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[email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Issue 47, summer 2011 Wellcome HISTORY HOMICIDE FORENSICS The scientific investigation of murder in 20th-century England Bodies, traces and spaces Feature: The shifting landscape of forensic homicide investigation in 20th-century England

Ian Burney

Searching for evidence in the Crippen murder case, 1910.

“When it is discovered e are, by common consensus, and agreeing universal thresholds living in a new paradigm of tolerance for accepting DNA that a murder has been Win forensic investigation. matches as evidence, this literature committed, the scene of that Since the introduction of DNA has made DNA profi ling the best- profi ling in the mid-1980s, the forensic historicised forensic technique of the murder should instantly landscape has altered dramatically. 20th century, perhaps of all time. become as the Palace of It has created new iconography (the By contrast, we know very little white-suited and anonymous Scenes about forensics in the decades the Sleeping Beauty. Not of Crime Offi cers, SOCOs), new preceding this genetic turn. This has a grain of dust should be challenges (hypervigilance against resulted not merely in a gap in our material contamination), new synergies historical knowledge but in a distorted moved, not a soul should be (between academic biomedical research understanding of the forensic era in allowed to approach it, until and applied forensic science) and which we now live – one that contrasts a new set of spaces (especially the the scientifi cally advanced, mainstream the scientifi c observer has highly disciplined crime scene and its discipline of contemporary biomedicine seen everything in situ and promise of yielding biotrace evidence). against earlier practices that are now This new forensic world has been dismissed as “untested assumptions absolutely undisturbed.” the subject of a substantial body of and semi-informed guesswork” (Saks critical scrutiny, which has drawn and Koehler, 2005). This is at best R Austin Freeman, ‘A Message from the Deep Sea’ (1909) attention to the historical challenges oversimplifi ed and at worst dangerous, facing the adoption of DNA profi ling as it misrepresents the signifi cance and as a credible practicable forensic complexity, in theory and in practice, technology. Covering debates ranging of pre-DNA forensics, and obscures from population genetics and abstruse potential continuities between

Cover image: Artwork illustrating forensic science. probability theory to the processes debates and diffi culties in forensic Alex Williamson/Wellcome Images of standardising laboratory protocols practice across the ‘great divide’.

2 | Wellcome HISTORY My current research project on courtroom battles between Spilsbury the trace body of the criminal, using homicide investigation in 20th-century and his contemporaries focused critical reconstructive techniques drawn England, funded by the Wellcome attention on the practices of pathology from other scientifi c disciplines. Trust Medical History and Humanities itself, which threatened to undermine “The criminologist,” according to programme, seeks to redress this the whole edifi ce of body-centred Locard, “re-creates the criminal from ahistorical picture. It focuses on the forensics and, at times, tarnish the traces the latter leaves behind, just shifting relationship between two reputation of its celebrity fi gurehead. as the archaeologist reconstructs models of forensic investigation: The ‘crime-scene’ approach to prehistoric beings from his fi nds.” a body-centred forensic medicine homicide investigation was grounded By the 1930s–40s, trace inherited from the 19th century, and in a diff erent set of imperatives: fi rst, investigation had become a standard a trace-oriented forensic science the need to suspend the crime scene and routine part of forensic that supplemented the pathological investigation, and this in turn entailed investigation of the whole body with changes in professional expertise and an interest in the analysis of matter practice. The new emphasis on trace found on and around the body (blood, collection and analysis enabled criminal hair, fi bres, ‘dust’). The forensics of investigators to forge new evidentiary bodies and of traces both took on a links between the victim’s body, the new impetus at the start of the 20th perpetrator and the crime scene, and century. The post-mortem encounter in this to assess the operation of a new with the body, to be sure, has a long analytic gaze, one that decentred the historical pedigree, but it was only in traditional forensic authority associated the fi rst decades of the 20th century, with the pathologist’s autopsy. in England, that the encounter Homicide investigation was no longer between the body and the pathologist oriented by the focused medical gaze became a high-profi le, celebrity- of one medical authority; instead, a saturated practice – with Bernard dispersed and multifaceted analytical Spilsbury (known as the ‘people’s gaze operated across several sites (crime pathologist’) as its most prominent scene, mortuary slab and laboratory), exemplar. However, alongside this and belonged to a multidisciplinary there was another, in some respects structure that interrogated the visible opposing, trend developing. First and invisible traces of inorganic and discernible in the writings of turn- organic matter swabbed from clothing, of-the-century continental theorists fl uids, suspect weapons and the body such as Edmond Locard and Hans (of both the victim and the accused). Gross, a ‘crime-scene’ approach to Modern crime scene investigation. The increasing complexity of Marina Bartel/iStockphoto criminal detection emerged that trace analysis, then, demanded drew upon the practices and ideas specialised knowledge and equipment from a variety of scientifi c disciplines in time and space, with the aim of beyond the conventional autopsy (archaeology, entomology, serology constructing an analytical space practices at the mortuary slab, and and other forms of biochemistry), and in which the body and its physical this imposed strategic and logistical a newly disciplined regime of police context could be subjected to a demands that would transform the investigation – constituting a regime sequential and diff erentiated set of role and responsibilities of the forensic of detection in which pathology was investigative practices undisturbed by pathologist. In principle, forensic no longer the exclusive authority. decay, degradation or contamination. pathologists were relegated to the Body-centred forensics depended Nowhere is this more strikingly role of harvesting trace material from on pathologists’ success on two evoked than in the passage in R Austin the body for analysis by other experts fronts, in two domains: fi rst, securing Freeman’s detective story that serves as in other domains that might call the corpse as a source of forensic the epigraph to this article. Freeman’s into doubt the results of their own knowledge in the mortuary; second, self-consciously ‘modern’ approach to autopsy fi ndings. However, in practice, gaining recognition for this knowledge crime scene investigation was echoed pathologists still maintained overall in the courtroom. Both of these facets in an emergent textbook literature: command of the expanding forensic of forensic pathology entailed work guarding the “Palace of the Sleeping investigative matrix. For example, they on the part of its adherents, and both Beauty” entailed, in Hans Gross’s were commonly put in charge of the faced serious challenges. Pathologists, view, “the exclusion of everything new Home Offi ce-sponsored police for instance, were forced to deal with happening after the moment when laboratories, which were themselves a the inherent instability of the corpse the crime is committed”. The core means of institutionalising a trace- itself, which turned the problem of suspension of the moment of crime oriented forensic model. This in turn decomposition into a disciplinary in time and space enabled the second presented sources of potential tension concern in the forensic imagination, feature of the forensics of things: the – between the forensic pathologist’s and which led to proposals such as analytical ‘excavation’ of crime scene established role as a custodian of a specialised freezing chambers designed as ‘archeological/ecological’ space. This time-honoured medical practice, and to suspend further decay of bodies can to some extent be characterised as the newer role as manager of routine, and tissues. Furthermore, high-profi le a shift from the body of the victim to and tedious, laboratory work.

