Centre Interim Report - Oxford Brookes University - Department of ...

Centre for
Health, Medicine and Society:
Past and Present
Oxford Brookes University
Report
May 2012

Centre for Health, Medicine and Society: Past and Present
Oxford Brookes University
Foreword
Report May 2012
This periodic review for the Centre for Health, Medicine and Society: Past and
Present covers the period from December 2010 to May 2012. During this time,
Oxford Brookes has undergone a restructuring and the Centre is now part of a new
Department of History, Philosophy and Religion in the Faculty of Humanities and
Social Sciences. The management team for the Centre has remained in place, with
Professor Paul Weindling as director, and Drs Marius Turda and Tom Crook as
deputy directors with responsibility for research and the student experience,
respectively.
There have been a number of staff changes in the period under review. In
April 2012 Professor Anne Digby retired from the University. Anne was instrumental
in establishing the Centre at Oxford Brookes as a focus for research in the History of
Medicine and we are indebted to her for her contribution over many years to teaching
and research. In the past year, Dr Anna Maerker and Dr Elizabeth Hurren have
moved from Oxford Brookes to take up appointments elsewhere: Anna is now Senior
Lecturer in History of Medicine at King’s College, London, and Elizabeth is Reader in
the Medical Humanities at the University of Leicester. Having completed fixed-term
contracts, Dr Peter Jones has moved to the University of Leicester and Dr Mike
Esbester to the University of Portsmouth. We wish our former colleagues continued
success in their new institutions. At the time of writing this review, the Department is
in the process of making new appointments in History/ History of Medicine and we
look forward to welcoming new colleagues. In June 2012 we will appoint a three-year
temporary lecturer in the History of Medicine to start in September 2012. This post is
funded by a Wellcome Trust Programme Grant and will cover teaching for staff on
research leave.
The past eighteen-month period has been a profitable time for research in
the Centre, with the launch of new projects and existing projects being brought to
completion. The research programme ‘Healthcare in Public and Private’ funded by a
Wellcome Trust Strategic Award, will be completed by the end of 2013. Staff have
enjoyed some notable grant successes, including the award of a five-year Wellcome
Trust Programme Grant to Paul Weindling, Elizabeth Hurren, Viviane Quirke and
Marius Turda. The award, for a programme of research on subjects’ narratives of
medical research in Europe, ca. 1940-2001, includes funding for research expenses,
a temporary lectureship, two postdoctoral research posts and a PhD studentship.
Paul Weindling has also received a grant from a US-based funding organisation ‘The
Rabbi Israel Miller Fund for Shoah Research, Documentation and Education of the
Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany’ to extend his research on
victims of Nazi medical experiments. Marius Turda is a joint award holder with Dr Jan
Fellerer at the University of Oxford for an AHRC-funded project entitled ‘Sub-cultures
as Integrative Forces in East-Central Europe, 1900-present'. Dr Jane Stevens
Crawshaw, who was appointed in 2009 as Lecturer in Early Modern History, has
been awarded a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship for a research study entitled
‘Cleaning up Renaissance Italy: environment, space and the social margins’.
Members of the Centre have also won a number of smaller awards for research
expenses and conference funding.
The Centre is also represented in a number of high profile projects
elsewhere. Professor Paul Weindling is a member of the organising committee of the
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project of the German Association of Psychiatry and Neurology's project on
psychiatrists under National Socialism. He also oversaw to completion the project of
the Robert Koch Institute on its history under National Socialism. He completed
research for the project of the ‘Memory, Responsibility and Future’ foundation on its
compensation for victims of Nazi human experiments between 1998 and 2004. He
also saw to conclusion the 75th anniversary project of the Council for Assisting
Academic Refugees.
Staff in the Centre have continued to be very active in terms of producing
research publications, presenting seminar and conference papers, and in the
organisation of a number of conferences and workshops held in Oxford, India and
Greece. Each semester the Centre has organised a seminar programme, which is
open to staff and students of the University, and the wider community. The
programme in the second semester of the academic year 2011/12 explored research
in medical humanities at Oxford Brookes, with speakers coming from each of the four
new faculties of the University. Part of the Centre’s strategy is to develop
collaborative projects with colleagues from other disciplines and faculties within the
University.
Research in the Centre underpins teaching in History of Medicine, which is
offered as a subject at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, with Centre staff
leading a range of modules. The Masters course in the History of Medicine has
continued to recruit well and the Centre has been able to fund a number of student
bursaries each year from the Wellcome Trust Strategic Award. The Centre has
recently been awarded a Wellcome Trust History of Medicine masters studentship for
2012/13. A number of students taking the masters course have been encouraged to
proceed to postgraduate research. Competition for national funding awards for
doctoral studentship is intense, so we are pleased that Viviane Quirke has recently
been awarded an AHRC collaborative doctoral award with Peter Morris of the
Science Museum, to start in October 2012. In the period under review the Centre has
had some successful PhD completions and other students will be submitting theses
for examination in 2012.
Tudor Georgescu, the Centre’s outreach officer, has worked with staff to
develop research dissemination and public engagement activities. He has brought
the research interests of the Centre to the attention of a wide audience by producing
a large number of podcasts of lectures, seminars and conference papers, which can
be accessed through the Centre’s website. As part of the Centre’s work with the
local community, Tudor has organised a number of activities for schoolchildren on
medicine in history, which have taken place during the annual Oxfordshire Science
Festival in March.
The Centre would like to express its gratitude and appreciation to the
University and the Wellcome Trust for their support. The majority of the Centre’s
research grant funding has come from the Wellcome Trust and we gratefully
acknowledge the continued support of the Trust. We should also like to acknowledge
the following organisations for funding research in the Centre: the AHRC, the
Berendel Foundation, the British Academy, the ESF and the Rabbi Israel Miller Fund
for Shoah Research.
We look forward to the challenges of another academic year when we will
welcome new colleagues and continue to produce high quality research and
publications.
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Research News
Grants
The Centre has been successful in winning a number of awards from external
funding bodies. New grants include:
Research awards
o
o
o
o
o
A Wellcome Trust Programme Grant of £530,986, made to Paul Weindling
(principal investigator), Elizabeth Hurren, Viviane Quirke and Marius Turda for
a five-year project entitled ‘Subjects’ Narratives of Medical Research in
Europe, ca. 1940-2001’. The award, which has a start date of January 2011,
will provide research assistance, teaching replacement and expenses. [Part
of the award was transferred to the University of Leicester following Elizabeth
Hurren’s move to the University in February 2011.]
A research grant from The Rabbi Israel Miller Fund for Shoah Research,
Documentation and Education of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims
Against Germany, awarded to Paul Weindling and worth £100,317, for
research on victims of Nazi medical experiments. The research will be
conducted over a 22-month period until May 2013.
A Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship awarded to Jane Stevens Crawshaw.
The two-year Fellowship, worth £79,084, will enable her to work on a study
entitled ‘Cleaning up Renaissance Italy: environment, space and the social
margins’.
A British Academy Small Grants Award for £6,813 made to Jane Stevens
Crawshaw for a study entitled ‘Cleaning up Renaissance Italy: environment,
space and the social margins’.
An AHRC Research Grant for £830,000 made to the University of Oxford with
Marius Turda as co-applicant for a study entitled ‘Sub-cultures as Integrative
Forces in East-Central Europe, 1900-present'. The four-year project has a
start date of 1 September 2012.
o An ESF-DRUGS Exchange Program grant made to Viviane Quirke for €2,500
to fund research in France for a project entitled ‘The development of cancer
chemotherapy in France: institutions and standard drugs, knowledge,
practices and tools’.
o
An AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award made to Viviane Quirke and Peter
Morris (Principal Curator of Science at the Science Museum) for a research
project 'Chemicals and their Users in the British Home, 1930s-1980s', with a
start date of October 2012.
Conference awards
o
o
Wellcome Trust award for £4,460 made to Jane Stevens Crawshaw for a
conference ‘The Disease Within: Confinement in Europe, 1400-1800’ held at
Oxford Brookes University 4-5 March 2011.
