrich and S. A. King (eds) The Dignity of the Poor: Concepts, Practices,
Representations (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2010).
S. King and A. Stringer, '"I have once more taken the leberty to say as you well know":
The development of rhetoric in the letters of the English sick poor 1780s-1830s', in S.A.
King (ed.), Narratives of Poverty and Sickness in Europe 1780-1938 (Berghahn,
forthcoming 2010).
S. King and A. Stringer, 'Sickness and its relief in rural Midland and East Anglian
communities 1730-1820', in S. A. King and R. M. Smith (eds), Medicine and Institutional
Cultures of the Poor (Oxford University, forthcoming 2010).
Nichola Hunt and Aleksandra Loewenau were awarded AHRC Library of Congress
Scholarships in 2009, enabling them to visit Washington DC to access the research
collections held at the Library of Congress.
Aleksandra Loewenau also received an award from the Immigration History Research
Center at Minnesota University to fund a research visit in Minneapolis from 17-25 August
5. Visitors
The Centre is keen to develop collaborative research networks and it regularly attracts
scholars from all over the world. Visitors based in the Centre during the review period
Shuhei Ikai, an associate professor in the Faculty of Economics at Saga University,
Japan, first visited the Centre at the beginning of 2005 and made a second visit in 2006
from January to July. He worked with Professor Anne Digby and other staff in the Centre
on a collaborative research project on a comparative history of health care in Japan, the
UK and US. In June, he presented a paper entitled 'The Growth of Hospital Practice in
the First Half of the 20th Century in Japan' for the History of Medicine seminar
programme. In January 2007, Professor Digby was an invited speaker at an international
conference organised by Professor Ikai on comparative hospital history, held in Tokyo.
The Centre has established a collaborative research partnership with the Stein Rokkan
Centre for Social Studies at the University of Bergen in Norway. At the beginning of
2006, the Centre hosted visits from two scholars from the Stein Rokkan Centre.
Dr Temu Ryman, a post-doctoral fellow, made a three-week visit in January and
February to work on his project on the anti-tuberculosis campaign in northern Norway
circa 1900-1960, in comparative perspective. Elisabeth Koren was based in the Centre
from February to April, conducting research in the UK for her doctoral dissertation
dealing with the Norwegian health policy towards seamen 1890-1970. In March
Elisabeth gave a seminar paper entitled 'The Norwegian Beriberi Commission 1902 and
Seamen's Health'.
Professor Estēe Dvorjetski, a Visiting Professor of Oxford Brookes University from the
University of Haifa, Israel, visited the Centre from mid-January until the end of March
2007. This was Professor Dvorjetski's second visit to the Centre; she had previously
spent a sabbatical year at Oxford Brookes from August 2004 to September 2005
carrying out research for her monograph 'Leisure, Pleasure and Healing: Spa Culture
and Medicine in Ancient Eastern Mediterranean', which was published by Brill in Spring
Professor Paul-André Rosental, Directeur d'études à l'École des Hautes Études en
Sciences Sociales (EHESS, Paris), was a Visiting Professor in the Centre during April
and May, funded by the Centre's visiting scholar programme. His visit aimed to further
joint work on studies of populations, and social protection and health. He contributed a
paper on the distinctive qualities of French eugenics at a workshop on 'Eugenics,
Population and French Politics in the Twentieth Century', convened by Professor Paul
Weindling on 1 May.
Professor Gail Savage, from St Mary's College of Maryland, spent a sabbatical year
from August 2007 to July 2008 in the History Department as part of the Department's
Visiting Scholar Programme. Professor Savage shares research interests with both staff
in the Centre and the wider History Department. During her visit she completed her book
on the history of divorce. She organised a workshop on 3 April 2008 for historians on the
problems of data collection, quantitative analysis and presentation.
Professor Estēe Dvorjetski visited the Centre from mid-September until the end of
December. During her stay she contributed to the teaching programme; for example, she
taught an introductory session on 'Physicians-Patients Relationship in the Graeco-
Roman World' for the History of Medicine MA module 'Patients and Practitioners'.
Professor Dvorjetski was also involved in developing a first-stage module 'The Genesis
of Medicine' for the new History of Medicine combined honours degree. She worked
with Professor Steven King on a joint application for a research grant, with the aim of
producing a monograph on 'Public Health and Preventive Medicine in the Holy Land:
Historical-Archaeological Analysis'.
Professor Paul-André Rosental, Directeur d'études à l'EHESS, Paris, received a
stipendiary fellowship from the School of Arts and Humanities to spend time in April and
May 2008 working with Professor Steve King on a research project on the history of
Dr Olga Bright, from California State University, Chico, was a visitor in the Centre from
April to June 2008. Her research interests in health care insurance and public and
private health care systems have obvious fit with the research theme of the Centre's
Strategic Award on public and private care.
Professor Gautum Bhadra, a senior member of the Centre for Studies in Social
Sciences Calcutta (CSSC), visited the UK in June and July 2008, funded by an Oxford
Brookes University Visiting Fellowship, sponsored by Professor Waltraud Ernst.
Professors Bhadra and Ernst worked on a project on the history of alcohol consumption
and advertising in India during the colonial period. At a meeting held on 18 June
Professor Bhadra gave a presentation on his research and the potential for future
collaborative research involving staff in the School of Arts and Humanities.
Dr Valentin-Veron Toma, from the 'Francisc Rainer' Institute of Anthropology,
Bucharest, was awarded an Oxford Brookes University Visiting Fellowship, sponsored
by Dr Marius Turda, enabling him to spend June and July 2008 in Oxford. Drs Toma and
Turda are involved in collaborative research on heredity, psychiatry and eugenics in
modern Romania in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Dr Thozhukkatt V Sekherr (International Institute for Population Studies), Dr
Biswamoy Pati (University of Delhi), Ms Shilpi Rajpal and Mr Naveen Thomas visited
the UK in June and July to work with Professor Waltraud Ernst on the Wellcome Trust
International Collaborative Research Initiative Grant (CRIG): 'Colonial Medicine and
Indigenous Health Practices in Southern and Eastern Princely States of India, c. 1880-
Dr IIana Löwy, a senior researcher at INSERM, Villejuif, France, spent four months in
the Centre from October 2008 to February 2009, funded by an Oxford Brookes
University Visiting Fellowship, sponsored by Viviane Quirke. Dr Löwy worked on a
project on the detection and prevention of women's cancers in historical and
comparative perspective, in collaboration with Drs Viviane Quirke and Yolanda Eraso.