Summer 2011 | 3 murder investigations. The context for these laments was primarily structural: during this period many university forensic departments in England closed, with remaining academic appointments often funded by contracted-out services, leaving little time or incentive for conducting research. Another feature of this ‘declinism’ was the sustained critique of pathologists’ working conditions (fees, career structure, etc.) and of the poorly resourced post-mortem theatres within which they worked. Such conditions, pathologists argued, not only impoverished their claims to forensic expertise but also impinged on their capacity to retrieve and deliver vital courtroom evidence. Arguably, this ‘declinism’ feeds directly into the state of current thinking from across the DNA divide: that is, how diffi culties, real and perceived, of forensic practice in the 1960s and 1970s presented a cleared stage for Alec Jeff rey’s ‘eureka’ moment – a useful backdrop of stagnation that serves to enhance the new forensic paradigm. In order to disrupt this logic, it is important to dig beneath the narrative of decline to view postwar developments in forensic techniques and practices as they appeared to actors beyond laments about professional structures and resources. Doing so makes it clear that many of the icons of post-DNA forensics – the white-suited SOCOs, concerns about ‘chain of custody’ and the management of the gap between crime scene and laboratory, questions Bernard Spilsbury, pathologist. about standards and thresholds for After George Belcher, 1928. Wellcome Library interpreting trace evidence, and the implications of a probabilistic model of This new forensic enterprise also body reconstruction, scene excavation). forensic evidence based on statistical required new kinds of disciplinary The forensic investigation – led, projections of the distribution of framework that regulated and signifi cantly, by a modern ‘celebrity’ biocharacteristics among a given managed the crime scene, and these pathologist, Francis Camps (1905–72) population (e.g. hair subjected to were tested and challenged by the – transformed Rillington Place into neutron activation analysis) – were all practical exigencies of forensic murder a macabre archaeological site, the live concerns before the 1980s. Bringing investigation. The 1953 investigation of stage for a prolonged, meticulous the analysis up to the purported John Christie’s serial murders provided and multidisciplinary search for forensic watershed, then, invites one such test. Christie’s home at 10 and analysis of bioevidence. The refl ection on past forensic practices, Rillington Place rapidly gained public Christie case shows how the new refl ection that is not bound by – and notoriety as a ‘chamber of horrors’, emphasis on trace collection and might even place into historically and attending to the rhetorical and analysis enabled criminal investigators informed analytical perspective – practical levels of this description to forge new evidentiary links the imperialising allure of our own will provide insight into the ways between the vicvtim’s body, the contemporary forensic imagination. that murder investigation had been perpetrator and the crime scene. reshaped by new approaches to the From the 1960s onwards, forensic Dr Ian Burney is Senior Lecturer at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and crime scene, and by developments in pathologists grew increasingly vocal Medicine at the University of Manchester trace detection (hair/semen analysis, about their waning authority in (E [email protected]).

4 | Wellcome HISTORY Arts and humanities, social sciences and medical humanities University of York

Mark Ormrod and Andrew Webster

programmes that have regional, national and international impact. The arts and humanities at York have led the way in developing partnerships with local, national and regional bodies in the public and private sectors to support research activity and enhance its dissemination. There is a particularly strong record of achievement in attracting Collaborative Doctoral Awards from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The social sciences at York have extensive links with external partners across the private, public and The University of York’s Berrick Saul Building. Stuart Brown on Flickr third sectors, particularly in the areas of business and management, social policy, sustainability and health. rts and humanities disciplines The University of York is one of the We have a number of are central to the academic UK’s leading social science research interdisciplinary research collaborations, excellence and aspiration of centres, as demonstrated by our A and are currently developing strong links the University of York. In the 2008 performance in the 2008 RAE, with over on three fronts: health, environment and Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), 60 per cent of social science research urban studies. These cut across the social four of seven arts and humanities activity graded as world-leading or sciences, humanities and biomedical departments were in the UK top fi ve internationally excellent. A number of sciences. For example, we have a wide of their respective disciplines, and all our departments, including Sociology range of social science–humanities had a majority of research classifi ed and Health Sciences, are currently shared interests across campus, including as internationally excellent. Since ranked top in the UK. This is matched work on: the social patterning of health then, York has continued its strong by similarly high-quality teaching by socioeconomic position, ethnicity, record of commitment to arts and provision across the postgraduate gender and age; how evidence of humanities, including the creation and undergraduate levels, refl ected in eff ectiveness and cost-eff ectiveness is of a Humanities Research Centre our receiving the Times University of applied to health policy; communication with superb facilities in the new, the Year Award in 2010. York’s social within healthcare; the historical, purpose-built Berrick Saul Building. science departments include Social economic and philosophical debates There is a long and distinguished Policy and Social Work, Education, relating to the meaning of wellbeing; tradition of interdisciplinary research, Economics, the York Law School, innovation and new health technology and the University supports a series Health Sciences, Politics, Sociology adoption; eff ectiveness and health of specialist centres and institutes and the York Management School, technology adoption, etc.; international/ including the Centres for Medieval as well as a number of world-class global dynamics of health; and health Studies, Renaissance and Early centres such as the Centre for Health services management and policy. Some Modern Studies, Eighteenth Century Economics (CHE), the Centre for of the key departments working in these Studies, and Modern Studies, the Reviews and Dissemination (CRD), areas include Health Sciences, the Centre Institute of Railway Studies and the Centre for Housing Policy, the for Reviews and Dissemination and Transport History, and the Institute Social Policy Research Unit, the the Centre for Health Economics, who for the Public Understanding of the Science and Technology Studies Unit have especially strong links with health Past. Medical humanities have been and the Post-war Reconstruction and policy within the region and Whitehall. developed, particularly in the work Development Unit. The department- of the Department of History. The based excellence is complemented Mark Ormrod is Professor at the Department of Borthwick Institute for Archives, by the resources and facilities of the History, University of York, where he is also the located in the University’s JB Morrell Alcuin Research Resource Centre, Academic Coordinator of the Arts and Humanities (E [email protected]). Library, is the major public record which provides a central location for Andrew Webster is Professor at the Department offi ce of the north of England and research and training in the social of Sociology, University of York, where he is also includes very substantial holdings sciences, fostering interdisciplinary the Academic Coordinator of Social Sciences relating to the history of medicine. (E [email protected]).

Summer 2011 | 5 Animal bites in the Middle Ages University of York

Kathleen Walker-Meikle

works on poisons, most of which discuss the bites of venomous animals. Medieval authors suggested varied treatments for bites. The initial act usually was to distinguish between the bites of venomous beasts (snakes, scorpions and rabid dogs were included here) and non-venomous animals (hares, cats and non-rabid dogs, for example). A venomous wound could be recognised by the painful burning and swelling sensation at the wound. Bites could be worse if the animal was angry, having been provoked or teased by the patient, or if the animal came from a hot and dry climate. A particular focus

A physician treating a rabid dog bite. From was rabid dogs, as dogs were a domestic Apollodorus de Herbis, 13th century. Wellcome Library animal that lived in very close contact with humans. Many works describe in detail how to identify a rabid dog by its ites and punctures, from that mention animal bites and possible behaviour, which included drooling, both venomous and non- cures from Antiquity. After an brief red eyes, barking at its own shadow venomous animals, appear excursus into Byzantine medical B and not recognising its master. frequently in both medical and lay texts, I will work on animal bites in Sea bathing was suggested as sources throughout the High and Late Latin texts in the West through the a treatment by many authors, for Middle Ages, understandably so in a early Middle Ages before focusing both people and dogs who might society where humans lived in close on the impact of texts translated have (or not) rabies. The late 13th- contact with many animals, both wild mainly from Arabic (also from Greek century surgeon Henri de Mondeville and domestic. In December 2010, I and Hebrew) into Latin in the High commented that it was common to see started a three-year Wellcome Trust Middle Ages, and their subsequent on beaches in Normandy men and dogs Medical History and Humanities elaboration, restructuring and use being taken to the seashore for a bath, Research Fellowship on a project or disuse by medical authorities. and then returned cured and docile. titled ‘The medical category “bites This begins with the translations Other treatments included a variety of and punctures” in Latin medical associated with Constantine the ointments to place on the wound and literature in the 13th–14th centuries’. African at Monte Cassino in the later potions to drink. One recipe including The project examines how 11th century and proceeds through splitting open chickens and laying late medieval medical authorities the translations of Gerard of Cremona them on the bite; another suggested an formulated and responded to the (d. 1187) in Spain and beyond. Many ointment made from pigeon droppings, problem of bites and punctures from of the translations are notable for the garlic and salt, while a third mixed fi gs wild and domestic animals, both wide variety of animals discussed: and pomegranates together to place on venomous and non-venomous, such as for example, Avicenna speaks of the the wound. Of all the medicines taken snakes, bees, cats and dogs (rabid and bites of crocodiles, cats, lions, men, internally, the most famous was theriac, non-rabid). Through this project, I hope sea-dragons, lizards, salamanders and a complicated medical compound that to understand medieval theoretical assorted venomous snakes, among could trace its lineage back to classical and practical ideas on punctures and many others. Another focus will be Antiquity. In addition, cauteries and wounds caused by animals and animal on texts and commentaries used in amputation were suggested by surgical toxicology, as animal bites of all kinds university curricula, in faculties of authors, and there were also assorted were often believed to contain noxious both medicine and arts. In the case prophylactic remedies to ward off poisons that needed swift attention, of the latter, animal bites appear in animals such as wasps, bees, snakes and how animal bites were defi ned, natural history texts. Another major and scorpions so that one might situated and structured in regard source are the encyclopedias of the not get bitten in the fi rst place. to causes, symptoms and treatment 13th century, produced by mendicant in the learned medical tradition. scholars. In the 14th century, there is Kathleen Walker-Meikle is a Wellcome Trust Research To provide a background to the an extraordinary growth of specifi c Fellow at the Department of History, University of subject, I began by examining works York (E [email protected]).