Wellcome Trust award for £11,073 made to John Perkins for meetings
entitled ‘Sites of Chemistry’ to be held in London, Oxford, Valencia and Paris
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etween November 2010 and June 2012. The Wellcome Trust awarded a
further supplement of £940.
o
o
Wellcome Trust award for £4,948 made to Marius Turda for a conference
‘Crafting Humans: From Genesis to Eugenics and Beyond’ held at The
Queen’s College Oxford on 8-10 September 2011.
Award of €10,000 made from German 'Federal Government Commissioner
for Culture and the Media upon a Decision of the German Bundestag’ for a
workshop ‘The German Archipelago: German Minorities and Interwar
Eugenics’ held at Balliol College Oxford on 17-18 December.
Publications (Dec. 2010 – May 2012)
Books
Members of the Centre have achieved notable academic success recently with the
publication of a number of monographs and edited volumes. Here are some
examples:
Alysa Levene The Childhood of the
Poor: Welfare in Eighteenth-Century
London (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
Elizabeth T. Hurren Dying for
Victorian Medicine: English Anatomy
and its Trade in the Dead Poor,
c.1834 – 1929 (Palgrave Macmillan,
2011).
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Anna Maerker Model Experts: Wax
Anatomies and Enlightenment in
Florence and Vienna, 1775-1815
(Manchester University, 2011).
Glen O’Hara Governing Post-War
Britain: The Paradoxes of Progress,
1951-1973 (Palgrave Macmillan,
2012).
Marius Turda Modernisme et
Eugénisme (Translated from English
by Emilie Syssau) (L’Harmattan,
2011)
Tom Crook and Glen O’Hara (coeditors)
Statistics and the Public
Sphere: Numbers and the People in
Modern Britain, c.1800-2000
(Routledge Studies in Modern British
History Series, 2011).
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Tom Crook (co-editor with Rebecca
Gill and Bernard Taithe) Evil,
Barbarism and Empire. Britain and
Abroad, c.1830 – 2000 (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2011).
Alysa Levene (co-editor with Martin
Powell, John Stewart and Becky
Taylor) Cradle to Grave: Municipal
Medicine in Inter-war England and
Wales (Studies in the History of
Medicine) (Verlag Peter Lang, 2011).
Marius Turda (co-editor with Christian
Promitzer, Sevasti Trubeta) Health,
Hygiene and Eugenics in
Southeastern Europe until 1945
(Central European University Press
Studies in the History of Medicine,
2011).
Paul Weindling (co-editor with Shula
Marks and Laura Wintour) In Defence
of Learning: The Plight, Persecution,
and Placement of Academic
Refugees, 1933-1980s (Oxford
University Press/ British Academy,
Proceedings of the British Academy,
169, 2011).
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Journal articles and chapters in edited volumes
T. Crook, ‘Secrecy and liberal modernity in Victorian and Edwardian England’, in
Simon Gunn and James Vernon (eds), The Peculiarities of Liberal Modernity in
Imperial Britain (Berkeley and LA: University of California Press, 2011), pp. 72-90.
T. Crook and G. O’Hara, ‘The ‘Torrent of Numbers’: Statistics and the Public Sphere
in Modern Britain, c. 1800-2000’ and ‘Towards New Histories of an Enumerated
People’, in Tom Crook and Glen O’Hara (eds), Statistics and the Public Sphere:
Numbers and the People in Modern Britain, c. 1800-2000 (New York and London:
Routledge, 2011), pp. 1-31 and 264-70.
T. Crook, ‘Suspect figures: Statistics and public trust in Victorian England’, in Tom
Crook and Glen O’Hara (eds), Statistics and the Public Sphere: Numbers and the
People in Modern Britain, c. 1800-2000 (New York and London: Routledge, 2011),
pp. 165-84.
T. Crook, R. Gill and B. Taithe, ‘Liberal Civilisation and its Discontents: Evil,
Barbarism and Empire’, in Tom Crook, Rebecca Gill and Bertrand Taithe (eds), Evil,
Barbarism and Empire: Britain and Abroad, c.1830-2000 (Basingstoke: Palgrave,
2011), pp. 1-29.
T. Crook, ‘Evil in Question: The Victorian Social and the Politics of Prostitution’, in
Tom Crook, Rebecca Gill and Bertrand Taithe (eds), Evil, Barbarism and Empire:
Britain and Abroad, c.1830-2000 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2011), pp. 33-53.
T. Crook (with M. Crook), ‘L’isoloir universel? L’avènement d’un scrutin secret global
au XIX e siècle’, Revue d’histoire du XIXe siècle, 43, 2 (2011), 41-55.
T. Crook (with M. Crook), ‘Reforming Voting Practices in a Global Age: The Making
and Remaking of the Modern Secret Ballot in Britain, France and the United States,
c. 1600-c. 1950’, Past & Present, 212, 1 (2011), 199-237.
A. Digby, 'The mid-level health worker in South Africa: the in-between condition of
the "middle"' in A. Khalid and R. Johnson (eds), Public Health in the British Empire:
Intermediaries, Subordinates, and the Practice of Public Health, 1850-1960
(Routledge 2011).
A. Digby, 'Black doctors and discrimination under South Africa's apartheid regime',
(forthcoming, Medical History 2013).
A. Digby, ' "The Bandwagon of Golden Opportunities"? Healthcare in South Africa’s
Bantustan Periphery', (forthcoming, South African Historical Journal).
A. Digby, 'Evidence, encounters and effects of South Africa’s reforming Gluckman
National Health Services Commission, 1942-1944', South African Historical Journal,
64, 2 (2012). [First published online 15 February 2012.]
A. Digby and H. Sweet, ‘Social Medicine and Medical Pluralism: the Valley Trust and
Botha's Hill Health Centre, South Africa, 1940s to 2000s', Social History of Medicine,
25, 2 (2011). [First published online September 26 2011.]
W. Ernst, ‘The Indianization of Colonial Medicine. The Case of Psychiatry in Early-
Twentieth-Century British India’, Natural Sciences, Technology and Medicine –
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Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin, 3 (2012). [First
published online 4 May 2012].
A. Levene, 'Charity apprenticeship and social capital in eighteenth-century England',
in N. Goose and K. Honeyman (eds), Children and Childhood in Britain, c. 1650-1900
(Ashgate, forthcoming, 2012).
A. Levene, 'Childhood and adolescence', in M. Jackson (ed.), Oxford Handbook of
the History of Medicine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
A. Levene, 'Child patients, medicine and the home in eighteenth-century England’
Family and Community History (forthcoming).
A. Levene, ‘Pauper apprenticeship and the Old Poor Law in London: feeding the
industrial economy?’ Economic History Review, 63, 4 (2010), 915–941.
A. Levene, ‘Poor families, removals and “nurture” in late Old Poor Law
London’, Continuity and Change, 25, 1 (2010), 233-262.
G. O’Hara, 'Britain and Norway: Trade and Commercial Relations in the Post-Second
World War Era', in E. Lange and H. Pharo (eds), Britain and Norway: Contacts,
Networks, Influences (Oslo: Oslo University Press, forthcoming, 2012).
G. O’Hara, '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 of the UK and Italy (London:
Routledge, 2011), pp. 50-67.
G. O’Hara, 'Numbers, Experts and Ideas: The French Economic and Statistical
Example in Britain, c.1951-1973', in T. Crook and G. O'Hara (eds.), Statistics and the
Public Sphere, 1750-2000: Numbers and the People in Modern Britain (New York
and London: Routledge, 2011), pp. 84-100.
G. O’Hara, 'Parties, People and Parliament: Britain's "Ombudsman" and the Politics
of the 1960s', Journal of British Studies 50, 3 (2011) 690-714.
G. O’Hara and L. Grant, 'Spotlight On: The Spirit Level and Equality', Geography 95,
3 (2010) 149-54.
V. Quirke and J. Slinn, 'Perspectives on Twentieth-Century Pharmacueticals: an
introduction', in V. Quirke and J. Slinn (eds), Perspective on Twentieth-
Century Pharmacueticals (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010), pp. 1-34.