She participated at meetings of the Oxford Brookes Cancer Care Network and gave a
seminar to this group in November, entitled 'Testing for genetic susceptibility for breast
and ovarian cancer'. In February 2009, she presented a paper '"The right tool for the
job", But what is the job?' at a workshop 'How to Deal with Cancer? Research,
Innovation and Politics', held at Maison Françasie d' Oxford, University of Oxford. Dr
Löwy also taught a session on technology in the hospital for the History of Medicine MA
module 'The Hospital in History.'
Dr Bodhisattwa Kar, a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences
at Calcutta (CSSSC), spent one month in the UK from 1 May to 30 June 2009, funded by
a British Academy (BA) Visiting Fellowship sponsored by Professor Waltraud Ernst. The
purpose of his visit was to work on a collaborative research project 'The cultural and
political economies of opium in British Assam, c. 1800-1942', with Professor Ernst. Dr
Kar presented a paper 'Addicts and elites: Political and cultural economies of opium in
British Assam' at a one-day symposium on South Asia research at Oxford Brookes
University, held on 5 May.
In the academic year 2009-10, the Centre will be host to the following visiting scholars:
Professor Estēe Dvorjetski will be visiting the Centre from September to December
2009. Her principal aim is to conduct further research and write chapters for a
monograph in preparation entitled 'Public Health and Preventive Medicine in the Holy
Land: Historical-Archaeological Analysis'.
Professor Octavian Buda, Professor in History of Medicine at the 'Carol Davila'
Medical University in Bucharest, will be spending three months in the Centre – the dates
have yet to be confirmed. His visit will be funded by an Oxford Brookes University
Visiting Fellowship, sponsored by Professor Steven King. Professor Buda's research
interests in the history of medicine include forensic psychiatry.
Dr Markku Hokkanen, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the Academy of Finland and
docent in general history in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Jyväskylä,
Finland, has been awarded an Oxford Brookes Visiting Fellowship, sponsored by
Professor Anne Digby. The dates for the three-month visit have yet to be confirmed but
Dr Hokkanen is expected to come to Oxford in January 2010. Dr Hokkanen has
previously made short visits to the Centre, on one occasion as an invited seminar
speaker. Collaboration between Anne Digby, who works on South Africa, and Marrku
Hokkanen, whose research is on Malawi, will contribute to an international strand in the
Centre's Wellcome Trust Strategic Award on public and private health care.
Dr Biswamoy Pati, Reader in History at Univesity of Delhi, has been awarded an
Oxford Brookes Visiting Fellowship, sponsored by Professor Waltraud Ernst. The dates
for the two-month visit have yet to be confirmed. Dr Pati will be carrying out research for
a project, 'Leprosy in Colonial and Postcolonial Orissa (India), c. 1860-1960', and will be
involved in writing joint publications with Waltraud Ernst, including a jointly edited book
for part of an OUP series 'Themes in Indian History'.
Dr Indrani Sen, from the Department of English at the University of Delhi, will be visiting
the Centre in 2009-2010 (dates to be confirmed). The purpose of the visit is for Dr Sen
and Professor Waltraud Ernst to finalise the work schedule and chapter structure of a
jointly written research monograph on 'Mad-dogs and Englishwomen. Mentally ill
Memsahibs during the British Raj, c. 1800-1890', for submission to Cambridge Scholars
6. Grants
The medical historians at Oxford Brookes have been successful in obtaining grants from
a number of external funding bodies. In addition to grants awarded to individual
members of staff, the Centre has received core funding from the Wellcome Trust with
the award of an Enhancement Award in 2003 and a Strategic Award in 2007. Grants
held by staff in the Centre during the review period are listed below. Dates for the
duration of the award are given and also the date of the award.
Grants to the Centre:
o Centre for Health, Medicine and Society: Wellcome Trust Enhancement Award
1 October 2003 – 30 September 2008. (May 2003)
o Centre for Health, Medicine and Society (Steven King, Anne Digby, Elizabeth
Hurren, Alysa Levene, Tim McHugh, Glen O'Hara, Viviane Quirke, Marius Turda,
Katherine Watson, Paul Weindling): Wellcome Trust Strategic Award (£646,626).
1 October 2007 – 30 September 2012.
Theme: Health Care in Public and Private. (August 2007)
Project Grants:
o Anne Digby (with Professor Howard Phillips, University of Cape Town):
Wellcome Trust International Collaborative Award (£154,189).
1 January 2005 – 30 April 2008.
Project title: Biomedicine and Society in a South African Context: Groote Schuur
Hospital, Cape Town, 1938 -2003. (November 2004)
o Steven King: Wellcome Trust Project Grant (£166,595).
1 May 2005 – 30 September 2008.
Project title: Sickness, Poverty and Medical Relief in England, 1750-1851. (March
o Paul Weindling (Principal Applicant) and Marius Turda (Co-applicant): AHRC
Project Grant (£406,000).
1 October 2007 – 30 September 2010.
Project title: Victims of Human Experiments under National Socialism: Victims,
Perpetrators and Post-War Trials. (December 2006)
o Waltraud Ernst (with Dr Thozhukkatt V Secker, International Institute for
Population Studies, and Dr Biswamoy Pati, University of Delhi): Wellcome Trust
International Collaborative Award (transfer of award from Southampton
University - £33,331).
1 September 2007 – 31 August 2010.
Project title: Colonial Medicine and Indigenous Health Practices in Southern and
Eastern Princely States of India, c. 1880-1960. (January 2008)
o Anne Digby: Wellcome Trust Pilot Project (£20,953)
1 July 2008 – 30 November 2008.
Project title: Outreach at McCord Hospital, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, circa 1950-
2000. (July 2008)
o Marius Turda: Wellcome Trust Pilot Project Grant (£24,443).
1 May 2009 – 30 April 2010.
Project title: Romanian Eugenics in its International Context, 1918-1944. (March
University Award
o Tim McHugh: Wellcome Trust University Award (£174,699).
1 October 2004 – 30 September 2009.
Project title: Rural Medical Charity and Society in Brittany, 1598-1789. (July
Research Fellowships
o Marius Turda: European Community Marie Curie Intra-European Award
1 March 2005 – 28 February 2007.
Project title: The Biologisation of National Belonging: Medical Doctors, Eugenics
and Racial Anti-Semitism in Hungary and Romania, 1918-1940. (2004)
o Yolanda Eraso: Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship (£128,727).
1 September 2007 – 31 August 2010.
Project title: Public and Philanthropic Initiatives in the Fight Against Female
Cancer in Argentina, 1920-1960. (July 2007)
o Ina Scherder: Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship (£128,650).