6 | Wellcome HISTORY Water and wellbeing in Hong Kong, 1945–80 University of York

David Clayton

A Hong Kong street, by Leonard Jan Bruce-Chwatt. Wellcome Library

resh water is becoming disease and (after a lag) rising average fl ushing, recycling and reduced leakage increasingly scarce. Demand incomes, a success story founded rates), and the eff ects of rationing and Fhas risen because of population on export-led industrialisation resource pooling, the key demand-side growth and rising affl uence, while supported by public investment in strategies. It will show how austerity supply is constrained by the ‘natural’ the social infrastructure. However, aff ected the trade-off s between public hydrological cycle and by the rate rates of investment in rainwater health and private affl uence. Secondly, of technological change in water capture technologies, on which Hong descriptive and inferential data analysis management. Extreme weather Kong depended, lagged. One million will enable the water intensity of brought about by climate change will refugees, rapid industrialisation, modes of production and consumption exacerbate this mismatch. The eff ects large-scale market gardening and to be computed. Hong Kong exhibited of scarcity are uneven. Poor households improved hygiene increased demand sharp dualism in the use of land and in non-temperate climatic zones suff er in unpredictable ways. Bureaucrats technologies: unregulated, insanitary disproportionately. In low-income using plans, markets via the price squatter settlements coexisted with countries, they compete with farmers mechanism, and communities high-quality residential areas, and irrigating crops, with industrialists acting collectively responded in workshops using labour-intensive cooling and lubricating machines innovative ways to endemic scarcity. modes of production coexisted with and with bureaucrats managing Pilot research undertaken in the capital- and fossil-fuel-intensive hydroelectric schemes. Weak states Hong Kong Public Record Offi ce producers. The eff ects of water scarcity, also lose out against neighbouring and in the UK National Archives has notably on heath, are likely to have ones. Future technological change is revealed abundant materials in policy varied. Thirdly, a new collaborative unlikely to reduce the incidence of and operational fi les; contemporary international political economy societal and inter-state confl ict; ever newspapers and periodical literature, emerged from the 1960s. Hong Kong since the mid-19th century, innovation the archives of private organisations imported vast volumes of water from in water management techniques and oral histories provide a hostile neighbouring power, China. has been limited. Can environmental supplementary materials. These As states within a water basin normally history reveal low-carbon solutions sources enable three inter-related fi elds compete over access to water, this that might mitigate scarcity and of enquiry. First, institutional analysis merits thorough investigation. reduce the incidence of confl ict? will reveal the contribution of private During its golden age of growth and public systems of water supply, David Clayton is Senior Lecturer at the Department of History, University of York (c.1945–80), Hong Kong experienced the origins of supply-side innovation (E [email protected]). rapid falls in mortality from infectious (such as dry sanitation, salt-water

Summer 2011 | 7 Health, wealth and medical science University of York

Sue Bowden

global study of health in the relation to disease eradication, and in countries: those where the risks of 20th century is an ongoing particular the implications of unrest dying once diagnosis was confirmed A research project based in the for the institutional and infrastructural remained high (Spain, Italy, Austria, Centre for Historical Economics and frameworks necessary to eliminate Hungary), those where the risk of Related Research at the University disease. This work found evidence to fatality was low (England and Wales, of York, involving colleagues based support the thesis that the malaria Finland, Poland, the Netherlands, in York, elsewhere in the UK and eradication campaigns may have led Iceland, Yugoslavia, Norway) and an overseas. The team includes economic to improved agricultural productivity, intermediate group (East Germany, historians, econometricians, health as a result of the associated land Northern Ireland, Romania, Sweden, economists and development reclamation and agricultural expansion. Portugal, Denmark, Luxembourg). economists. The emphasis is on the We have worked intensively on The research found that success in the interplay between the economy (what respiratory tuberculosis on a global fight against respiratory tuberculosis could be achieved given levels of basis between 1950 and 1980 – a was a function of medical advance growth and development) and medical discrete period of time when, in theory, and of an institutional framework science (what could be achieved in medical science delivered in terms in which the pioneering advances of terms of prevention and cure given of prevention and cure and before medical science in both prevention existing states of medical knowledge). drug-resistant tuberculosis emerged and treatment could be applied. By health we mean morbidity and (largely a result of its interface with mortality in the context of current HIV/AIDS). To do this we have created The malaria eradication medical knowledge and hence what new datasets that improve on those campaigns may have led was avoidable illness and death. currently available, in terms of updated We have explored child illness global information on morbidity, to improved agricultural and mortality in the UK during the mortality and fatality. Using our productivity, as a depressed economic circumstances new datasets we found that despite of the interwar years. Taking a the advances of medical science, not result of the associated cross-section approach that enabled only did respiratory tuberculosis land reclamation and researchers to explore child health remain a major cause of morbidity in different parts of the country and mortality in many parts of the agricultural expansion that experienced varying degrees world but also there were significant of economic depression, this work differences across countries in the More recently, we have been found that improvements in living extent to which the potential promised examining morbidity, mortality and conditions and in medical provision by the advances of medical science fatality from respiratory tuberculosis reduced the risk of child mortality, were realised. To the extent that drugs on a global basis between 1950 and but that variations in socioeconomic existed that could cure the disease, 1980. Again, new datasets have been living conditions, medical provision, deaths from respiratory tuberculosis created to this end. We have found a unemployment among males and between 1950 and 1980 were in tripartite divide in terms of all three female employment explained theory avoidable. We believe that dimensions of the health problem: differences in the risks of mortality. the history of tuberculosis provides significant gains in high-income The team has conducted research important lessons about the fight countries, a growing problem in newly on two global health issues in against epidemic diseases in general, industrialising countries and a signal the postwar period: malaria and and offers valuable policy implications lack of improvement in many low- tuberculosis, which independently for the current tuberculosis epidemic income countries, notably in Africa. and together were the major causes in many low-income countries. We further explored the potential of illness and death in many parts The research on respiratory offered by medical science in these of the world between 1950 and tuberculosis morbidity and mortality decades and considered how and why 1980. As such, we have explored the in Europe in the postwar period the interventions science and medicine relationship between the escape from demonstrated the fight against made possible for identification, poverty and prevailing levels of disease respiratory tuberculosis was won as prevention and cure, while being highly through a study of the economic a result of improvements in living effective and viable in developed- significance of malaria eradication standards related to economic growth, economy environments, were in the first half of the 20th century as well as owing to the provision of constrained in low-income countries in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. medical care and the development of given the costs of implementing these The findings emphasise the adverse public health systems. Using our new interventions, in terms of transport, effects of civil and international war datasets, we found that by 1970 Europe storage and the existence of trained on human capital accumulation in could be divided into three groups of personnel. We further found that

8 | Wellcome HISTORY where resources were limited, and the of active symptoms of the disease, again status. The data we have collected are health problem was infi nite, the costs on a global basis. Bringing our work also providing us with an opportunity of identifying, preventing and curing up to the present, we are exploring to measure the relationship between tuberculosis were not possible for many the relationship between objective subjective and objective health developing economies in this period. and subjective health measures and evaluations for a given set of individuals We are currently pursuing two the social determinants of health. across countries in the present day. issues: the eff ects of urbanisation, The purpose of this is to discover migration and overcrowding on the those variables that are important for Sue Bowden is Director of the Centre for Historical Economics and Related Research (www.york.ac.uk/ risks of infection and the relationship objective health status and those that res/cherry) at the University of York (E sue.bowden@ between nutrition on the development are important for subjective health york.ac.uk).