V. Quirke, 'Foreign influences, national styles, and the creation of a modern
pharmaceutical industry in Britain and France', in V. Quirke (ed.), Pharmaceutical
styles: French and British spheres of influence in the nineteenth and early-twentieth
centuries', special issue of Pharmacy in History, 52 (2010), 134-47.
J. Stevens Crawshaw, Islands of Isolation? The Lazaretti of Early Modern Venice’, in
C. Bonfield, T.Huguet-Termes and J. Reinarz (eds), Hospitals and Communities,
1100-1960 (forthcoming, Peter Lang, 2012).
J. Stevens Crawshaw, ‘Charity, compassion and conversion in the Counter
Reformation plague hospital’, in T. Huguet Termes (ed.), City and hospital in the
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European West (13 th -17 th centuries) (forthcoming, Spanish National Research
Council and Pagès, Lerida, 2012).
J. Stevens Crawshaw, ‘The beasts of burial: pizzigamorti and fear during plague time
in early modern Venice’, Social History of Medicine, 24, 3 (2011). [First published
online 24 February 2011].
M. Turda (ed.), Crafting Humans: From Genesis to Eugenics and Beyond (Taipei:
National Taiwan University Press, forthcoming, 2013).
M, Turda, Eugenics and the Making of a Modern Nation: Social and Biological
Improvement in Hungary, 1900-1919 (Palgrave: Macmillan, forthcoming 2013)
M.Turda, ‘Nationalizing Eugenics: The Hungarian Public Debate of 1910-1911’, in
Mitchell G. Ash and Jan Surman (eds), The Nationalization of Scientific Knowledge in
the Habsburg Empire, 1848 – 1918 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012),
pp.183-208.
M. Turda, ‘History of Medicine in Eastern Europe, including Russia’, in Mark Jackson
(ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Medicine (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2011), pp. 208-224.
M. Turda (with S. King), ‘Journeying across Empires: An agenda for future research
in Central and Southeastern European history of medicine’, in D. Sechel (ed.),
Medicine Within and Between the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires, 18th and 19th
Centuries (Bochum: Dieter Winkler, 2011), pp. 235-242.
M. Turda, ‘Academic History Writing in the Balkans to 1945’, in J. Maiguaschca, S.
Macintyre and A. Pók (eds), The Oxford History of Historical Writing: Vol. IV, 1800-
1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 349-366.
M. Turda, ‘Race, Science, and Eugenics in the Twentieth Century’, in Alison
Bashford and Philippa Levine (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 62-79.
M. Turda, ‘In Pursuit of Greater Hungary: Eugenic Ideas of Social and Biological
Improvement, 1940-1941’ (forthcoming, The Journal of Modern History).
M. Turda, ‘In Search of Racial Types: Soldiers and the Anthropological Mapping of
the Romanian Nation, 1914-1944’, Patterns of Prejudice, 46, 2 (2012).
M. Turda (ed.) Special Issue: ‘Health and Society: Private and Public Medical
Traditions in Greece and the Balkans, 1453-1920’, Deltos: Journal of the History of
Hellenic Medicine (2012).
P. J. Weindling, ‘Der Nürnberger Ärzteprozess: Ursprünge, Verlauf, und
Nachwirkungen’, in Kim Priemel and Alexa Stiller (eds), N M T. Die Nürnberger
Militärtribunale zwischen Geschichte, Gerechtigkeit und Rechtsschöpfung
(forthcoming, Hamburger Edition, 2013).
P. J. Weindling, ‘Victims, Witnesses and the Ethical Legacy of the Nuremberg
Medical Trial’, in Kim Priemel and Alexa Stiller (eds), Reassessing the Nuremberg
Military Tribunals: Transitional Justice, Trial Narratives, and Historiography
(forthcoming, Berghan Books, August 2012).
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P. J. Weindling, ‘From Disease Prevention to Population Control: The Realignment of
Rockefeller Foundation Policies 1920s–1950s’, in Helke Rausch and John Krige
(eds), American Foundations and the Coproduction of World Order in the Twentieth
Century (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Gm, June 2012).
P. J. Weindling, ‘Sonstige Personenschäden – die Entschädigungspraxis der Stiftung
Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft’, in Constantin Goschler (ed), Die
Entschädigung von NS-Zwangsarbeit am Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen:
Wallstein Verlag, 2012).
P. J. Weindling, ‘Die Opfer von Menschenversuchen und gewaltsamer Forschung im
Nationalsozialismus mit Fokus auf Geschlecht und Rasse. Ergebnisse eines
Forschungsprojekts’, in Insa Eschebach and Astrid Ley (eds), Geschlecht und
Rasse in der NS-Medizin (Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 2012).
P. J. Weindling, ‘Medical Refugees from Czechoslovakia in the UK. A Total
Population Approach to Assistance Organisations and Careers, 1938-1945’, in M.
Stella, Antonin Kostlán and Sona Štrabáňová (eds), Scholars in Exile and
Dictatorships of the 20th Century. May 24-26, 2011, Prague. Conference
Proceedings (Prague Academy of Sciences 2011).
P. J. Weindling, ‘Menschenversuche und Euthanasie – das Zitieren von Namen,
historische Aufarbeitung und Gedenken’, Arbeitskreis zur Erforschung der
nationalsozialistischen “Euthanasie” und Zwangssterilisation’, in (ed.), Den Opfern
ihre Namen geben. NS- “Euthanasie”-Verbrechen, historisch-politische
Verantwortung und Erinnerungskultur (Bad Irsee: Impulse, 2011), pp.115-32.
P. J. Weindling, ‘From Scientific Object to Commemorated Victim: The Children of
the Spiegelgrund’, in Ilana Löwy (ed.), Microscope Slides: Reassessing a Neglected
Historical Resource (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, 2011), pp. 77-
88.
P. J. Weindling, ‘Racial Expertise and German Eugenic Strategies for Southeastern
Europe’, in Christian Promitzer, Marius Turda, Sevasti Trubeta (eds), Health,
Hygiene and Eugenics in Southeastern Europe to 1945 (Budapest: CEU Press
2011), pp. 27-54.
P. J. Weindling, ‘From Refugee Assistance to Freedom of Learning: the Strategic
Vision of A.V. Hill’, in Shula Marks, Paul Weindling and Laura Wintour (eds), In
Defence of Learning The Plight, Persecution, and Placement of Academic Refugees,
1933-1980s (Oxford: Oxford University Press for The British Academy, 2011), pp. 59-
76.
P. J. Weindling, ‘”Our Racial Friends”: Disease, Poverty and Social Darwinism 1860-
1940’, in Nicholas Saul and Simon J. James (eds), The evolution of literature:
legacies of Darwin in European cultures (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2011), pp.35-50.
P. J. Weindling, ‘Critics, Commentators and Opponents of Eugenics 1880s-1950s’,
East Central Europe, 38, 1 (2011), 79-96.
P. J. Weindling, ‘Medical Atrocities at Mauthausen and Gusen: Victims of Coerced
Medical Research under National Socialism’, Mauthausen Memorial (forthcoming,
2012).
P. J. Weindling, ‘“Cleansing” Anatomical Collections: The Politics of Removing
Specimens from German Anatomical and Medical Collections 1988-92’, Annals of
Anatomy, 194, 3 (2012), 237-242.
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P. J. Weindling, ‘The Social History of Public and Private Medicine in the Perspective
of South East Europe’, in Marius Turda (ed.), Private and Public Medical Traditions
special issue of Deltos: Journal of Hellenic Medicine (2012), 62-64.
P. J. Weindling, ‘The Biological Reform of Mankind - Julian Huxley and the Continuity
of Eugenics from Imperialism to 1960s Britain”, Journal of Modern European History
(2012).
Seminars and Conferences
History of Medicine Seminar Series
The Centre has continued to run a history of medicine seminar programme each
semester, with funding from the Wellcome Trust Strategic Award. Details are given
below, including details of the programme for the first semester of the coming
academic year. Many of the seminars are available as podcasts.