1 September 2007 – 31 August 2010.
Project title: The Impact of the Anatomy Act in Ireland: Trainee Doctors, Body
Supply Networks, and the Nature of Medical Professionalisation in Ireland, 1832-
1921. (July 2007)
o Kim Price: Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship (£123,045).
1 July 2008 – 30 June 2011.
Project title: Voices of the Sick Poor: the Patients' Experience of Medical
Negligence under the New Poor Law. (April 2008)
o Projit Mukharji: Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship (£81,423)
1 October 2008 – 30 September 2010.
[Dr Mukharji spent one year of fellowship (2006-07) at University of
Project title: Negotiating 'Science' in 'Traditional' Indian Medicine in the Twentieth
Century: The Case of Bengali Ayurbed. (April 2008)
Research Leave Awards
o Katherine Watson: Wellcome Trust Research Leave (£85,245).
1 August 2007 – 30 September 2009.
Project title: Medicine and Justice: Medico-legal Practice in England and Wales,
1700-1914. (March 2007)
o Elizabeth Hurren: Wellcome Trust Research Leave Award (£44,255).
1 September 2009 – 31 August 2010.
Project title: Dying for English Medicine: Anatomy and its Trade in the Dead
Poor, circa 1832 to 1929. (November 2008)
Visiting Fellowship Awards
o Elizabeth Hurren: Leverhulme Trust Study Abroad Fellowship (£5,235).
Project title: Dying for Victorian Medicine (April 2008)
o Elizabeth Hurren: L'École Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales Stipendiary
Fellowship (€2,500) (2008)
o Waltraud Ernst: British Academy Visiting Fellowship for Dr Bodhisattwa Kar
1 May 2009 – 30 June 2009.
Project title: The Cultural and Political Economies of Opium in British Assam, c.
1800-1942. (March 2009)
o Ina Scherder: The Research Council of Norway – Stipendiary Visiting Fellowship
at the University of Bergen. Mid-August – mid-October 2009.
Public Engagement Awards
o Elizabeth Hurren: Wellcome Trust Broadcast Award (£9,950).
1 September 2008 – 30 April 2009.
Project: Production of a DVD as a pilot for a History of Medicine TV series.
(August 2008)
o Tom Betteridge (Professor in English, Principal Applicant) and Steve King (Coapplicant):
Wellcome Trust Public Engagement Award (£59,400).
1 January 2009 – 31 August 2009.
Project title: Medicine, Birth and Death at the Tudor Court. (December 2008)
Grants for Conferences, Symposia and Seminars
o Katherine Watson: British Academy Overseas Conference Grant (£200) to attend
the ESSHC in Amsterdam in March 2006. (January 2006)
o Steven King: Royal Historical Society Conference Grant (£200).
Conference: The Clothing of the Poor. (May 2006)
o Steven King: Economic History Society Conference Grant (£380).
Conference: The Clothing of the Poor. (July 2006).
o Steve King: Wellcome Trust Expenses Grant (£3,600).
October 2006 – June 2007.
PhD Training Programme in the History of Medicine (held at UCL).
(August 2006)
o Viviane Quirke: British Academy Overseas Conference Grant (£500) to attend
American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM) annual conference,
Montreal, 3-6 May 2007. (March 2007). [Also received an award ($325) from
AAHM (May 2007)]
o Steven King: Wellcome Trust Conference Grant (£3,000).
Conference: Medicine for the Humble (May 2007)
o Steven King (with Professor Anne Hardy, UCL): Wellcome Trust Expenses Grant
October 2007 – June 2008.
PhD Training Programme in the History of Medicine (held at UCL).
(October 2007)
o Glen O'Hara and Tom Crook: Economic History Society Initiatives and
Conference Fund Award (£1,120).
Conference: Norms, Numbers and the People: Statistics and the Public Sphere
in Modern Britain, 1750-2000, 5-6 September 2008, Oxford Brookes University.
(March 2008)
o Waltraud Ernst: Wellcome Trust Conference Grant (£3,650).
Conference: Crossing Colonial Historiographies. Histories of Colonial and
Indigenous Medicines in Transnational Perspectives. 15-17 September,
organised by Oxford Brookes, held at St Anne's College, Oxford. (March 2008)
o Marius Turda: Wellcome Trust Conference Grant (£2,395)
Conference: Greater Romania's National Projects: Ideological Dilemma, Ethnic
Classification and the Medicalisation of Ethnic Identities, 11-13 April 2008,
Oxford Brookes University. (March 2008)
o Tom Crook: British Academy Small Research Grant (£785).
Workshop: Barbarism and Civilization:The Politics of Evil in Britain and France,
1860-1939, 27 June 2008, University of Manchester. (March 2008)
o Waltraud Ernst: Society for Social History Conference Grant (£500)
Conference: Crossing Colonial Historiographies. Histories of Colonial and
Indigenous Medicines in Transnational Perspectives. 15-17 September,
organised by Oxford Brookes, held at St Anne's College, Oxford. (May 2008)
o Katherine Watson: British Academy Overseas Conference Grant (£200) to attend
'Women and Crime in Britain and North America since 1500', Lyon, September
2008 (June 2008)
o Ina Scherder: British Academy Overseas Conference Grant (£400) to attend
American Historical Association 123rd Annual Meeting 2009. (June 2008)
o Steven King: Wellcome Trust Expenses Grant (£3,000).
Project: For a series of meetings entitled 'Reflecting on 60 years of the NHS', to
be held in Lancashire. (October 2008)
o Viviane Quirke: Royal Economics Society Conference Support Grant (£336) to
present paper at 'Modern Medicines: New Perspectives in Pharmaceutical
History', organised by American Institute for the History of Pharmacy, Madison
WI, 17-18 October 2008 (October 2008)
o Katherine Watson: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Travel Grant (£680).
May 2009-May 2010
Project title: Wounding: From Mayhem to Offences Against the Person. (March
Small Research Grants
o Steve King: Pasold Trust Project Grant (£1,842).
1 May 2006 – 1 August 2006
Project title: Clothing of the Poor 1700-1840 (March 2005)
o Steven King: Marc Fitch Fund Award (£1,100)
Project title: Poverty and Relief in England 1500-1850. (April 2006)
o Steven King: British Academy Research Grant (£2,060).
Project title: The Economics of Overseeing, 1750-1834. (June 2006)
o Alysa Levene: Wellcome Trust Research Grant (£1,990).
