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Booklet Final 0.Pdf POISON, PERSUASION, AND PANACEAS From poison pigments to hypnotic cures, this conference explores the many political and cultural imperatives that have informed scientific practice throughout history. While Oh and Fitzpatrick explore the expansion of empire, Canepa and Sinclair explore the expansion of waistlines. Müller uncovers the forgotten impostures of William Morris, while Hunkler and Bonney examine the medical and political importance of forgetting. These papers and others navigate the disputed relationship between science and society, investing the role of science in the construction of gender, race, and empire. The broad array of topics presented today is proof of the continuing intrigue of past, present, and future science, which has been used alternately to obscure, to elucidate, and to alter political life. Was Byron anorexic? Has science fiction influenced perceptions of virtual technology? Did a jellyfish substantiate Spencer’s evolutionary theory? These and other questions continue to fascinate and baffle today’s speakers. Poisons, Persuasion, and Panaceas Postgraduate Conference 6 June 2014 09:55-10:00 Introduction: Erica Charters, Associate Professor of the History of Medicine, Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine 10:00-11:30 Part I - Perceptions of Dangers in Art and Technology Amélie Müller ‘The art of selling green poison in Britain: The arsenical wallpapers of William Morris, 1855-1896’ Evan Bonney ‘Wondrous results, dangerous consequences: Hypnotism in Britain, 1890-1913’ John Lidwell-Durnin ‘Medusae, the mental, and the electrical: How experimentation on nervous systems and the nature of electricity supported Lamarckism, 1850-1880’ Chaired by: Pietro Corsi, Professor of the History of Science, Faculty of History 11:30-11:45 Tea/Coffee 11:45-13:15 Part II - Gender Based Perceptions of Bodies: Waistlines, Frontlines, and Cleavage Lines Rebecca Martin ‘Evolutionary anatomy: The personal or institutional teaching of race and gender bias?’ Katherine Sinclair ‘‘‘Unless it be lobster salad and champagne”: Anorexia Nervosa as romantic zeitgeist in France and England’ Kiley Hunkler ‘Apathy’s bedfellow: Blaming disabled veterans in order to shirk responsibility and forget horrors of the Great War in Britain’ Chaired by: Elise Smith, Teaching and Research Fellow, Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine 13:15-14:00 Lunch 14:00-15:30 Part III - Health and Empire: The British Intervention in Greater Asia Hana Oh ‘The British Navy and the understanding of Pacific regions in the nineteenth century’ Manikarnika Dutta ‘Degenerate space and drinking habits: Health of European sailors in Colonial Calcutta’ Kieran Fitzpatrick ‘Empire and medical ethics: What the work of Charles Sibthorpe can tell us about the practice of medicine under a colonial regime’ Chaired by: Claas Kirchhelle, Doctoral Student, Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine 15:30-15:45 Tea/Coffee 15:45-17:15 Part IV - Technology in America in the 20th Century Robert Dorfman ‘Franklin D. Roosevelt: His experience with orthopaedics and the appointment of Dr Norman T. Kirk as Surgeon General’ Alejandro Canepa ‘The obesity years: Social medicine in the United States 1975-1995’ Tobias Bowman ‘The desert of the real: Understandings of virtual worlds in America from 1966-2014’ Chaired by: Christoph Gradmann, Leverhulme Visiting Professor, Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine 17:15-17:30 Closing Remarks: Mark Harrison, Professor of the History of Medicine and Director of the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine HSMT Postgraduate Conference 2014: Poisons, Persuasion, and Panaceas _____________________________________________________________ Evan Bonney Wondrous results, dangerous consequences: Hypnotism in Britain, St Hugh’s College 1890-1913 Perceptions of Dangers in In March 1890, the Lancet published an article titled ‘The Dangers of Art and Technology Hypnotism.’ The article reported on a crime committed under hypnotic suggestion and warned the reader that hypnotism often ‘[…] permanently impaired the moral and emotional control of patients.’ Two months later, the Lancet included an investigative report titled ‘Hypnotism as a Therapeutic Agent,’ which concluded that hypnotic therapy was possible without the negative side-effect of psychic suggestion and was nothing but beneficial. These reports mark the beginning of a serious debate among Britain’s medical professionals that lasted until 1913. Why did some portray hypnotism as dangerous and did these portrayals effect British society? My research addresses this question and argues that hypnotism provides a case study to examine British culture at the turn of the twentieth century. It raises questions regarding free will, criminal intent, moral behavior, and appropriate public performances. Not only did stage hypnotists threaten the authority of medical professionals, they also, in the eyes of some journalists, educated criminals to rob or murder Victorian ladies and gentlemen. The histories of hypnotism have focused on its clinical contribution to psychoanalysis and experimental psychology, however these histories treat hypnotism as a stepping-stone to therapeutic medicine and laboratory science. Situating the history of hypnotism in British society, my research adds to existing literature that shows the shortcomings of legislation and oversight in the medical marketplace and contends that debates within the medical profession contributed to a cultural ambivalence between what was medically, socially, and morally safe and dangerous. HSMT Postgraduate Conference 2014: Poisons, Persuasion, and Panaceas _____________________________________________________________ Tobias Bowman The desert of the real: Understandings of virtual worlds in America Green Templeton College from 1966-2014 Technology in America in The possibilities of virtual worlds and a virtual reality have been the 20th Century explored in science fiction for over a century, but the technology for “real” virtual reality has only existed since the 1960s. From that point on there has been rapid and near constant development of virtual reality technology. Attempts have been made to domesticate virtual reality, in the 1980s, 90s, 2000s and 10s, with questionable success until recently. With 2014 seeing the production and sale of the first commercially and technologically viable virtual reality equipment in nearly 20 years, it seems clear that an understanding of the history of this technology, and how it is perceived, is more important than ever. In this explorative study, different notions of virtual existence will be compared over time, with a focus on the United States of America. Perceptions of both the technology of virtual reality and the notion of the virtual as separate and experiential from the real will be examined from a selection of viewpoints. Popular, scientific, economic, corporate and political sources will be examined. The aim of this paper is to provide a brief survey of the changing perceptions in America on the potential benefits and ramifications of being able to create, access, and experience virtual worlds. HSMT Postgraduate Conference 2014: Poisons, Persuasion, and Panaceas _____________________________________________________________ Alejandro Canepa The obesity years: Social medicine in the United States 1975-1995 St Hilda’s College My research attempts to locate the obesity epidemic in the United Technology in America in States from 1975 onwards within the larger continuum on medical the 20th Century history. While much has been written by journalists about the proximate ‘causes’ of obesity—from the negligence of food companies to the decadence of modern American life—these surveys seldom venture beyond exposé and almost never provide adequate historical context for the obesity epidemic. All epidemics are imbued with social significance. The medical interventions that society marshals (or fail to marshal) reveal that society’s priorities, ambitions and fears. Equally, the frame of reference that medical practitioners use to understand epidemics illustrates themes in the intellectual history of medicine. The clinical revolution during the latter half of the nineteenth century ushered in a truly remarkable chapter in the history of medicine and health. By developing successful interventions to counter some of humanity’s most feared diseases the developed world witnessed an unprecedented decline in both morbidity and mortality. An American woman born in 1900 could expect to live 48 years from birth while her granddaughter born in 1960 could expect to celebrate her 73rd birthday. Never before had “mankind’s conquest of disease” seemed so complete. However, social medicine’s record of success in the latter half of the twentieth century was more mixed. A study commissioned by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and published in the The New England Journal of Medicine in 2005 predicted that life expectancy among the current generation of Americans would decline for the first time in modern history. The underlying cause for this decline was obesity-related conditions. My work seeks to examine the ways in which the medical community understood the unfolding obesity epidemic and in so doing explore larger themes in the evolution of late twentieth century social medicine. HSMT Postgraduate Conference 2014: Poisons, Persuasion, and Panaceas _____________________________________________________________ Robert Dorfman Franklin D Roosevelt: His experience with polio, the appointment of St Catherine’s College Dr Norman
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