2012-2013
Semester 1 – Theme: ‘Public and Private Traditions of Eugenics’. Convenor
Marius Turda.
2 October Maria Sophia Quine (University of East Anglia; Institute of Germanic
and Romance Studies, University of London)
Eugeni-fascist Vitalism, Racial Prepotency, and Maternal Health in Interwar Italy
16 October Maria Bucur (Indiana University, Bloomington)
Eugenics and Maternalism during the Century of Woman: Trends in Eastern Europe
30 October Lisa Pine (London South Bank University)
Women, the Family and Eugenics in Nazi Germany
13 November Lesley A. Hall (The Wellcome Library, London)
“Send in the Clones”? Naomi Michison (née Haldane)’s Musing on Reproduction,
Breeding, Feminism, Socialism and Eugenics from the 1920s to the 1970s
27 November Florence Binard (Paris-Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité)
“Spinsters” and Lesbians as Spiritual Mothers of the “British Race”
11 December Gayle Davis (University of Edinburgh)
Suitable for Parenthood: The Eugenics of Reproductive Health in Mid-Twentieth-
Century Scotland’
Semester 1 – Convenor Paul Weindling
2011-2012
4 October Nick Hopwood (University of Cambridge)
Icons of Evolution: Pictures of Embryos and Charges of Fraud
18 October Sally Sheard (University of Liverpool)
The Rise of the Global Health Consultant: Brian Abel Smith (1926-1996)
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1 November Mark Gardiner (Oxford Brookes University)
‘The Doctor’ by Luke Fildes (1891)
15 November Claudia Stein (University of Warwick)
Facts and Ideals: Historical Politics of Karl Sudhoff
6 December Paul Weindling (Oxford Brookes University)
What Roles for the Historian of Medicine?; Reflections from Researching Human
Experiments under National Socialism
Semester 2 – Theme: ‘The Medical Humanities at Oxford Brookes’. Convenor
Tudor Georgescu.
7 February Lee Humber (Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Dept. of Clinical
Health Care)
‘From Deficiency to Difficulty’: Three Historical Phases of Constructing Learning
Disability since 1913
21 February Alex Goody (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Dept. of
English and Modern Languages)
13 March Judy Slinn (Faculty of Business, Business School)
International or Global?: The Pharmaceutical Industry 1950-2010
27 March Alistair McGregor (Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Dept. of
Biological and Medical Sciences)
A History of Morphological Evolution: From Darwin to Lewis and Beyond
17 April Georgia Butina Watson (Faculty of Design, Technology and
Environment, Dept. of Planning)
Place Identity and Healthy Cities
24 April Visiting Scholar Seminar
Mar Cuenca Lorente (University of Valencia)
Making Experts in the Periphery: Toxicology in Nineteenth-century Spain
2010-2011
Semester 1 – Theme: ‘Trials, Evidence and Human Experimentation’. Convenor
Viviane Quirke.
5 October Mike Emanuel (Research Associate, Oxford Brookes University)
The Open Air School Movement in the first half of the twentieth century.
A ‘non-evidenced based’ experiment in social health
19 October Sir Iain Chalmers (James Lind Initiative, Oxford)
Controlled trials before randomization
2 November Yolanda Eraso (Oxford Brookes University)
Transnational experiments: Women, hormones and cancer in Britain and the
Americas
16 November Christian Bonah (Medical School, University of Strasbourg)
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Between experimental evidence, statistical trial and preventive care: the changing
tides of BCG evaluation with human beings, 1921- 1980
30 November Brian Balmer and Norma Morris (Science and Technology Studies,
UCL)
The experimental subject's experience in non-therapeutic clinical studies
Semester 2 – Convenor Tim McHugh.
15 February Kevin Siena (Trent University, Ontario)
‘The Itch’: The Strange Story of Skin Disease and Prejudice in the Eighteenth
Century
15 March Mike Esbester (Oxford Brookes University)
Safety first! Individuals, Voluntary Organisations, and the British State in Twentieth-
Century Accident Prevention
29 March Jane Stevens Crawshaw (Oxford Brookes University)
‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’: the Problem of Plague in Early Modern Venice
5 April Despina Karatkatsani (Department of Social and Educational Policy,
University of Peloponnese, Greece)
Child Welfare and Mental Hygiene in Greece (1910-1940)
3 May John Hall (Oxford Brookes University)
St Andrew's Hospital, Northampton: a Case Study in Mid Twentieth-Century
‘Charitable’ Psychiatry
History of Chemistry Seminar
The Centre hosted a History of Chemistry event on 13 February 2012 entitled
‘Chemistry and the Environment (18th - early 19th centuries)’, with two papers:
Jean-Baptiste Fressoz (Imperial College, London)
Chemistry and the Transformation of the Environment, 1750-1850
John Perkins (Oxford Brookes University)
Chemical Expertise and Industrial Pollution in Rouen, 1770-1810
This programme was part of the Oxford History of Chemistry seminar series and one
of the seminars in the Environmental History programme co-organised by the Maison
Française d’Oxford, the Faculty of History at the University of Oxford, Oxford Brookes
University and RUCHE (Réseau Universitaire de Chercheurs en Histoire
Environnementale).
13

Conferences, Symposia, Workshops
Members of the Centre have been involved in the organisation of a number of
successful conferences, symposia and workshops. Details are given below.
20 April 2012
Puériculture, Biotypology and ‘Latin’ Eugenics in Comparative Context – held
at Maison Française d’Oxford.
Convenor: Marius Turda
Speakers: Richard Cleminson (University of Leeds); Yolanda Eraso (Oxford Brookes
University); Louise Lyle (University of London Institute in Paris); Despina Karakatsani
(University of Peloponnese); Maria Sophia Quine (University of East Anglia and
Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London); Marius Turda
(Oxford Brookes University); Paul J. Weindling (Oxford Brookes University).
Funded by Wellcome Trust Strategic Award and Maison Française d’Oxford.
23-24 March 2012
On the margins? Rethinking the problem and place of ‘outsiders’ in Europe,
1400–1800 – held at St Anne’s College, Oxford.
Convenor: Jane Stevens Crawshaw.
Speakers: Elma Brenner (Pontifical institute of Medieval Studies, University of
Toronto); Sara M. Butler (Loyola University New Orleans); Carmen Fracchia
(Birkbeck College, University of London); Julie Gammon (University of
Southampton); Emma Griffin (University of East Anglia); Joel Harrington (Vanderbilt
University, plenary lecture); Sarah Pearsall (Oxford Brookes University); Andrew
Spicer (Oxford Brookes University); Sarah Toulalan (University of Exeter); David
Turner (Swansea University). Panel chairs: Joanne Bailey (Oxford Brookes
University); Fabrizio Nevola (University of Bath); Cassie Watson (Oxford Brookes
University).
Funded by the British Academy.
22 March 2012
Promoting Engagement with the Teaching of Economic History – Higher
Education Academy one-day workshop, held at Oxford Brookes University.
Convenors: Alysa Levene and Glen O’Hara.
Speakers: Mark Freeman (University of Glasgow); Andrew Hinde (University of
Southampton); Steven King (University of Leicester); Hugh Pemberton (University of
Bristol) Geoff Timmins (University of Central Lancashire); Richard Toye (University of
Exeter).
17-18 December 2011
The German Archipelago: German Minorities and Interwar Eugenics – held at
Balliol College, Oxford.
Convenors: Tudor Georgescu and Björn M. Felder (University of Goettingen)
Speakers: Björn M. Felder (University of Goettingen); Maria Fiebrandt (Technical
University Dresden); Tudor Georgescu (Oxford Brookes University); Hildrun Glass
(Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich); Mariana Hausleitner (Ludwig Maximilians
University, Munich); Filip Krčmar (Novi Sad University); Stephan Lehnsteadt
(German-Historical-Institute, Warsaw); Susanne Schlechter (NS-Memorial Alte
Pathologie‘ Wehnen/ Oldenburg); John C. Swanson (Utica College, New York); Paul
Weindling (Oxford Brookes University); Steffen Werther (Stockholm University).