1 October 2006 – 28 February 2007.
Project title: Children and Hospitals in Eighteenth-century Provincial English and
Scottish Towns. (August 2006)
o Danny Dawson (Research Affiliate): Wellcome Trust Research Expenses Grant
1 September 2006 – 31 December 2006.
Project title: The Socio-medical Impact of the First World War. (September 2006)
o Alysa Levene: British Academy Small Research Grant (£4,037).
1 March 2007 – 31 March 2008
Project title: Healthcare, Welfare and Ideologies of Childhood Among the Young
Poor in Eighteenth-century London. (December 2006)
o Glen O'Hara: British Academy Small Research Grant (£880).
1 January 2007 – 1 January 2008.
Project title: The Scandinavian Example: Nordic Influences on British Policy
Making in the 1950s and 1960s. (December 2006).
o Steven King (with Sylvia Hahn, the University of Salzburg): British Council
Research Collaboration Grant (£2,000).
Project title: Poor Relief and Migration in Austria and England, Eighteenth
to Twentieth Centuries. (June 2007)
o Elizabeth Hurren: Scouloudi Publication Grant (£667).
Project title: Protesting about Pauperism: Poverty, Politics and Poor Relief in
Late-Victorian England, 1870-1914. (June 2007)
o Alysa Levene: Scouloudi Historical Award, Institute of Historical Research
1 July 2008 – 30 April 2009.
Project title: Religion, Family and Welfare in Industrial Britain. (June 2008)
o Anna Maerker: Scouloudi Foundation (£800).
June 2008 – May 2009.
Project title: The Circulation and Commodification of Anatomical Models. (June
o Sam Sneddon: Scouloudi Foundation (£750).
2008 – 2010.
Project title: Looking at Infant Mortality Records in Birmingham. (June 2008)
o Steve King: Scouloudi Foundation (£700).
Project title: The Experience of Being Poor in the Long Eighteenth Century. (June
o Viviane Quirke: Wellcome Trust Research Expenses Grant (£3,000).
1 September 2008 – 31 August 2009.
Project title: The History of Cancer Chemotherapy in Industrial Context: Imperial
Chemical Industries and Rhône-Poulenc. (August 2008)
o Viviane Quirke (with Jonathan Simon, University of Lyon) British Council/Alliance
Française Research Partnership Programme Grant (£2,450). 2009-2010.
Project title: Serum Therapy, the Pharmaceutical Industry and Public Health in
Britain and France in the Late-nineteenth and Early-twentieth Centuries
(December 2008)
7. Teaching
Staff from the Centre are currently involved in teaching on a variety of basic and second
stage history of medicine modules for the undergraduate History programme. The very
popular basic module 'Medicine and Society' provides students with an introduction to
the history of medicine and health from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth
centuries, offering them the opportunity to develop a specialised interest in health
history, and make connections between medicine and its wider social relations.
In addition to our own students, members of the Centre also teach pre-clinical medical
students from Oxford University.
In 2010 we will offer a new combined honours degree in History of Medicine. In this
programme students will be able to study history of medicine with a variety of other
fields. These include any other field within the School of Arts and Humanities; History,
French, English, History of Art and Publishing being just a few examples. Further
combinations will include Anthropology, Sociology and Psychology in Social Sciences,
and Biology, Biological Sciences and Human Biology in Life Sciences.
The History Department also runs a History of Medicine Masters course, for which a
number of staff from the Centre teach modules. Students on the course take a
compulsory core module, 'Key Concepts and Methods in Historical Research', two
elective modules and a dissertation module. The elective modules offered in the
academic year 2009-10 are listed below.
• Patients and Practitioners
• Medical Experience in the Countryside, 1500-1800
• Eugenics and Biopolitics in Europe
• The Hospital in History
• Ethics and Ideas
• Body Politics: Health and Modernity in Britain 1830-1914
• Pills and Potions
• Science, Magic and Religion
• Independent Study Module
The dissertation module is a programme of independent research supported by
workshops and tutorial supervision, leading to the production of a 12-15,000 word
research dissertation on an approved topic of the student's choice.
The Centre offers a range of PhD topics that reflect the specific research interests of its
staff. Information on postgraduate students and some of the topics covered in the Centre
is given in section 4.
8. Seminars, Workshops and Conferences
During the period under review, the Centre continued to run a successful History of
Medicine seminar programme. Details are given below.
Semester 1 – Theme: 'Rights, Duties and Professional Standing'. Convenor
Professor Waltraud Ernst.
14 October David Hardiman (University of Warwick)
'Christian therapies for tribal Gujarat: from professional healing to spiritual cures'
28 October Thomas Rutten (University of Newcastle)
'The Hippocratic Oath in the context of the Nuremberg medical trials'
9 December Matthew Thomson (University of Warwick)
'Sexual danger, rights, and the landscape of the child in twentieth-century Britain'
Semester 2 – Theme: 'Healthcare in Public and Private'. Convenor Professor Steven
3 February Glen O'Hara (Oxford Brookes University)
People, doctors, politics: towards a more representative and a more sensitive NHS,
17 February Viviane Quirke (Oxford Brookes University)
Clusters of therapeutic innovation: hospitals and drug companies in Britain, France and
the US post WWII
17 March Anne Digby (Oxford Brookes University)
Expertise, equity and ethnicity: healthcare in South Africa, 1940s-90s
28 April Tim McHugh (Oxford Brookes University)
Rural medicine in eighteenth-century France
Free-standing seminar:
31 March Tania Kausmally (Institute of Archaeology, UCL)
Craven Street Anatomy School (1774-1778): 18th-century anatomical teaching seen
from an archaeological perspective
Semester 1 – Theme: 'Perspectives on Rural and Folk Medicine'. Convenor Dr Tim
2 October Hannah Newton (University of Exeter)
Caring for Sick Children in England, c. 1550-1700
16 October Tim McHugh (Oxford Brookes University)
Seigneurs, Sickness and the State in Eighteenth-century Brittany
13 November David Gentilcore (University of Leicester)
'Strange and Horrible Things': the Tomato in Early Modern Italy from Curiosity to
20 November Owen Davies (University of Hertfordshire)
European Grimoires in American and Caribbean Folk Medical/Magical Practices
27 November Alisha Rankin (Tufts University, USA)
The Housewife's Apothecary in Early Modern Germany
Semester 2 – Theme: 'The Marginal and their Practitioners'. Convenor Professor
Steven King.