Biology and social science University of York

Chris Renwick

science at the London School of Economics during the 1920s and 1930s. Beveridge used his directorship of the LSE to establish a project called the Natural Bases of Social Science, which was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and included a controversial department of social biology. Although it aimed to change the way social science was practised in Britain by ‘cross-fertilising’ biological and social science, Beveridge’s project has received little scholarly attention. For example, while Ralf Dahrendorf’s history of the LSE (1995) and Jose Harris’s biography of Beveridge (1977, 1997) both examine the project, neither closely considers its substantive and methodological content or its wider signifi cance in the history of British social science. As a consequence, we have a poor understanding of the kinds of change that the project was meant to initiate, why it failed to achieve them and the impact that it had on the direction of social science in the UK. My research will therefore make an important contribution to our understanding of British social science by deepening our knowledge of a series of events that helped shape William Beveridge. Wellcome Library its current intellectual identity and practices. The programme will do so y research explores how debates about its relationship with by using historical methods on the the historical interaction biology. However, having published archival sources held by the Rockefeller Mof biological and social a number of articles and recently Foundation in New York State. These ideas has shaped the identity and submitted a monograph manuscript substantial holdings, which are not practices of British social science. I to the University of Chicago Press, I available online or on microfi lm, fi rst examined this fi eld in my doctoral have widened my research to consider contain key documents relating to the work, which argued that British mid-20th-century developments – in Natural Bases of Social Science project. sociology was founded on a series particular, how the economist William These documents include extensive of late 19th- and early 20th-century Beveridge attempted to reform social correspondence between Beveridge

Summer 2011 | 9 and offi cers of the Foundation, which will enrich our understanding Charting the emergence of sociology in committee minutes, diaries, progress of current debates about the issue. Britain from the mid-1870s to the early reports and a previously unknown A note on my upcoming book, 20th century, when L T Hobhouse, who manuscript entitled ‘Suggestions for titled British Sociology’s Lost Biological battled to separate the biological and Program in Social Sciences in England Roots. For some time, the social social sciences, was awarded Britain’s with Comments on Past Rockefeller sciences have been under attack from fi rst chair of sociology and editorship Foundation Policy’, which was those who believe that biology, not of the Sociological Review, the UK’s written by Beveridge in 1937. Building society or culture, provides the best fi rst sociology journal, this book casts on what I have learned from the explanation of human behaviour and fresh light on the roots of current correspondence of Lancelot Hogben social organisation. Evolutionary debates about the place of biology in – who led the LSE’s department of psychologists speak disdainfully of sociology. Moreover, by recovering the social biology – and archives at the LSE, a ‘Standard Social Science Model’, visions for sociology of Hobhouse’s the materials held by the Rockefeller picturing the human mind as formed rivals, including the Scottish biologist Foundation will provide me with through nurture alone; social scientists and sociologist Patrick Geddes and both essential information about react by decrying the reductionism the eugenicist Francis Galton, the the project and contextual details of biological views. With positions so book contributes to historical and that are necessary for interpreting its polarised, it is easy to forget that the sociological debates by showing how development. This will enable me to social sciences and biology were not the history of British sociology can complete the process of recovering always regarded as separate spheres. inform current discussions about the the methodological and substantive When, how and why did the split come future of the relationship between content of the social science that about? My book seeks answers in the the social and biological sciences. Beveridge’s project aimed to create debates about sociology in late 19th- and the reasons for its failure. In and early 20th-century Britain, where Chris Renwick is Lecturer at the Department of History, University of York doing so, my work will reconstruct an rival visions of the relationship between (E [email protected]). alternative but forgotten vision of how biology and society competed to shape to relate biological and social science, the burgeoning discipline’s future.

Sociology, biomedicine and health University of York

Andrew Webster

biosciences, especially in the fi elds of regenerative medicine/stem cells, the new genetics and pharmacogenetics. It also has an interest in e-health (such as telemedicine) and its implementation in clinical and non-clinical settings. In regard to regenerative medicine, SATSU has coordinated a national programme (www.york.ac.uk/res/sci), funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), covering contemporary economic, clinical and regulatory issues. This programme explored the dynamics of translational medicine, innovation and regulatory issues at an international level. One of our projects has examined the growth of biological standards in the A surgical team at work. Wellcome Library fi eld and how these are stabilised across science labs, and the long- term implications this has for issues he University of York’s Science technologies. Within the area of health such as patient safety. In addition, and Technology Studies (the sociology of the biosciences) it has SATSU coordinates a major European Unit (SATSU) has three an active research programme directed T Commission FP7 grant (REMEDiE) research themes: the sociology of the at understanding the infl uences on regenerative medicine as well biosciences, social informatics, and shaping the clinical, regulatory and as another on xenotransplantation governance and regulation of new commercial development of the new

10 | Wellcome HISTORY and citizen participation in policy particular technologies might be interpersonal relationships, we intend making. A related ESRC project on introduced, and how these may shape to identify key patterns in the talk of the emergence of commercial cord the development and introduction of the surgical team at points at which blood banking began in January genetics-based medical technologies. A issues of risk and patient safety 2009; this will examine new forms of recently completed project supported become salient. By examining the consumption, parental responsibility by a Hull York Medical School Pump linguistic and pragmatic procedures and the changing balances between Priming Award examined ‘Molecular through which surgical teams identify public and commercial bioscience. diagnostics and clinical effectiveness: contingent and routine difficulties, With respect to pharmacogenetics innovation, communication and and coordinate group or individual – the relationship between individual clinical decision-making’ in the responses, we will be able formally to genetic variation and drug response haematology field (in collaboration describe those largely tacit or unseen – SATSU has been funded over the with Health Sciences and Hull/ interpersonal dynamics associated past five years by different bodies Leeds Haematological Malignancy with high-risk moments in surgery. (the UK Department of Health, the Diagnostic Service contacts). These kinds of findings can inform Wellcome Trust, the EC) to examine The Sociology Department at York both evaluation of surgical procedures the social, ethical and regulatory is also deeply involved in two areas of and training for members of surgical dimensions affecting the introduction health-related research: conversation teams. We are currently in negotiation of such technologies into healthcare analysis and medical sociology. A with anaesthetists and surgeons in systems. Our interest in genetics current project on ‘Communication one of the UK’s leading university and therapeutic regimes is set within and risk in surgery’ explores the hospitals to secure access and data. a wider sociological context of the communication dynamics of surgical sociotechnical construction of new teams as they perform procedures. By Andrew Webster is Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of York, where he is also the technologies, particularly in the area of drawing from a qualitative method Academic Coordinator of Social Sciences healthcare and the role of expectations in sociology to study how we use (E [email protected]). and different conceptions of how language to establish and negotiate

Society for the Social History of Medicine

Since its inaugural meeting in 1970, the Society Activities • Conferences and other events. for the Social History of Medicine (SSHM) has • Student bursaries for conference attendance. pioneered interdisciplinary approaches to the • The Roy Porter Student Essay Prize (£500) – winning essays may be published in Social History of Medicine. history of health, welfare, medical science and practice. The SSHM is a lively international Membership benefits • Subscription to Social History of Medicine community consisting of those interested in a (four issues per year) and the Gazette. variety of disciplines, including history, public • Reduced registration fees at SSHM and European Association for the History of health, demography, anthropology, sociology, Medicine and Health conferences. social administration and health economics. • Discounts on a broad and exciting range of medical history books. Publications Details • Social History of Medicine – a peer-reviewed • Contact the membership secretary, Catherine journal produced by Oxford University Press. The Cox, at [email protected]. journal is concerned with all aspects of health, • Visit www.sshm.org. illness, and medical treatment in the past and • Find the SSHM on Facebook. publishing work from a variety of disciplines. • SSHM membership is free for subscribers to Social • Gazette – a newsletter reporting on History of Medicine: shm.oxfordjournals.org. conferences and other news. • Studies for the Society for the Social History of Medicine – book series published by Pickering and Chatto.