Funded by Cantemir Institute, University of Oxford, and The Federal Government
Commissioner for Culture and the Media upon a Decision of the German Bundestag.
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8-12 September 2011
Crafting Humans: From Genesis to Eugenics and Beyond – held at The Queen’s
College, Oxford.
Convenor: Marius Turda.
Speakers: Nicholas Agar(Victoria University of Wellington); Frank R. Ankersmit
(University of Groningen); Sorin Antohi (Berendel Foundation, London); Alison
Bashford (University of Sydney); Merryn Ekberg (University of Northampton); Roger
Griffin (Oxford Brookes University); Moshe Idel (Hebrew University, Jerusalem);
Antonis Liakos (University of Athens); Dan Stone (Royal Holloway, University of
London); Marius Turda (Oxford Brookes University); Paul J. Weindling (Oxford
Brookes University); Longxi Zhang (City University of Hong Kong).
Funded by the Berendel Foundation and the Wellcome Trust.
30-31 August 2011
Health and Medicine in Princely India research symposium – New Delhi, India.
Convenors: Waltraud Ernst (Oxford Brookes University), B. Pati (Delhi University)
and T.V. Sekher (International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai).
Speakers: Raj Sekhar Basu (University of Calcutta); Burton Cleetus (Calicut
University); Waltraud Ernst (Oxford Brookes University); Margit Franz (University of
Graz, Austria); K. P. Girija (Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore);
Razak Khan (Muslim Cultures and Societies, Freie Universitaet Berlin); Aparna Nair
(Trivandrum); Veenu Pant (S.S. Jain Subodh P.G. College, Jaipur); Biswamoy Pati
(Delhi University); Barbara Ramusack (University of Cincinnati); Sudip Saha (North
Eastern Hill University Shillong); T.V. Sekher (International Institute for Population
Sciences, Mumbai); Bina Sengar, Babasaheb Ambedkar (Marathwada University,
Aurangabad).
Funded by the Wellcome Trust.
28 August – 2 September
7th European Summer School: Gender and Race in Nazi Medicine – held at
Ravensbrück.
Contributions from Paul J. Weindling (Oxford Brookes University); Krzystof
Ruchniewicz (Willy-Brandt-Zentrum Uniweryet Wrocławski); Carla Sachse
(Universität Wien) and others.
Partners include: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Stiftung Topographie des Terrors, Universität
Wien, Oxford Brookes University, Uniwersytet Wrocław, Charité Berlin.
30-31 July 2011
History of Road Safety research symposium – held at Oxford Brookes University.
Convenor: Mike Esbester.
Speakers: Peter Bartrip (University of Oxford); Stève Bernardin (Université Paris I,
France); Mike Esbester (Oxford Brookes University); Mathieu Flonneau (Université
Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, IRICE/CRHI, France); Fabrice Hamelin & Marine
Moguen-Toursel (IFSTTAR – Institute of Science and Technology for Transport,
Development and Networks, France); Robert Gifford (Parliamentary Advisory Council
for Transport Safety, UK); Craig Horner (Manchester Metropolitan University); Bill
Luckin (University of Bolton); Massimo Moraglio (Berlin Institute of Technology,
Germany); Peter Norton (University of Virginia, USA); Nicholas Oddy (Glasgow
School of Arts); Jean Orselli (Ingénieur général des Ponts et chaussées en retraite,
France); Barbara Schmucki (University of York) paper delivered by Mike Esbester;
Donald Weber (Amsab-Institute of Social History, Ghent); Jameson Wetmore
(Arizona State University, USA).
Funded by the AHRC and the Economic History Society.
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4-5 March 2011
The Disease Within: Confinement in Europe, 1400-1800 – held at Oxford Brookes
University.
Convenor: Jane Stevens Crawshaw.
Plenary speaker: Kevin Siena (Trent University, Ontario and Oxford Brookes
International Research Fellow 2010-11).
Speakers: Patricia Allerston (National Galleries of Scotland), Jonathan Andrews
(University of Newcastle), Guy Geltner (University of Amsterdam), Vanessa Harding
(Birkbeck College, University of London), John Henderson (Birkbeck College,
University of London), Tim Hitchcock (University of Hertfordshire), Peter Jones
(Oxford Brookes University), Peter Kirby (University of Manchester), Laura McGough
(University of Ghana), Tim McHugh (Oxford Brookes University), Alysa Levene
(Oxford Brookes University), Fabrizio Nevola (University of Bath), Carole Rawcliffe
(University of East Anglia), Jane Stevens Crawshaw (Oxford Brookes University),
Sethina Watson (University of York).
Funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Society for Renaissance Studies.
8-10 December 2010
Health and Society: Private and Public Medical Traditions in Greece and the
Balkans (1453-1920) – held in Athens.
Co-organisers: Marius Turda; Faculty of History and Archaeology, Programme of
Postgraduate Studies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens; British School
at Athens; the Berendel Foundation, London.
Speakers: George Antonakopoulos (University of Thessaly); Gülhan Balsoy (Işik
University, Istanbul); Octavian Buda (‘Carol Davila’ University of Medicine and
Pharmacy Bucharest); Dimitris Christodoulou (University of Thessaloniki); Katerina
Gardikas (University of Athens); Nikoletta Giantsi (University of Athens); Despina
Karakatsani (University of Peloponnese); Vangelis Karamanolakis (University of
Athens); Katerina Konstantinidou (University of Athens); Despo Kritsotaki (University
of Crete) & Vasia Lekka (University of Athens); Mikel Nakuci (Institute of
Dermatological Studies, Tirana); Constantine Maravelias (Museum of Criminology,
School of Medicine, University of Athens); Georgeta Nazarska (State University of
Library Studies and IT, Sofia); Vaso Theodoru (Democritus University of
Thrace);Valentin‐ Veron Toma (Francisc Rainer Institute of Anthropology,
Bucharest); Lydia Sapounaki‐ Dracaki (Panteion University; Constantinos
Trompoukis (University of Crete); Agamemnon Tselikas (Historical and Paleographic
Archive of the Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece); Marius Turda
(Oxford Brookes University); Andrew Wear (The Wellcome Centre for the History of
Medicine, UCL); Paul J. Weindling (Oxford Brookes University).
History of Chemistry Conferences
28 May 2011
Alchemy and Chemistry: Continuities and Fractures – A colloquium to mark the
collaboration of the Oxford History of Chemistry Seminar (University of Oxford
History Faculty, Maison Française d’Oxford, Oxford Brookes University, Society for
the History of Alchemy and Chemistry) – held at Oxford Brookes University.
Convenor: John Perkins.
Speakers: Remi Franckowiak (University of Lille 1); John Perkins (Oxford Brookes
University); Jennifer Rampling (University of Cambridge); Anna Marie Roos
(University of Oxford).
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Graduate Forum: Karin Ekholm (University of Cambridge); Lindsey Fitzharris (UCL);
Jo Hedesan (University of Exeter); Cesare Pastorino (Chemical Heritage
Foundation).
John Perkins, a research associate of the Centre, is a member of the organising
committee for a project, ‘Sites of Chemistry 1600-2000’, that investigates the
multitude of sites, spaces and places where chemistry has been practiced since
1600. The committee is advised by a steering group which includes Viviane Quirke
as a member. The project is sponsored and supported by the Society for the History
of Alchemy and Chemistry and has received support from the Maison Française
d’Oxford and the Wellcome Trust. The project is built around a series of annual twoday
conferences to be held from 2011 to 2015.
July 2011
Sites of Chemistry in the 18th century – Maison Française, Oxford
July 2012
Sites of Chemistry in the 19th century – Valencia, Institut d'Historia de la
Medicina i de la Cienca
August 2013
Sites of Chemistry in the 20th century – Stockholm
Spring 2014
Sites of Chemistry in the 17th century – Oxford, Maison Francaise/Museum of
the History of Science
Spring 2015
Sites of Chemistry, 1600-2000: developments, transitions, translations –
Leiden
Selected Conference Papers
In addition to organising conferences, staff in the Centre have also given a number of
conference papers, including keynote lectures, at national and international
conferences. A selection is listed below.