5 February Markku Hokkanen (University of Jyväskylä, Finland)
Marginal Healers, Marginal Patients? Perspectives on Missionary Medicine in Colonial
South-Central Africa, c. 1875-1930
19 February Astri Andresen (University of Bergen)
Redefining Marginality: Ethnic Minorities and Health Services in Norway c. 1945-2000
4 March Alannah Tomkins (Keele University)
'Such partiality in a public concern is beneath a Gentleman': Parish Medicine and
Professional Rivalry in 1790s Shropshire
18 March Anna Lundberg (Umeå University, Sweden)
Care and coercion – the Swedish Way of Dealing with Venereal Disease and its
Consequences for Individual Sufferers in the Nineteenth Century
Free-standing seminar:
29 January Muriel Le Roux (Maison Française d'Oxford)
Patenting in a competitive world: research and its assessment in France, 1972-2000
Semester 1 – Theme: 'International Perspectives on Health, Welfare and the
Medical Sciences'. Convenor Professor Paul Weindling.
22 September Anne-Emanuelle Birn (University of Toronto)
Old Milk, New Breasts: Uruguay's Infant Mortality Stagnation and the International
Circulation of Child Health Policies, 1890-1940
10 October Pietro Corsi (University of Oxford)
Lamarck: Biology and Politics around 1800
31 October Patrice Bourdelais (EHESS Paris)
A First Public Health Network in France: the Fight against Tuberculosis, 1917-1939
14 November Marius Turda (Oxford Brookes University)
Eugenics in Central Europe: New Directions of Research
28 November Jessica Reinisch (Birkbeck, University of London)
Displaced Persons and the Public Health Problem in Europe in the Aftermath of WWII
12 December Howard Phillips (University of Cape Town)
The Gaze from Below: Writing the History of Patients at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape
Town, 1938-2000
Semester 2 – Theme: 'The Coroner and his Inquest'. Convenor Dr Katherine Watson.
30 January Roy Hunnisett (formerly of the Public Record Office)
Coroners before 1837 and the Reliability of their Records
13 February Pam Fisher (Centre for English Local History, University of Leicester)
The Changing Face of the Inquest, 1725-1860
13 March Katherine Watson (Oxford Brookes University)
Forensic Medicine in the 18th- and 19th-Century Coroner's Court
27 March Tony Ward (University of Hull)
Reflections on Experts and Democracy in the Coroners' Courts
24 April Ian Burney (Centre for the History of Science, Technology & Medicine,
University of Manchester)
Of Bodies and Poison: Themes in 19th-Century Medico-legal History
Free-standing seminar
20 March Linda Bryder (University of Auckland)
The 'Unfortunate Experiment' Revisited. The 1987 Inquiry into the Treatment of Cervical
Cancer at New Zealand's National Women's Hospital
Semester 1 – Theme: 'Anatomy and Rethinking the Body'. Convenor Dr Elizabeth
18 October Michael Sappol (National Library of Medicine, History of Medicine
Division, Bethesda)
The Fruits of Anatomy: Anatomical Storytelling and the Performance of Medical Authority
in 19th-century America – The case of Charles Knowlton (1800-1850), an 'odd', body
snatching, 'atheistical' physician of antebellum New England
1 November Tatjana Buklijas (University of Cambridge)
Transforming the Body: Dissection, Contagion and the Visual Appearance of the
Anatomical Cadaver in Vienna, 1850-1900
15 November James Hodkinson (Oxford Brookes University)
'. . . an endless chain of individuation'. Re-inventing the Female Anatomy in German
Romantic Medicine
29 November Fiona Hutton (Oxford Brookes University)
The Medical Education of Anatomy Students in Oxford and Manchester: A Comparative
6 December Andrew Williams (Consultant Paediatrics, Northampton General
Hospital) Thomas Willis' Practice of Paediatric Neurology and Neurodisability.
Semester 2 – Theme: 'Life-cycle, Health and Sickness'. Convenor Professor Steven
7 February John Stewart (Oxford Brookes University)
Mental Hygiene and Child Welfare: Child guidance in Inter-war Britain.
21 February Steven King and Alison Stringer (Oxford Brookes University)
'I suffer from the conditions that someone of my age ought to expect': Ageing and
Sickness Amongst the English Poor, 1800-1840.
21 March Elisabeth Koren (University of Bergen)
The Norwegian Beriberi Commisssion 1902 and Seamen's Health
7 March Alysa Levene (Oxford Brookes University)
Pathways to Health: How Unique Were Abandoned Children in Eighteenth-century
Free-standing seminar:
6 June Shuhei Ikai (Saga University, Japan)
The Growth of Hospital Practice in the First Half of the 20th Century in Japan
Oxford History of Chemistry Seminar Programme 2009
In addition to the History of Medicine seminar programme, the Centre also supported the
Oxford History of Chemistry seminar programme in 2009, 'Mastering Nature? Chemistry
in History', which was organised jointly by the University of Oxford, Maison Française
d'Oxford, the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, and Oxford Brookes
University. The convenors were: Pietro Corsi, John Christie, Robert Fox, Muriel Le Roux,
John Perkins and Viviane Quirke. Details of the seminar programme are given below:
26 February 'Travelling chymistry in the 16th-17th centuries'
Maison Française, Norham Road
Stephen Clucas (Birkbeck College, London)
The European itinerary of John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica
Bernard Joly (Université de Lille III)
Cosmopolitisme et encyclopédisme dans la philosophie chimique de Pierre-Jean Fabre
(1588-1658): voyages dans l'espace, dans le temps et dans la pensée
12 March 'The chemical apothecary in the 18th century'
Centre for Health Medicine and Society: Past and Present, Oxford Brookes University,
Hjalmar Fors (Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm)
Fame and fortune on the periphery: C.W. Scheele's career as an apothecary-chemist
Jonathan Simon (Université de Lyon I)
Chemistry and pharmacy in eighteenth-century France
30 April 'Chemistry, pollution and the environment in the 19th century'
Maison Française, Norham Road
Peter Reed (independent scholar)
The 'Monster Nuisance' where even the birds cough: Pollution control in Britain 1840-
Laurence Lestel (Conservatoire Nationale des Arts et Metiers, Paris)
Lead (mis)uses in 19th-century France
14 May 'Chemical Philosophy in the 19th century'
University of Oxford History Faculty, Old Boy's High School, George Street
Robert Bud (Science Museum, London)
Using Kant, Comte and chemistry: making sense of industrial revolution and the origins
of the applied science dream
Hasok Chang (University College, London)
Nineteenth-century electrochemistry: selective inattention in historiography
28 May 'The German chemical industry in the 20th century'
Maison Française, Norham Road
Peter Morris (Science Museum, London)
Making Buna: process development in the Third Reich
Michel Dupuy (École Normale Supérieure, Paris)
Chemists against air pollution in the GDR: between acknowledgement and impotence
Conferences and Workshops
Staff in the Centre have been involved in the organisation of a number of conferences
and workshops on the History of Medicine, many of which were held at the University.