Summer 2011 | 11 Sensing pollution University of York

Mark Jenner

have worked on various aspects of the social and cultural history of I health and medicine in England between c.1500 and c.1800. I have had a longstanding interest in the history of hygiene, health and the environment, with a particular focus on the history of sanitation and water supply in London. My work challenges the modernist assumptions of the historiography of public health, which generally treats all forms of cleansing, collective health promotion and disease prevention as no more than hors d’oeuvres served up before the reader gets on to the thoroughly modern main courses of network technology, bacteriology and social medicine. My work emphasises how concerns about public cleansing were intertwined with other forms of local social relations and systems of governance. I have tried to go beyond conventional cultural historical approaches to the senses, which tend to depend upon a strict dichotomy between Chelsea Water Works, 1750. Wellcome Library nature and culture were rooted in suspicions of the Review, 2011), I have developed this However, this work can also be commercial practice and the monopoly line of thinking with reference to seen as a longstanding dialogue with held by the capital’s water companies. the history of the senses. Pioneering the writings of Mary Douglas, and I Both of these strands are addressed in work in this area was initiated by Bill have always stressed that the histories my soon-to-be-completed monograph Bynum and Roy Porter’s collection of cleanliness and dirt are at least as A Cleanly City: Cleanliness, dirt and Medicine and the Five Senses, but few much histories of perception as they public health in early modern London. medical historians have built upon are of administration. I have argued I also have a longstanding interest these foundations. I have tried to go that representations of air pollution in and sceptical engagement with beyond conventional cultural historical at the time of Charles II’s Restoration the history and historiography of the approaches to the senses, which tend were shaped by the political agendas body. In surveys of the fi eld published to depend upon a strict dichotomy of their authors, and have traced the a decade ago, I critiqued what seemed between nature and culture, and focus connections between the religious ideas like a tendency for the fi eld to objectify instead on sensing, examining medical of 17th- and 18th-century doctors and and reify what it was studying uses of the senses as forms of practice their hydrotherapeutic writings. In a and called for greater attention and as ways of being-in-the-world. recent work, Medicine and the Market in to the problems and questions of England and Its Colonies, c.1450–c.1850 embodiment. In recent work on taste, Mark Jenner is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of History at the University of York, taking over as (edited with Patrick Wallis), I have touch and smell, ‘Tasting Lichfi eld, Director of the Centre for Renaissance and Early emphasised the socially embedded touching China: Sir John Floyer’s Modern Studies in September 2011 (E mark.jenner@ nature of medical commerce and senses’ (Historical Journal, 2010) and york.ac.uk). suggested that campaigns about water ‘Follow your nose? Smell, smelling, and quality in early 19th-century London their histories’ (American Historical

12 | Wellcome HISTORY New uses for sugar in the British West Indies University of York

Sabine Clarke

industry could threaten the stability researchers to the colonial service, and of entire territories, and even the around 40 research institutions were integrity of the Empire as a whole. operating across the Empire by 1952. Historians have noted how the economic and social problems of the Cane sugar produced in the British West Indies during the 1930s colonies of the region could were important in allowing for the reform of policy that led to the 1940 be used as a raw material to Colonial Development and Welfare make fuels, medical products Act, but the nature of economic plans for the British West Indies after 1940 and synthetic goods has received little attention. It has sometimes been stated that offi cials In making and executing its plans abided by the recommendations to fi nd new uses for British West Indies made by Lord Moyne’s commission, sugar through scientifi c research, which had investigated the social and the Colonial Offi ce was inspired by

Norman Haworth, Nobel Prize-winning chemist. economic problems of the region in the interwar production of motoring Wellcome Library 1938. With regard to the problems fuels and organic chemicals based on of the sugar industry, however, this molasses as a raw material. One legacy claim is mistaken. In their emphasis on of intense interest and activity by n the summer of 1940, offi cials diverting cane sugar to new industrial government, business and scientists in at the Colonial Offi ce in London uses, and in proposing to foster the fi elds of microbiology and organic conceived a new and radical vision I industrial development in Britain’s chemistry after World War I was of economic development for the Caribbean colonies, plans conceived signifi cant experience and expertise in British West Indies. The proposal was by offi cials after 1940 marked both Britain in the generation of products that instead of being consumed as a a departure from the commission’s derived from alcohol produced by foodstuff , cane sugar produced in the recommendations and a signifi cant fermentation. The Offi ce was lobbied colonies of the region could be used as break with the policies of the past. by a number of individuals, including a raw material to make fuels, medical A failure by historians to the scientist Chaim Weizmann, to products and synthetic goods such as acknowledge the novelty of new plans support the development of molasses- plastics. The hope was that by taking for the British West Indies is most likely based industry, and there was ardent advantage of an expanding market for the result of a more general neglect support from others for programmes manufactured products, the British by scholars of the role that scientifi c of research into microbiology and West Indian colonies would see a research had come to play in offi cial sugar chemistry. The Nobel Prize- revival in their economic fortunes. thinking by 1940. The Colonial Offi ce’s winning chemist Norman Haworth The price of cane sugar had reached plans to transform the economies of informed the Offi ce that as a potential an all-time low in 1934, and offi cials the British West Indies were predicated raw material to produce synthetics, were pessimistic about the long-term on fi nding new uses for sugar through sugar was purer than molasses, it future of an industry that produced scientifi c research it was sponsoring. was abundant and it could compete a commodity in oversupply. During This was an ambition made possible with coal and oil in terms of price. As the 1930s there had been strong by the creation of a substantial a consequence of this endorsement, criticism of the social deprivation that research fund as part of the 1940 Act. the Offi ce funded Haworth’s work at existed in the colonies and there was An allocation of £1 million each year Birmingham University and created concern that further decline in the from 1945 worked to elevate the Offi ce two new laboratories in Trinidad to sugar industry would led to nothing to the position of the second largest investigate the uses of sugar and its by- but “unemployment, distress and sponsor of scientifi c research in Britain, products and for work in microbiology. misery” for the populations of the after the Department of Scientifi c and Aside from the aim of acting as a region. While distress was not limited Industrial Research. The period after spur to economic development in the to workers in the sugar industry, and 1940 saw a strongly technocratic turn British West Indies by creating new sugar was no longer the principal in colonial policy; a number of new products to be exploited by industry, export of all the Caribbean colonies, research committees were formed at the these laboratories were intended to be a it remained the largest employer. Colonial Offi ce, populated by scientists demonstration of Britain’s commitment Riots across the region in the 1930s drawn from Britain’s most prestigious to modernising the colonies. Offi cials demonstrated to the British government research establishments. There was claimed that locating this research that discontent among workers in this an emphasis on recruiting specialist in Trinidad would enable the island

Summer 2011 | 13 to take its place in the international through the Anglo-American Caribbean during the late colonial period, with exchange of knowledge that was Commission. British offi cials found their the exception of a blood plasma characteristic of scientifi c research. vision of economic development was substitute named Dextran. A number The laboratories in Trinidad can marginalised in the 1950s as Caribbean of factors contributed to the failure also be seen as an attempt to assert the politicians and intellectuals increasingly of this programme, including the role of the British Empire and British privileged the regional context over reluctance of sugar companies in the expertise in directing development in the imperial when seeking models of British West Indies to diversify when the the British West Indies. The late colonial industrial development, with many prospect of independence for Britain’s period saw a number of alternative turning to Puerto Rico’s ‘Operation colonies made their future uncertain. models and sources of advice for Bootstrap’ as a source of inspiration. Caribbean development, including In the end, the search for new Sabine Clarke is a Lecturer at the Department of History, University of York those of the USA, which promoted uses for sugar furnished little in the (E [email protected]). its experts and development ideas way of new products and industries