Anne Digby
‘“Seeing Lions in the way”: evidence to the National Health Services Commission,
1942-1944’, South African Historical Society Conference, University of KwaZulu-
Natal, Durban, South Africa, 27-29 June 2011.
Waltraud Ernst
‘Madness, Culture and Locality’, Conference on ‘The Madness of Culture and
Cultures of Madness’, Justus-Liebig University, Giessen, Germany, 4-5 November
2011
‘Transnational Psychiatry in Asia’, 15th Conference of the Japanese Society for the
History of Psychiatry, Aichi Prefectural University Nagoya, Japan, 29 – 30 October
2011.
‘Medical Pluralism and Plural Medicine’, Conference on ‘Medical Pluralism – Past
and Present’, organised by Institute for the History of Medicine of the Robert Bosch
Foundation and Villa Vigoni (Centro Italo-Tedesco per l’Eccellenza Europea), in
collaboration with the Dialogforum Pluralismus in der Medizin. Bellagio/Lago di
Como, Italy, 15 – 18 May 2011.
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Marius Turda
Public lectures:
“Crafting Humans: Modernity, Eugenics and Biopolitics”, Paris-Diderot, Sorbonne
Paris Cité, 23 March 2012.
“Eugenic Modernities in Central Europe” University of Ljubljana, 7 May 2012.
“Eugenic Modernities in Southeastern Europe,” University of Graz, 8 May 2012.
Keynote speech:
“Eugenics in Comparative and National Contexts”, Conference: "The Study of
Eugenics: Past, Present, Future," Uppsala University, 10-12 November 2012.
Cassie Watson
'"In my opinion it was a child at full time': Infanticide in English and Welsh medicolegal
practice, 1730-1914" European Association for the History of Medicine and
Health biennial conference, Utrecht, 1-4 September, 2011.
'"Put to the brink of eternity': wounding in British law and society, from mayhem to
offences against the person", SOLON 3rd biennial conference on Crime, Violence
and the Modern State, Lyon, 8-10 September 2011
“Medico-legal expertise in comparative perspective: England and Wales, (1730-
1914)", International Workshop ‘Experts in the Periphery (19th -20th Centuries)’,
Instituto de Historia de la Medicina y de la Ciencia "López Piñero" (Valencia, Spain),
30 November -2 December 2011.
Paul Weindling
Public lecture: ‘Identities and injuries: the victims of coercive research under National
Socialism in the shadow of psychiatry’, German Association for Psychiatry (DGPPN),
Berlin, 19 November 2010.
Plenary opening lecture: ‘Opfer nationalsozialistischer Menschenversuche und
erzwungener Forschung - Zur Identifikation, Analyse und Rekonstruierung der
Lebensgeschichten’, ‘Kongress Medizin und Gewissen, Erlangen, 14 October 2011.
Keynote speech: ‘Refugee Czechoslovak Physicians in the UK in WW2. Assistance,
Organisations and Careers’, Conference on ‘Scholars in Exile and Dictatorships of
the 20th Century’, Prague, 24-26 May 2011.
Plenary lecture on victims of Nazi Human Experiments, European summer school on
‘Geschlecht und Rasse in der NS Medizin/ Gender and Race in Nazi Medicine’,
Ravensbrück concentration camp memorial. 28 August – 2 September 2011.
Paul Weindling is also a consultant for:
The Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada project, University of Alberta
(http://eugenicsarchive.ca) and the Center for Medicine After the Holocaust (CMATH)
http://www.medicineaftertheholocaust.org/
Visiting Scholars
The Centre welcomed a number of visitors in the period under review.
Professor Estēe Dvorjetski, a Visiting Professor of Oxford Brookes University, is a
regular visitor to the Centre. She spent the first semester of academic year 2011/12
working in the Centre and she will make a second visit from June to September
2012. She is working on her book Public Health and Preventive Medicine in the Holy
Land: Historical-Archaeological Analysis.
Dr Kevin Siena from Trent University, Ontario visited the Centre in the second
semester of academic year 2010/11, funded by a Central Research Fund
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International Visiting Fellowship sponsored by Dr Alysa Levene. Dr Siena’s research
focuses on early modern British history with special interests in medical history, sex
and disease, urban poverty and social welfare.
Dr Octavian Buda, a forensic psychiatrist and associate professor in History of
Medicine at the 'Carol Davila' Medical University in Bucharest – was also awarded a
three-month International Visiting Fellowship from the Central Research Fund for
2010/11, sponsored by Professor Waltraud Ernst. His research focused on a history
of cholera in Eastern Europe.
Dr Despina Karatkatsani, associate professor in the Department of Education and
Social Policy, University of Peloponnese, visited the Centre from February to June
2011, sponsored by Dr Marius Turda and with funding from the Greek government.
During her stay she used library and archival sources in Oxford and London for her
research project on eugenics and mental hygiene in Greece in the interwar years.
Dr Kamila Uzarczyk from the Medical University of Wroclaw visited the Centre in July
2011 and will make a second visit in June 2012 to work with Professor Paul
Weindling on the research project on victims of human experiments under National
Socialism.
The Centre has been pleased to host visits from three international graduate
students.
Henrik Tjørnelund, a doctoral student from the University of Roskilde, Denmark,
visited the Centre from February to May 2011 to work with Professor Paul Weindling.
His doctoral studies focus on the Danish pharmaceutical industry during the German
occupation of Denmark, 1940-1945.
Ignacio Suay-Matallana, a graduate student at the López Piñero Institute for the
History of Medicine and Science at the University of Valencia Spain, spent August
2011 as a Visiting Scholar in the Centre. His visit was sponsored by Dr Katherine
Watson.
A second Spanish graduate student from the López Piñero Institute is currently a
Visiting Scholar in the Centre from March to July 2012. Mar Cuenca-Lorente has
received a grant from the Spanish government to work with Dr Katherine Watson on
toxicology and legal medicine in the nineteenth century.
Research Associates
The Centre is able to offer associate status to scholars from outside the University
who pursue their research either individually or in association with members of staff
in related fields of interest.
In the period under review, the following people have become research associates of
the Centre:
o
o
Dr Peter Morris, Keeper of Research Projects, Science Museum at South
Kensington
Professor José Ramon Bertomeu Sanchez, Institut d'Història de la Medicina i
de la Ciència, University of Valencia
19

o
Professor Antonio García Belmar, Departamento de Enfermería Comunitaria,
Medicina preventiva y Salud Pública e Historia de la Ciencia, University of
Alicante
The three research associates listed above are scholars in either the history of
medicine and/or the history of chemistry. All are members (along with Viviane Quirke
and John Perkins) of the organising committee of the ‘Sites of Chemistry, 1600-1900
project’ which is based in the Centre and funded through it by the Wellcome Trust,
and all three already collaborate with Viviane Quirke, Cassie Watson and John
Perkins.
o
o
Dr Paul Watkins, independent veterinary researcher working on European
veterinary refugees of the Second World War, and their contribution to animal
health. This research project has connection with Paul Weindling’s research
on medical refugees.
Dr Mark Gardiner, retired Professor of Paediatrics at University College
London, he is writing a book entitled A History of Modern Paediatrics, to be
published by OUP.
Student News
Undergraduate
Staff in the Centre teach a number of History of Medicine modules for the single and
joint BA degree in History. In their final year, students are able to take a dissertation
module on a History of Medicine subject supervised by Centre staff. In the academic
year 2011/12 a new stage 11 module, ‘Brave New Worlds: Medicine and Modernity c.
1850-2000’, was introduced. This is a general introductory module on the history of
medicine and health, and their wider social relations, covering the period from 1850
to 2000. The coming academic year will see the introduction of an exciting new team
taught module, led by Dr Katherine Watson: ‘Debating Issues in Health, Past and
Present’ will focus on current debates in the field of health care and their historical
context. It will engage with the politics of health and the health service, recent
scientific advances and the question of medical ethics. Students will deal with topics
that raise moral, ethical, legal, economic, political or class and life-cycle issues.