Details are given below.
18 May 2009
Symposium 'Health and Philanthropy in Early Modern Europe' – held at Oxford
Brookes University. Convenor, Alysa Levene. Speakers: Ole Peter Grell (Open
University); Alannah Tomkins (Keele University); Marco H. D. van Leeuwen
(IISH/Utrecht U); Julie Marfany (University of Cambridge); Elena Taddia; Paul-André
Rosental (EHESS, Paris).
5 May 2009
Symposium 'South Asia Research at Oxford Brookes' (on themes: addiction, printing
and visual resources – held at Oxford Brookes University. Convenor, Waltraud Ernst.
Speakers: Dr Bodhisattwa Kar (Centre for Studies in Social Sciences at Calcutta,
CSSS); Waltraud Ernst and Projit Mukharji (Oxford Brookes University); Tapti Roy
(Research Associate of Oxford Brookes University).
22 April 2009
Workshop 'Child Welfare, Prostitution and Sexual Politics: International
Perspectives' – held at Oxford Brookes University. Convenor Marius Turda. Speakers:
Despina Karakatsani (University of Peloponnese); Dr Kamila Uzarczyk (Medical
University of Wroclaw); Dr Herwig Czech (Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance,
4 February 2009
Workshop 'How to deal with cancer? Research, Innovation and Politics' – held at
Maison Française d'Oxford. Convenors, Muriel Le Roux (MFO-CNRS) and Viviane
Quirke (Oxford Brookes University). Speakers: Yolanda Eraso (Oxford Brookes
University); Ilana Löwy (Cermes-CNRS-Inserm, France); Elizabeth Toon (CHSTM,
University of Manchester).
13-14 January 2009
Workshop 'Health Care and the People' – held at Glasgow Caledonian University.
Convenors Glen O'Hara (Centre for Health, Medicine and Society, Oxford Brookes
University) and John Stewart (Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare – a
research collaboration between Glasgow Caledonian and Strathclyde Universities).
Speakers: Glen O'Hara (Oxford Brookes University); Martin Powell (University of
Birmingham); Alex Mold (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, LSHTM);
Martin Gorsky (LSHTM); Alison Britton (Glasgow Caledonian University); Dr Chris
Nottingham (Glasgow Caledonian University); Christine Hogg; George Gosling (Oxford
Brookes University); John Welshman (Lancaster University); John Stewart (Glasgow
Caledonian University); Marguerite Dupree (University of Glasgow); Sally Sheard
(University of Liverpool).
17 November 2008
Inaugural Meeting of 'South Asia Postgraduate Network' – held at Oxford Brookes
University. Members of network include: Waltraud Ernst and Projit Mukharji (Oxford
Brookes University; Mark Harrison (Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University
of Oxford); Sarah Hodges and David Hardiman (University of Warwick); Guy Attewell,
(The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL).
25 September 2008
Conference 'Comparing Victims: Research into the Life Histories of Victim
Groups' – held at Oxford Brookes University. Convenors Anna von Villiez and Paul
Weindling. Speakers: Paul Weindling (Centre for Health, Medicine and Society, Oxford
Brookes University); Margit Berner (Department of Anthropology, The Natural History
Museum, Vienna); Gabriele Czarnowski (Institute for Social Medicine and Epidemiology,
Medical University, Graz); Katherine Venables (Department of Public Health, University
of Oxford); Oliver von Mengersen (Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti
and Roma); Rakefet Zalashik (New York University); Dieter Steinert (Department of
History, University of Wolverhampton); Michal Šimůnek (Charles University, Institute of
History, Prague).
15-17 September 2008
Conference 'Crossing Colonial Historiographies' – held at St Anne's College,
Oxford. Convenors Waltraud Ernst, Anne Digby and Projit Mukharji (Centre for Health,
Medicine and Society, Oxford Brookes University). Speakers: Carla Nappi (History and
Philosophy, Montana State University, USA); Guy Attewell (Wellcome Trust Centre for
History of Medicine at UCL); Philip J Havik (Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical,
Lisbon, Portugal); John Bottomley (History, North-West University, South Africa); Veenu
Pant (History, Oxford Brookes/Jaipur, India); Walter Bruchhausen (History of Medicine,
Bonn University, Germany); Maarit Forde and Diana Paton (History, Newcastle
University); Sanjoy Bhattacharya (Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at
UCL); Markku Hokkanen (History and Ethnology, University of Jyväskylä, Finland);
David Sowell (History, Juniata College Huntingdon, USA); Christiana Bastos (Social
Anthropology, Institute of Social Sciences Lisbon, Portugal); Rachel Berger (History,
Concordia University); Burton Cleetus (History, Institut Français de Pondichéry,
Pondicherry, India); Liesbeth Hesselink (Independent Researcher, Leiden, The
Netherlands); Jorge Varanda (Social Anthropology Research Centre, Centre for Malaria
and Tropical Diseases, Lisbon, Portugal); Anna Afanasyeva (History, Yaroslavl State
Pedagogical University, Russia); Michael Knipper (History of Medicine, Institute of
History of Medicine, University of Giessen, Germany).
(Edited volume of selected conference papers in preparation for publication by
Cambridge Scholars Publishing.)
19-20 June 2008
'History of Medicine Research Student Conference' – held at Wellcome Trust Centre
for the History of Medicine at UCL. Co-organised by the Wellcome Trust Centre for the
History of Medicine at UCL and the Centre for Health, Medicine and Society at Oxford
Brookes University.
(For further details, see section 4. on Postgraduate Students)
1 April 2008
Workshop 'Criminal Anthropology and Psychiatry in Modern Romania, 1860-1945'
– held at Oxford Brookes University. Convenor Marius Turda. Speakers: Octavian Buda
(National Institute of Legal Medicine 'Mina Minovici' Bucharest); Valentin-Veron Toma
(Institute of Anthropology 'Fr. Rainer', Bucharest).
4-7 October 2007
Conference 'Narratives of Poverty: English Pauper Letters 1780-1840 in
Comparative Perspective' – held at the University of Hagen, Germany. Jointly
organised by the University of Hagen and the Centre for Health, Medicine and Society,
Oxford Brookes University.