The Sisters of Mercy University of York

Shane O’Rourke

dispatch of nurses to the war zone. These women, known as the Sisters of Mercy, made a signal contribution to the army medical service and became a permanent feature of the army. Elena’s contribution to the foundations of the Sisters of Mercy has never been properly investigated, nor has there been a major assessment of the role of the Sisters of Mercy in the Crimean campaign. In addition, Elena’s call for volunteers had ramifi cations far beyond the important sphere of military health. It audaciously trampled over gender, class and political boundaries. It was the harbinger of the new order to be introduced by Alexander II, who came to the throne in the midst of the war. One of the assumptions that lay behind the A Russian hospital at Sevastopol. reforms was a more involved, active After E A Goodall, 1855. Wellcome Library citizenry. This was to be a gradual process whereby the citizenry, or he fi rst shots of the Crimean military hospitals in the Crimea, above at least the educated portion of it, War brutally demolished all from Sevastapol, which achieved would be invited to cooperate in the T the austere façade of order, iconic status during the long siege. development of the society. This was a authority and discipline that Nicholas Despite the shock and the manifest fundamental change in the ethos of a I had painstakingly constructed in incompetence of the government, the Russian state that up to this point had Russia over the previous 30 years. The upper echelons of society could only regarded any independent initiative war mercilessly exposed the rottenness watch impotently as the suff ering from society as sedition and had treated of the entire Nikolaevan system. In a continued. Thirty years of authoritarian it accordingly. Elena’s call for volunteers particularly acute and bloody fashion, rule had eff ectively crushed any therefore represented a deep break with the rottenness was evident in the societal initiatives. In the midst of this Russian tradition, and its implications army’s medical service, which collapsed paralysis, one woman, Grand Duchess went far beyond the stated objective under the strain. The military hospitals Elena Pavlovna, boldly issued a call for of providing nurses for the army. – corrupt, incompetent and deadly volunteer nurses to go to the Crimea. – encapsulated Nicholas’s Russia. St She and sympathisers in the medical Shane O’Rourke is Senior Lecturer at the Department of History, University of York Petersburg society was shocked by the profession set about coordinating (E [email protected]). stories of suff ering emanating from the the recruitment, organisation and

14 | Wellcome HISTORY A house for research and teaching of the history of health Oswaldo Cruz Foundation

Paulo Gadelha and Nara Azevedo

Pavilion of the Clock and the Stable. Fiocruz from 1985 was decisive, as was Other units and offi ces are located their understanding that history and in the cities of Rio de Janeiro, Belo public health are closely interconnected Horizonte, Salvador, Recife, Fortaleza, in the search for knowledge of social, Manaus, Porto Velho Campo Grande, political and cultural processes related Curitiba and Brasilia, which gives the to the production of disease and health institution a national character. In 2009, promotion. The preservation of memory Fiocruz opened an offi ce for technical and public health history were valued cooperation in Maputo, Mozambique. also as tools for analysis of historical Fiocruz houses a broad range of processes that produce professional activities: development of research in identities, to understand the present, many fi elds; provision of hospital and support institutional strategic planning ambulance health reference services; and reveal possible alternative paths manufacture of vaccines, drugs and of actions and health policies. diagnostics; education and training; Research into the history of science information and communication in and health began with the creation of health, science and technology; quality the House of Oswaldo Cruz in 1985. In control for products and services; and 2001, Master’s and doctoral programmes implementation of social programmes. in these subjects were established. Over In the 21st century, Fiocruz seeks to face its 25 years, the House has expanded the old and new health challenges with the activities to many areas such as scientifi c and technological innovation science education and dissemination, programmes. There are over 8000 with the creation of the Museum of professionals dedicated to promoting Life, information management and Oswaldo Cruz by H Franz, Revue Chanteclair, 1911. science, health and citizenship. publishing of the scientifi c journal Casa de Oswaldo Cruz Historical Archives, Fiocruz Founded in 1985, the House of History, Science and Health – Manguinhos. Oswaldo Cruz (Casa de Oswaldo Taking a multidisciplinary he Oswaldo Cruz Foundation Cruz) is a Fiocruz technical-scientifi c perspective, the Department of Research (Fiocruz) was established in unit dedicated to preserving the in the History of Science and Health TMay 1900 in Rio de Janeiro institution’s memory in all its and the Postgraduate Program in – under the name of the Federal dimensions and to other activities such History of Science and Health have Serotherapeutic Institute – with a as research, teaching, documentation trained teachers and doctors who have mission to combat the major problems and dissemination of the history of produced works on a wide range of of Brazilian public health and develop medicine, public health and biomedical subjects, among them: race, slavery and experimental medicine. To this end, the sciences in Brazil. Its establishment health; care and healing practices; social Foundation took shape as a reference and membership of a public health representations of illness; social thinking point for health promotion and institution has been strongly linked in health; medicine and its specialties; social development, generating and to the process of democratisation psychiatry and psychological knowledge; diff using scientifi c and technological in Brazil after 21 years of military gender and science; microbiology knowledge, always focused on the dictatorship ended in 1985, a process and tropical medicine; career paths, pursuit of knowledge of the of the in which the struggle for democratic nature and environment; travel and country’s true condition. Attached to the reform of Brazilian public health was scientifi c expeditions; international Ministry of Health, Fiocruz is the most a crucial component. The House was relations in science and health; and prominent institution of science and a bold proposal: to include historical actions and programmes of prevention, technology in health in Latin America. research and activities that aimed at control and eradication of diseases. At the main Fiocruz campus in Rio preserving the memory of health and de Janeiro, nine of the fi fteen technical- life sciences at an institution recognised, Paulo Gadelha is President of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, and a Researcher and Professor scientifi c units and all the technical nationally and internationally, for its (E gadelha@fi ocruz.br). and administrative support units work thorough dedication to biomedical Nara Azevedo is Director of the Oswaldo Cruz around the three historic buildings of research and public health. For this Foundation, and a Researcher and Professor in the the former Federal Serotherapeutic achievement, the activism of the group Postgraduate Programme in the History of Sciences and Health (E nazevedo@fi ocruz.br). Institute: the Moorish Pavilion, the of sanitarians and doctors who ran

Summer 2011 | 15 Science, health and environment: the Brazilian Amazon Oswaldo Cruz Foundation