The Centre has encouraged students to enrich the learning experience by engaging
in a number of outside opportunities. For example, one second-year student spent a
period in summer 2011 as an intern in Wellcome Images. His work included
preparing blog posts to raise awareness of the image collections, and to celebrate
the Trust's 75th anniversary. Another group of students received travel grants to
attend the 7th European Summer School on the subject ‘Gender and Race in Nazi
Medicine’, held at Ravensbrück in August/September 2011.
Postgraduate
History of Medicine MA
Recruitment to the History of Medicine MA course in the academic years 2010/11
and 2011/12 has been good and students have obtained excellent results. Currently
there are eleven full- and part-time students on the course, and we expect to sustain
numbers in 2012/13. Each year the Centre is able to offer a number of bursaries from
20

the Wellcome Trust Strategic Award, and in the coming year we plan to award at
least five bursaries of £4,000.
In 2010/11 one student, Catriona Gilmour Hamilton, received a fully-funded
Wellcome Trust quota master’s award. Simon Wilson, a final year student at Oxford
Brookes taking a BA in History with International Relations, has been awarded a
Wellcome Trust master’s award for 2012/13. His MA dissertation, under the
supervision of Dr Marius Turda, will explore how ideas of health and eugenics
interacted in the context of the British Empire in the first half of the twentieth century.
Postgraduate Research
The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Oxford Brookes has a vibrant
research student community. Staff in the Centre supervise a number of MPhil/PhD
students in the History of Medicine and also in other subject areas.
Catriona Gilmour Hamilton, who gained a distinction in her History of Medicine MA in
2011, enrolled on the MPhil/PhD programme in January 2012. Catriona will be
funded by the Wellcome Trust Programme grant to work on a project on cancer,
under the supervision of two grant holders, Dr Viviane Quirke and Dr Marius Turda.
Dr Cassie Watson is Co-director of Studies with Professor Anne-Marie Kilday for
Anna Gordon who enrolled in September 2011 to work on a history of crime project.
Dr Glen O’Hara is Director of Studies for Melanie Bashor who joined Oxford Brookes
in September 2011 to work on a project entitled ‘'Multiracial Teaching and Policy in
English and Welsh Schools, c.1961- c.1988'.
The following students have successfully completed their PhD studies in the period
under review:
George Gosling (viva date September 2011). Thesis title: ’Charity and Change in the
Mixed Economy of Healthcare in Bristol, 1918-1948’. Director of Studies Glen
O’Hara.
George was awarded an MA in the History of Medicine from Oxford Brookes in 2007.
He was funded by a Wellcome Trust masters studentship. He went on to take his
PhD, funded by a Wellcome Trust doctoral studentship.
Catherine Flinn (viva date December 2011). Thesis title: ‘Overlooked Constraints:
The Reconstruction of Blitzed City Centres in Britain, 1945-1955’. Director of Studies
Glen O’Hara.
Catherine was awarded an MA in History from Oxford Brookes in 2007. She took up
a PhD place in September 2009.
Lynsey Cullen (viva date January 2012). Thesis title: ‘Patient Case Records of the
Royal Free Hospital, 1902-1912'. Supervisors Professor Steve King and Dr Elizabeth
Hurren.
Lynsey was awarded an MA in the History of Medicine from Oxford Brookes in 2008.
She received a bursary from the Wellcome Trust Strategic Award. She then went on
to take her PhD, funded by a Wellcome Trust doctoral studentship.
Aleksandra Loewenau has submitted her thesis entitled ‘The Impact of Nazi Medical
Experiments on Polish Inmates at Dachau, Auschwitz and Ravensbrück’ and is
awaiting viva. She was supervised by Professor Paul Weindling and Dr Marius
Turda, and funded by an AHRC studentship as part of a large AHRC-funded
21

esearch project ‘Victims of Human Experiments under National Socialism: Victims,
Perpetrators and Post-War Trials’.
Stefan Fisher-Høyrem has submitted his thesis entitled ‘Time Machines: Technology
and the Performance of Secular Time in Victorian England’. His Director of Studies is
Dr Tom Crook and he has been funded by a Norwegian Government scholarship.
Public Engagement and the Oxfordshire Science Festival
The Centre has become an increasingly active participant in the various events
surrounding the annual Oxfordshire Science Festival (OSF), offering both the
opportunity to situate its work within the wider scientific disciplines as well as engage
with local communities and families to promote the understanding and interest in the
medical humanities. Reflecting the Festival's core target audience as children
between 5 and 15, these various activities are clustered under the theme of 'Boils
aRe Us', looking at and social and medical implications of plague and pestilence in
European history as part of the Centre’s Wellcome Trust Strategic Award Outreach
Programme on health in public and private.
2011
The two inaugural 'Boils aRe Us' events
organised as part of the 2011 OSF took place at
the festival launch event on Bonn Square in
Oxford and at the Brookes Science Bazaar, and
are indebted to the kind help offered by our
undergraduate work experience student Simon
Wilson, and makeup artist Julia Hyland from the
University of Birmingham's History of Medicine Unit.
Oxfordshire Science Festival Launch Event, Bonn Square, 26 February 2011
Our stand on Bonn Square
during the OSF 2011 launch
event on the 26 th of February
offered a large public
audience brief illustrative and
hands-on histories of the
bubonic plague, small pox,
anthrax and many more gory
diseases, and the opportunity
to see what symptoms they
had first hand thanks to the medical makeup work of Julia Hyland.
Science Bazaar, Oxford Brookes University, 12 March 2011
The second event, staged as
part of the OBU Science
Bazaar, shifted its gaze from
symptoms of disease to their
treatment and focussed on
the plague doctor. With the
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Science Bazaar primarily catering for children in the age groups 5+ and 8+ (this
being the first time under 5s were included), we offered the a foray into the history of
the bubonic plague and its relevance to the wider history of medicine by way of
making their own plague doctor masks and a plague history quiz.
2012
This year the Centre significantly expanded its
role in the OSF and Science Bazaar, in particular
by becoming a full convenor of the latter in
association with the Life Sciences. This year, as
in 2011, the events were organised with the help
of a work experience student, Kate Newton taking
over from Simon Wilson, and Julia Hyland
partook in both the launch event and the Science
Bazaar.
Oxfordshire Science Festival Launch Event, Bonn Square, 3 March 2012
Repeating the format from
2011, the launch event
offered the wider public a
wide and engaging array of
activities, and attracted a
substantial audience
counting several thousand
members of the public.
Science Bazaar, Oxford Brookes University, 17 March 2012
The Centre having become
a convenor of this year's
Science Bazaar not only
allowed for a much larger
presence, spanning three
different activities - namely
Julia Hyland's medical
makeup, the plague doctor
masks, as well as new station on 'healing bandages' discussing the various forms of
treatment for the plague (designed by our work placement student Kate Newton
under the guidance of Jane Stevens-Crawshaw).
The event proved an even more remarkable success than that of 2011,
especially with regards to visitor numbers that increased dramatically from 500 to
1,200 underlining its appeal to the local community.