Speakers: Steve King (Centre for Health, Medicine and Society, Oxford Brookes
University); Keith Snell (University of Leicester); Tim Hitchcock (University of
Hertfordshire); Thomas Sokoll (FernUniversität Hagen); Georg Fertig (WWU Münster);
Sylvia Hahn (Universität Salzburg); Anne Winter (Vrije Universiteit Brussel); Elizabeth
Hurren (Centre for Health, Medicine and Society, Oxford Brookes University); Peter King
(Open University); Leonard Schwarz (University of Birmingham); Jane Humphries
(University of Oxford); Felicita Schmieder (FernUniversität Hagen); Tony Faiamn
(independent scholar); Peter Hintzen (Universität Trier); Stefan Elspass (Universität
Augsberg); Wim Vandenbussche (Vrije Universiteit Brussel); Peter Jones (University of
Birmingham); Sigrid Wadauer (Universität Salzburg).
1 May 2007
Workshop 'Eugenics, Population and French Politics in the Twentieth Century' –
held at Oxford Brookes University. Convenor Paul Weindling.
Speakers: Paul-André Rosental (EHESS, Paris); Lara Lee Downs (EHESS, Paris); Paul
Weindling (Centre for Health, Medicine and Society, Oxford Brookes University).
9. Outreach and Public Engagement
The goals of our public outreach strategy are to engage diverse constituencies including
schools and families, local residents, researchers and the medical community in
exploration of issues and events in history of medicine and their relevance in
contemporary contexts. By inspiring dialogue between experts and the wider public we
aim to raise awareness and understanding of the field in general and to make
connections with other disciplines.
To best achieve these goals many of our staff members have participated in the
Wellcome Trust Researcher Engagement Support programme and in October 2008 we
engaged an Outreach Officer, Jane Szele, whose position is made possible by funding
from the Wellcome Trust Strategic Award.
The following are highlights of outreach activities recently undertaken and planned for
the near future.
Popular Media
In the past year alone the Centre has used the popular media with great effect to reach
millions of people around the world. Through television, radio, the internet and
newspapers members have informed and inspired diverse audiences about history of
medicine and its pertinence to a varied range of current issues.
Dr Elizabeth Hurren received a Wellcome Trust Broadcast Development Award to create
(in conjunction with Pier Productions Ltd.) a new themed series for television on the
History of the Body exploring current ethical, philosophical and scientific debates by
focusing on human nature and the limits of medical intervention. The pilot was submitted
for review in June 2009. Dr Hurren is also the expert on history of medicine for BBC
Radio 4's 'Making History' series reaching a weekly audience of 4 million. Two of her
contributions were included in the series' Pick of the Year 2008. In addition Dr Hurren
served as a consultant to BBC Radio 4's 'Henry Week' during which her segment
'Hidden Henry, Medicine and Health' was chosen Pick of the Week by the Guardian in
May 2009 and captured a platform audience of 4.5 million listeners. Professor Steve
King is another regular participant on 'Making History' and has been featured in
programmes on cholera and pauper burials. Tune in to Radio 4's 'Tracing Your Roots'
this coming October to hear Dr Tim McHugh advising listeners on how to trace one's
ancestors through French hospital and civil records. And, in South Africa, SAFM
broadcast an interview with Professor Anne Digby in January about the history of the
Groote Schuur hospital where the first heart transplant was performed.
Television programmes that members have been featured on or contributed to recently
include Professor Steve King on 'The One Show' (BBC1) – reaching approximately 5
million viewers each evening – and Dr Cassie Watson on 'Forensic Casebook' (ITV
London), 'Crime Secrets' (ITV Wales) and 'The Crime Museum' (Endemol UK).
Professor Paul Weindling was featured in the documentary film 'Mendelssohn, the Nazis
and Me' (BBC Four). Future appearances are planned on a BBC Two mini-series about
pandemics and epidemics.
In May the Centre launched a pilot programme of eight weekly podcasts entitled
'Moments in Medicine' (see: http://ah.brookes.ac.uk/historyofmedicine/podcasts). The
series was carried by the Independent on-line and brought the expertise and experience
of historians, scientists, health practitioners, educators, students and those directly
affected by illness and disease to the public in an accessible and portable format. The
partnership with the Independent online made 'Moments in Medicine' available to the
more than 14 million people who visited their site over the project period. Topics covered
included an examination of the role ethnicity plays in research funding and treatment for
sickle cell anaemia and an exploration of the ramifications of the jet age on the future of
epidemics and pandemics.
In print, Dr Glen O'Hara co-authored an article with Professor Niall Ferguson (Harvard
University) published in the Financial Times in June and circulated to a global readership
estimated at over 1.4 million in more than 140 countries.
In March the Jerusalem Post, Israel's best-selling English Daily and most read English
web-site with a visitorship of 190 thousand a day featured an article about Professor
Paul Weindling's research on identifying survivors of human experimentation by the
Nazis and the victims' right to compensation.
Theatrical Productions and Museum Collaborations
Through collaborative ventures with arts organisations and museums we are exploring
more creative approaches to engaging with audiences to communicate concepts and
ideas core to research at the Centre.
Professors Steve King and Tom Betteridge with Dr Elizabeth Hurren received a Public
Engagement Award from the Wellcome Trust for Medicine, Birth and Death at the Tudor
Court, an innovative combination of expert-led research into Tudor medicine with drama.
Designed to engage a series of audiences both with the medical history of the Tudor
period and a range of current issues in biomedical science, the project centred on an
original site-specific immersive theatrical experience entitled A Little Neck. Produced in
collaboration with the Goat and Monkey Theatre Company and the Historic Royal
Palaces, the play was enacted in the precincts of Hampton Court in September as part
of a year-long celebration of the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's accession. All fifteen
performances were sold out involving 2,100 participants in the drama.
At the Museum of the History of Science (MHS), Oxford, department members
periodically engage with audiences face-to-face discussing objects from the collections
in an ongoing Table Talk series. In collaboration with the MHS and the Wellcome Unit at
Oxford University Dr Anna Maerker is developing an object-based learning session for
the first GCSE History of Medicine study day to be held at the museum. Dr Maerker has
recently also authored web-content for 'Brought to Life: Exploring the History of
Medicine' for the Science Museum, London (2009) and 'Dr Auzoux' papier mâché
models' for the Whipple Museum of Science (2006-2009) as well as co-curating the
exhibition 'Objects in Transition' at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
(2007). Dr Elizabeth Hurren was guest speaker at 'A Night at the Museum: Death and
Dissection in Oxford' last May to a full house of 600 members of the community of all
Jane Szele and Georgina Ferry are working on a multi-media centennial celebration of
the life and work of Dorothy Hodgkin in collaboration with the Natural History Museum at
Oxford (where her laboratory was housed) scheduled for May 2010.