Dominichi Miranda de Sá

‘jungle’ and ‘forest’ – the former considered unhealthy territory where malaria raged, while the latter started becoming the subject of discussions over environmental protection. My work analyses the relationship between the production of medical and scientifi c knowledge, environmental intervention, and the political and social dynamics involved in modernisation processes in nation states. Of key interest is the historical study of fi eld The Amazon contains remarkable biodiversity. research conducted by the exploratory Peter Schoen on Flickr and settlement expeditions that accompanied communications and hen it comes to describing museums, botanical gardens and transportation infrastructure works, the Amazon, the rhetorical exploration commissions, studying the particularly those conducted in the Wdevice used most often Amazon – that is, Brazil’s northwestern Brazilian Amazon during the fi rst seems to be the superlative: the frontier – rose to the top of research decades of the 20th century. Other Amazon holds the world’s largest agendas. These institutions were areas of focus include the history of the hydrographic basin and the world’s involved in the systematic inventory development of scientifi c knowledge, largest rainforest, it possesses one of the region’s nature, along with disciplines and issues involving the of the greatest collections of aquatic the shift from a frontier territory in study of nature, such as: cartography fauna and it is the biologically richest expansion and a region of international and borders; medicine, disease and terrestrial biome on Earth. The border disputes into an area under people; ecology, environment, climate, chroniclers and clergy, travellers and true political rule by the state. In the physical milieu, and practices naturalists who crisscrossed the region the fi rst half of the 20th century, the used in exploiting and preserving the from the 16th to the 19th centuries Brazilian government sponsored a natural world; and botany, geography, helped to construct this view of a number of expeditions to explore the the study of river, and natural history. unique, magnifi cent natural world. Amazon’s fauna, fl ora and people. Our research project suggests La Condamine, Humboldt, Wallace, Members of these commissions that if the Brazilian state’s aim of Agassiz, Spix and Martius wrote included naturalists specialised in ‘productively settling’ the northwestern about the breadth, quantity, wealth botany, cartography, geology, zoology portion of the country was not actually and other exceptional qualities of the and anthropology, especially from achieved back then, or if it has now Amazon’s soils, plants and waters. Rio de Janeiro’s National Museum. been reshaped to fi t new attitudes In Brazil, the imagining of the They gathered specimens, classifi ed and agendas about our relation to Amazon has always been accompanied and catalogued collected material, the natural world, these government- by a relentless endeavour to convert this wrote detailed scientifi c reports, gave promoted scientifi c surveys nonetheless natural setting into national resources. conferences, and published texts on played a decisive role in recognising the Recent research into the environmental these expeditions and their fi ndings. value of Brazilian naturalists. Above history of Brazil has dated this idea They also demarcated borders with all, they broadened our understanding back to the 18th century, when the other countries and delimited lands of vast areas of the Amazon – object notion of exploiting and putting the believed suitable for human settlement of science, imagination, tourism, country’s natural elements to rational and for raising crops and livestock. With international political disputes and use was already on the table. But it the region’s rivers serving as geographic curiosity, and a central topic in took the 1889 birth of the Republic references, medical and environmental debates on the sustainable use of to usher in an actual policy for the surveys recorded the geology of river natural resources and the preservation scientifi c exploration of Brazil’s natural beds, the fl ora along their banks, the of ecosystems worldwide. and regional diversity, with an eye presence of indigenous societies, and on taking utmost advantage of such signs of economic activities in their Dominichi Miranda de Sá is a Researcher and Associate Professor in the Postgraduate Programme resources. At a number of government- vicinity. They defi ned indigenous lands in the History of Sciences and Health, Oswaldo Cruz run scientifi c institutions, including and established diff erences between Foundation (E dominichi@fi ocruz.br).

16 | Wellcome HISTORY Yellow fever in Brazil: an unfinished history Oswaldo Cruz Foundation

Jaime L Benchimol

ellow fever was Brazil’s biggest outdoors was a composite urban–coastal little was known. They had studied its public health challenge in the 19th agent, hot and humid, where fungi, symptoms and lesions, especially the Yand 20th centuries. The virus still algae or bacilli spent part of their cycles site of inoculation by the tsetse fly. circulates in rural woodlands and knocks before infecting people, exclusively in While in Cuba, Durham and at doors in cities infested with the urban certain seasons and geographical zones. Myers helped promote an alternative vector Aedes aegypti – but there have been In June 1900, one year after the framing of yellow fever from the no outbreaks in these environments, creation of the Liverpool School of perspective of new discoveries about where dengue (a disease propelled by Tropical Diseases and shortly after the malaria, yet their involvement with the same main vector) now rules. In deciphering of malaria transmission, immunology and serum therapy and October 1958, the 15th Pan American Herbert Edward Durham and Walter the then understanding of tsetse Sanitary Conference declared much Myers headed to the Amazon armed disease may explain their falling of the Americas free of A. aegypti. And with Finlay’s hypothesis of yellow back on the bacteriological approach while yellow fever recovered lost territory fever transmission via mosquitoes. during their time in Belém. after reappearing in the northern state They stopped in Havana to observe In April 1905, Wolferstan Thomas of Pará in 1967, raising fresh fears, it is the Walter Reed commission at work. and Anton Breinl disembarked in dengue that has made headlines since Their September 1900 article leaves Manaus to study yellow fever in the summer 1986. The transition from the impression that the Americans Amazon. Between the Liverpool School’s one disease to the other is an enigma had not embraced the mosquito fourth expedition and this one (its 15th), we still do not fully understand. theory; the British instead would find extremely dynamic processes were at Hygiene became an important its justification in northern Brazil. play within tropical medicine. In Gambia, consideration of government policy In August 1900, Lazear began Dutton had demonstrated the presence owing to the 1849 yellow fever epidemic experiments with the Culex Finlay of a trypanosome in the blood of humans in Rio de Janeiro, capital of Brazil’s had identified, while Carrol and with sleeping sickness. In 1903, Thomas slave-owning Empire. A vast arsenal of Agramonte advanced their priority became head of the Runcorn Research initiatives was advocated for reforming studies on the alleged yellow fever Laboratory, shortly before the School’s city landscapes as well as the human bacillus. After Lazear’s death, Reed 12th expedition left for Congo to conduct habits and creations associated with initiated better-controlled experiments further research on trypanosomiases. the miasmas polluting urban life. to prove that Culex fasciatus was With the collaboration of Breinl, Thomas In the summer of 1879–80, Domingos host of the yellow fever ‘parasite’. showed these could be treated with Freire announced the discovery of Liverpool School researchers atoxyl. Ehrlich was to visit Runcorn, Cryptococcus xanthogenicus, supposedly were busy with their work when this and in 1910 his own research with atoxyl the cause of yellow fever, and then gave turnabout occurred, with Myers dying would lead him to Salvarsan, the first abolitionists and republicans a vaccine of yellow fever in January 1901. Their effective drug for treating syphilis. that became widely used. Other fungi investigations soon slipped into the It is somewhat intriguing that and algae were blamed as well, while cauldron of conflicting bacteriological scientists investigating trypanosomiases bacilli became the prime culprit the theories abounding in the medical were sent to Brazil right when this following decade. In 1892, in hopes field. The explanation lies in Durham research was at its peak. Britain’s of wrenching the fever from Rio’s and Myers’s prior experiences, which commercial interest in the Amazon soil, the President of the newly born led to a figure who unexpectedly ties clearly played a role but I suggest a Republic considered hiring Edmund Belém to Liverpool. When invited hypothesis that links the Manaus Alexander Parkes, author of the Manual to take that journey, they were at laboratory with this advanced of Practical Hygiene, which systematised Cambridge doing research related to frontier in tropical medicine. experiences in British and Indian cities. that of Alfredo Antunes Kanthack, In 1905, Schaudinn and Hoffmann Those years saw much speculation their recently deceased professor announced the discovery of Treponema about insects’ role in disease of pathology and bacteriology. pallidum, which causes syphilis. transmission, including yellow fever. A prominent figure within the Biomedical institutions worldwide These creatures (especially the flies small group of pathologists who dedicated their work to this and buzzing through the miasma-filled devoted themselves full-time to other spirochaetes. Analogies drawn air) were primarily seen as mechanical the microbial world, Kanthack between malaria and yellow fever agents that transmitted microorganisms. had headed a team associated with led many researchers to believe the New living links were fitted into the David Bruce’s research on nagana. yellow fever agent was also a filterable, constructs designed to explain the Kanthack, Durham and Blandford ultramicroscopic protozoan, a hypothesis extracorporeal transformation of the had confirmed that the haematozoan defended by Finlay himself. Schaudinn yellow fever microbe. Entwining soil, identified by Bruce belonged to the suggested that a spirochaete might water, air, food, ships and housing, the genus Trypanosoma, about which be the yellow fever agent, since it was