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Podcasts
History of Medicine Seminar Series
Spring 2012 (Forthcoming)
Lee Humber (Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Dept of Clinical Health Care)
“From Deficiency to Difficulty: Three historical phases of constructing learning
disability since 1913“
7 February 2012
Judy Slinn (Business School)
“International or global?: The pharmaceutical industry 1950-2010“
13 March 2012
Alistair McGregor (Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Dept of Biological and
Medical Sciences)
“A History of Morphological Evolution: From Darwin to Lewis and beyond”
27 March 2012
Georgia Butina Watson (Faculty of Technology, Design and Environment, Dept of
Planning)
"Place Identity and Healthy Cities"
17 April 2012
Mar Cuenca Lorente (University of Valencia)
"Making experts in the periphery: Toxicology in nineteenth-century Spain“
24 April 2012
Autumn 2011
Sally Sheard (University of Liverpool)
"The Rise of the Global Health Consultant: Brian Abel Smith (1926-
1996)"
18 October 2011
Mark Gardiner (Oxford Brookes University)
"‘The Doctor’ by Luke Fildes (1891)"
1 November 2011
Claudia Stein (University of Warwick)
"Fact and Ideals: The historical politics of Karl Sudhoff"
15 November 2011
24

Paul Weindling (Oxford Brookes University)
“What Roles for the Historian of Medicine? Reflections from
Researching Human Experiments under National Socialism”
6 December 2011
Spring 2011
Kevin Siena (Trent University, Ontario, Canada)
‘‘The Itch’: The Strange Story of Skin Disease and Prejudice in the
Eighteenth Century’
15 February 2011
Mike Esbester (Oxford Brookes University Visiting Fellow)
‘Safety first! Individuals, Voluntary Organisations, and the British
State in Twentieth-Century Accident Prevention’
15 March 2011
Jane Stevens Crawshaw (Oxford Brookes University)
‘‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’: The Problem of Plague in Early
Modern Venice’
29 March 2011
Despina Karatkatsani (University of Peloponnese, Greece)
‘Child Welfare and Mental Hygiene in Greece (1910-1940)’
5 April 2011
John Hall (Oxford Brookes University)
‘St Andrew’s Hospital, Northampton: A Case Study in Mid Twentieth-
Century ‘Charitable’ Psychiatry’
3 May 2011
25

Conference Coverage
"The German Archipelago: German Ethnic Minorities and Interwar Eugenics"
17-18 December 2011, Balliol College, Oxford
(12 Podcasts, forthcoming, hosted by the Pulse-Project)
"Promoting the Engagement with the Teaching of Economic History"
22 March 2012, Oxford Brookes University
(6 podcasts, forthcoming, hosted by Brookes and the HEA websites)
"Crafting Humans: From Genesis to Eugenics and
Beyond"
8-10 September2011, The Queen's College, Oxford
(14 podcasts, hosted by The Berendel Foundation)
Moshe Idel (Hebrew University, Jerusalem)
"Golem: Between Automaton and Human Being"
Frank R. Ankersmit (University of Groningen)
Aftermaths and ‘Foremaths’
Antonis Liakos (University of Athens)
"The End of History and the Liminality of the Human Condition: From
Kojève to Agamben"
Sorin Antohi (Berendel Foundation, London)
"From Cosmos to Polis: Making (and Unmaking) Humans"
Longxi Zhang (City University of Hong Kong)
"Frankenstein's Disciples: Tampering with Life and the Danger of
Eugenics"
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Merryn Ekberg (University of Northampton)
"Eugenics: Past, Present and Future"
Roger Griffin (Oxford Brookes University)
"Bionomic Man (and Woman): Fantasies of Anthropological
Revolution as the Symptom of Modernity’s Nomic Crisis"
Marius Turda (Oxford Brookes University)
"Crafting a Healthy Nation: Eugenic Texts and Biopolitical Practices"
Paul Weindling (Oxford Brookes University)
"The Biology of the Holocaust"
Dan Stone (Royal Holloway, University of London)
"Race Science and Race Mysticism in Nazi Genocide"
Alison Bashford (University of Sydney)
"Julian Huxley’s Transhumanism"
Nicholas Agar (Victoria University of Wellington)
"How Much Human Enhancement is Too Much?"
Diane B. Paul (University of Massachusetts)
"Commentary"
Yehuda Elkana (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin)
"Cosmopolis: Towards a New Type of Humans?"
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‘The Disease Within:
Confinement in Europe, 1400-1800’
4-5 March 2011, Oxford Brookes University
(7 podcasts)
Vanessa Harding (Birkbeck)
“Health and the Urban Environment”
Tim McHugh (Oxford Brookes)
“Playing the Confinement Card: Financing of small hospitals in
Britany, 16662-1772”
Laura McGough (Ghana)
“Female Asylums and the French Disease in Early Modern Venice”
As read by Tricia Allerston
Jane Stevens Crawshaw (Oxford Brookes)
“‘From a Distance it Looks like a Castle’: Contagion, communities
and confinement in early modern Venice”
Kevin Siena (Trent and Oxford Brookes International Research
Fellow)
“Jail Fever: a story of class, contagion and panic in eighteenthcentury
London”
Alysa Levene (Oxford Brookes)
“Confined for their own Good”
Peter Jones (Oxford Brookes)
“Putting the ‘Work’ in ‘Workhouse’: The causes and effects of
periodic confinement on children under the English Old Poor Law”
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‘Health and Society:
Private and Public Medical Traditions in Greece and
the Balkans (1453-1920)’
8 – 10 December 2010, University of Athens,
(22 podcasts, hosted by The Pulse Project)
Andrew Wear (The Wellcome Centre for the History of Medicine,
UCL)
“Some general aspects of the relationship between religion and
medicine in the early modern period”
Marius Turda (Oxford Brookes University)
“Ancients and moderns: The rise of social history of medicine in the
Balkans”
Nikoletta Giantsi (University of Athens)
“Les théories médiévales sur la lèpre vues par un médecin grec du
19e siècle : Le cas de Demeter Alexandre Zambaco”
Katerina Konstantinidou (University of Athens)
“Between soul and body: Hospital care in Venetian Corfu (17th &18th
centuries)”
Mikel Nakuci (Institute of Dermatological Studies, Tirana)
“History of Albanian Medicine during the post Byzantine Period”
Agamemnon Tselikas (Historical and Paleographic Archive of the
Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece)
“Methodological issues on the study of Iatrosophical manuscripts”
Octavian Buda (‘Carol Davila’ University of Medicine and Pharmacy
Bucharest)
“Variolation from the Balkans, through Romanian territories, to
Western Europe, 1678 to 1802”
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Georgeta Nazarska (State University of Library Studies and IT,
Sofia)
“The Balkan medical education and Bulgarian physicians: Transfer of
knowledge, 1840s to 1920s”
Valentin-Veron Toma (Francisc Rainer Institute of Anthropology,
Bucharest)
“The migration of medical students from the Balkans to Paris in the
19th century: The case of Romania”
Lydia Sapounaki-Dracaki (Panteion University)
“Food regulation in Greece: Doctors, police and municipal authorities
as protectors of the food market of the city of Piraeus (1835 to 1914)”
Constantine Maravelias (Museum of Criminology, School of
Medicine, University of Athens)
“Educating health professionals: The role of the Athens Museum of
Criminology, 1833 to1920”
Gülhan Balsoy (Işik University, Istanbul)
“Agents of the state or agents of the local female networks?:
Midwifes and the new science of midwifery in the nineteenth century
Ottoman society”
Katerina Gardikas (University of Athens)
“Midwives in the early years of Greek statehood”
Kristina Popova (South West University, Blagoevgrad)
“Working for the ill patient or working for a better society? The
beginning of the public health nursing in Bulgaria”
Despina Karakatsani (University of Peloponnese)
“‘The art of creating beautiful children’: Considerations on pro genetic
engineering and eugenics in the early 20th century”
Vangelis Karamanolakis (Department of History, University of
Athens)
“Attitudes to mental illness and treatment in turn of the 20th century
Greece”
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Despo Kritsotaki (University of Crete) & Vasia Lekka (University of
Athens)
“Lay narratives of mental illness at the Dromokaiteion hospital, 1900
to 1920”
Vaso Theodoru (Democritus University of Thrace)
“Caring for TB patients in early 20th century Greece: The foundation
and operation of Sotiria sanatorium, 1905 to 1920”
Paul Weindling (Oxford Brookes University)
“Social history of medicine in context”
Media Involvement
Staff have also repeatedly contributed to TV and Radio broadcasts, including, for
example the following two engagements by Dr. Katherine Watson:
September 2011: Recorded an interview for the BBC Radio 4 "Punt PI" programme
on a case of poisoning that occurred in 1931 (link to programme)
May 2012: Interviewed by Swedish National Television about the Crippen Case of
1910 as part of a documentary hosted by Swedish crime novelist Leif G.W. Persson
about well known English murder cases of the twentieth century (prospective
broadcast date: July 2012)
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