Engagement with Schools
The goals of the Centre's involvement with schools are three-fold. As educators and
academics we are particularly concerned with: making university accessible to those
who may not have thought they could attend; to generating awareness and interest in
history of medicine to students; and, to providing support and encouragement to
Regular visits to schools involve discussing curricular-based topics from changing
concepts of religion and belief to 'Before CSI: Crime, Medicine and Science in History'
and giving workshops on historiographic techniques and methodology such as taking
oral histories. As well as holding taster days on campus, the department is now
increasing its efforts to build relationships with individual schools in the region. Travelling
members of the department regularly interact with school children in classrooms in
Oxfordshire, the surrounding counties and as far afield as South Africa and France. In
January Professor Anne Digby gave five talks to summer school students in and around
Cape Town on the history of the Groote Schuur Hospital in conjunction with the
publication of her new book on the topic. Dr Viviane Quirke will visit school children in
France in October as part of the British Council's Science in Schools programme
describing what it is like to work in research, using examples from her work on the
pharmaceutical industry.
In December we participated in an AimHigher Day on campus as part of a governmental
initiative designed to raise the aspirations and develop the abilities of young people from
under-represented groups. And in May we organized and ran a balloon debate between
key figures in the history of medicine at the Petchey Academy, an AimHigher school, in
Hackney, London. Students studying science and history for their GCSEs quizzed
Galen, Hippocrates, Thomas Willis and Mary Seacole to determine which individual had
contributed most to medicine. The debate was recorded as part of our 'Moments in
Medicine' podcast project and a DVD was produced.
In a collaborative project with Epigeum, Professor Paul Weindling helped develop a
series of on-line educational courses on Research Skills for postgraduate students.
Epigeum is a spin-out company from Imperial College London to help staff and students
in academic institutions fulfil their potential by providing high-quality, state-of-the art
training courses in key skill areas.
Dr Alysa Levene organized an exciting schools' debating competition held at Oxford
Brookes in 2007 designed to introduce year 11 to 13 pupils to the history of medicine, as
well as giving them a taster experience of university. Teams battled it out to prove or
disprove that 'This house believes that we are due for another plague', 'This house
believes that clean water is the best medicine of all', and 'This house believes that war
has done more for medicine than peace.'
Jane Szele is in discussion with DebatingMatters, the schools component of the Institute
of Ideas to plan a day of workshops for local schools in which to encourage debate and
use examples from the past as a way of exploring contemporary issues in science and
As part of our commitment to community we are working to interact with groups at the
local, regional and global level in meaningful ways that respond to their needs and best
utilize our expertise and resources.
In March Jane Szele served on the planning committee for the Oxford Brookes Science
Bazaar – a day of family friendly activities as part of Oxfordshire's annual month long
science festival. Approximately 500 members of the community attended. In another
event for the festival Dr Elizabeth Hurren was featured amongst the panellists in an
audience led programme entitled '60 Minutes of Sex' at the Oxford Play House.
Moderated by Judith Hann, other panel members represented fields such as psychiatry,
religion, biomedical science, zoology (evolution and behaviour) and psychology.
In July Dr Yolanda Eraso advised on setting up a 'Consumer Research Partnership'
within the Thames Valley Cancer Network assisting 2.4 million people in Oxfordshire and
the surrounding counties. The purpose of this partnership is 'to ensure active
involvement of consumers in cancer research based partly or fully in Thames Valley, in
order to improve its quality and value.' The group will help to shape the design and
conduct of future research into any aspect of cancer. Dr Eraso is also active in the
Thames Valley Cancer Network Support group, an organization linking patients and
families with support services and advocating how to conduct research involving the
patient/family point of view.
Professor Paul Weindling continues to be actively involved in the Council for Assisting
Refugee Academics (CARA) serving on their Council of Management. CARA is currently
assisting over 140 refugee academics from all disciplines, helping them to rebuild their
lives and careers in dignity and ensure that their skills and knowledge are not lost to
future generations. Professor Weindling has also facilitated a work placement
programme for history of medicine students at CARA.
Medical Humanities and Interdisciplinary Study
As we look towards the future we are seeking ways to enrich the study of the history of
medicine and bring new perspectives to traditional and emerging concepts in the field by
creating opportunities for interdisciplinary study and cross-fertilization of ideas.
We are proud to announce the launch of a new combined honours undergraduate
degree in History of Medicine in 2010. This degree is designed to be unique in the UK in
that it will offer an unparalleled opportunity for interdisciplinary study in the field.
Students will be able to combine their interest in History of Medicine with all other Arts
and Humanities subjects at Oxford Brookes including foreign languages, art and drama,
Social Sciences subjects such as anthropology and psychology, and Life Sciences
subjects including biology, biological sciences and human biology. Integral to the degree
will be a careers development programme tailored to help each student apply the skills
and knowledge they acquire to a variety of professions.
Dr Yolanda Eraso is part of a team of specialists from different fields who have
developed a new MSc degree in Cancer Studies to be launched in 2010. The course
offers an innovative and interdisciplinary perspective to the study of cancer. It is
designed to capitalise on collaborations across the university and emphasises the
interaction of biomedical sciences with the fields of sociology and psychology offering
teaching in applied biology, epidemiology and public health, sociology, psychology,
history, ethics and law.
Dr Glen O'Hara was one of the co-founders of Reinvention: A Journal of Undergraduate
Research. This is a new peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the publication of highquality
undergraduate student research co-sponsored by Oxford Brookes University and
the University of Warwick. It received 40,000 hits in its first year and now, in its second is
accepting submissions world-wide. Dr. O'Hara is also the Editor for History. Lauren
Paice and Fraser Joyce (now a PhD student in the Centre) were published in the first
volume of the journal whilst working toward their MAs in history of medicine at Oxford
Dr Viviane Quirke determines the judging criteria as well as serving on the judging panel
for the British Society for the History of Science Dingle Prize for the best book in the
history of science, technology and medicine. This year's winner was 'Science and
Religion: A Very Short Introduction' by Thomas Dixon. She also advised the British
Society for the History of Maths on setting up the BSHM Neumann Prize which was first
awarded this September.
In summary, it has been a productive period of growth and exploration in outreach and
public engagement for the Centre. We developed our first formal strategy and have
made great progress in achieving its primary goals. In the next phase we will continue to
refine and focus our efforts to maximize the impact of the Centre's unique resources on
our target audiences. We look forward to the future and to building an increasingly
effective and exciting outreach programme.