Summer 2011 | 17 then thought that this organism and campaign, partially based on Leptospira There are several hypotheses for trypanosomes were related protozoans icteroides as the alleged yellow fever why the disease has not spread in cities that crossed bacterial filters during agent discovered by Noguchi. teeming with the mosquito that proved certain phases of their cycles. The discrepancies that emerged a fine host for its virus in the past, but This hypothesis guided Otto and as efforts were made to extend none excludes the possibility that it will Neumann’s research in Rio, at the the campaign to Africa resulted in eventually spread. When people consider height of the yellow fever campaign identification of the disease’s viral this frightening possibility, they are led by Oswaldo Cruz. In 1907, Stimson aetiology in 1928. In Brazil, in 1932, reminded of the 19th and 20th centuries’ found Spirochaeta interrogans in a Soper and collaborators found yellow terrible epidemics. This affords us an yellow fever victim. Schaudinn’s fever in areas near woodlands devoid opportunity to rethink questions that theory gained much ground after of Aedes aegypti, confirming the by their very nature demand a meeting the Japanese named a spirochaete existence of other transmitters and of the biological and human sciences. as agent of haemorrhagic jaundice hosts. A vast research programme on (leptospirosis). Disentangling this both sides of the Atlantic soon revealed Jaime L Benchimol is a Researcher and Professor in the Postgraduate Programme in the History of knot, we come to the Rockefeller the complex dynamics between Sciences and Health, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation Foundation’s post-World War I urban and sylvatic yellow fever. (E jben@coc.fiocruz.br).

Tropical medicine in Brazil Oswaldo Cruz Foundation

Simone Petraglia Kropf

n the closing years of the 19th the forefront of this school of thought; unsuited to civilisation. Peixoto declared century, Patrick Manson announced indeed, their base was soon to achieve that there were no tropical diseases Ithat special education on tropical international recognition as a centre since there were no climatic diseases; diseases was urgently required; given for research and education in tropical for him, there were only “avoidable new knowledge about vector-borne medicine. The discovery in 1909 by Carlos diseases” and Brazilian medicine had parasites, this was presented as the most Chagas, a researcher at the Institute, of secure means of combating them. effective way of tackling the diseases that the American trypanosomiasis (Chagas’ Both visions shared common ground, afflicted Britain’s colonies. The theme disease, caused by the protozoan in the shape of a belief in the ability of of tropical diseases assumed a political Trypanosoma cruzi and transmitted by medicine to fight the impact of climate dimension in Brazil too. There was, in this a bloodsucking insect popularly known and the spread of diseases, and thereby case, no colonial enterprise: Brazil had in Brazil as barbeiro) was praised as an assist national progress. Differences in achieved political independence in 1822 emblem of Brazilian competence in the attitude were rooted in the conflicts and become a Republic in 1889. Tropical new field of tropical medicine. In 1926, associated with the institutionalisation medicine in Brazil was accorded a different Chagas presented the opening lecture of medical sciences in Brazil during the political role – it was expected to help the in tropical medicine at the Faculty of first half of the 20th century. On the one creation of ‘a civilisation in the tropics’. Medicine in Rio de Janeiro. Mentioning hand, tropical medicine proved to be a The dominance of microbiology the work of Europeans involved in fighting means of affirming the usefulness of the and theories of vector-based disease tropical diseases in Africa for colonial research institutes such as the Oswaldo transmission had diminished belief in the interests, he emphasised that in Brazil Cruz Institute, which were presented as primacy of climatic and environmental the study of tropical pathology should the ‘true’ spaces for experimental and/ factors as a cause of ill-health. However, be committed to the advancement of or scientific medicine. Ranged in the the necessity for – and the usefulness the nation itself. Chagas argued that other camp were those who presented of – creating a special discipline of the specialism was important not only hygiene as a discipline with 19th-century tropical medicine within the faculties for keeping step with international roots within the Faculty of Medicine of medicine in Brazil was questioned. advances in medical knowledge, but and argued that this institution was During the first decades of the 20th also as an instrument of sanitary also a space for science, and not merely century, the issue divided Brazilian and social reform in the country. a space for theoretical teaching. These medicine almost down the middle. Some At the same time, tropical medicine disputes were expressed further in argued that tropical medicine – since it had many critics in Brazil. Afrânio Peixoto, political struggles to acquire key positions provided new scientific knowledge on the Chair of Hygiene at Rio’s Faculty of within Brazilian public health structures the parasitic causes of diseases and about Medicine, was a notable example. He (Chagas and Peixoto competed for the the ways they were transmitted – was argued that tropical medicine reinforced coveted position of Director of the the best means of fighting diseases that the prejudices associated with climatic National Department of Public Health, affected the country, such as yellow fever, determinism and old stereotypes created with Chagas acquiring the post in 1920). malaria and ancylostomiasis. Researchers by Europeans who “defamed” the Brazilian tropical medicine was much at the Oswaldo Cruz Institute were in “torrid” countries as insalubrious lands more than a discipline that was forged

18 | Wellcome HISTORY and consolidated by developments in impulses, most notably the republican subject of study not least as they provide the international arena; the specialism modernisation project that called for rich insights into the complex relations developed in very particular ways in the wide-ranging sanitary and social reform. between science, health and society. country. Tropical medicine’s advance Currently described as ‘diseases was, after all, not linked to imperialist of poverty’ or ‘neglected diseases’, Simone Petraglia Kropf is a Researcher and Professor in the Postgraduate Programme in the History of Sciences goals and ambitions in Brazil. Instead, it tropical diseases – their impact and and Health, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation benefited from local medical and political management – continue to be a rich (E simonek@coc.fiocruz.br).

Health and development: Brazil in the eradication era Oswaldo Cruz Foundation

Gilberto Hochman

ince the late 19th century, Brazil War. The availability of new preventative were developed early in the decade. From has maintained a vigorous and therapeutic resources – insecticides, 1958, Brazil joined international efforts Sinteraction with international antibiotics, sulphates and antimalarials such as the WHO’s Malaria Eradication health issues and organisations. Linked – stimulated governments as well as Programme, with financial assistance to epidemic circles of cholera, smallpox, international organisations to formulate from the USA; the relationship between yellow fever and plague, the focus of health programmes that aimed to control Brazil and the USA strengthened these engagements later expanded and eradicate the diseases of the so- after the military coup of 1964, which to cover rural endemic diseases. The called underdeveloped world. Science, initiated two decades of authoritarian mobilisation of public health projects medicine and technology were seen as rule. A hegemonic model was adopted was closely linked to challenges faced by a fundamental means by which poor for public health, based on in belief the country in the fields of international countries could ascend to the pantheon in centralised and well-structured commerce and immigration, to the need of the so-called first world, thereby programmes, making use of the new to integrate politically and culturally an avoiding growth populism and socialism. prophylactic and therapeutic methods. immense country’s territory that was These trends ensured that rural These programmes were marked by a seen to be still partially inhabited by a endemic diseases such as verminosis, systematic disregard for the cultural, ‘diseased and illiterate people’, and to malaria, Chagas’ disease and hygienic and nutritional practices of intense debates about the search for a schistosomiasis remained at the top the Brazilian rural populations, whose positive identity of ‘being Brazilian’. of the health agenda in Brazil. From members were expected to passively The continued interplay between the 1950s onwards, these diseases were receive the benefits offered by public national health problems and the presented as obstacles to development medicine. The Brazilian government international health agenda was crucial. that could be removed with the new hoped that such ‘backward’ practices The cooperation with the International ‘weapons’ available in the armoury would be modified – or even eliminated Health Board of the Rockefeller of health departments, such as DDT, – by the development of the country’s Foundation since 1915 also established chloroquine and penicillin. Plans for the interior. The problems produced by lasting connections, particularly in recovery of the labouring capacity of the this approach were gradually revealed the fight against ancylostomiasis and rural populations that were hungry, ill, as the campaigns were developed, yellow fever; Carlos Chagas’ activism poor and illiterate thus dovetailed with and the frustrations and failures were in the Hygiene Committee of the governmental projects for agricultural announced. Even though some critical League of Nations in favour of a modernisation, national integration voices could be heard, this model was concerted action against leprosy also and industrialisation. Brasilia, the new hegemonic until the 1970s and it was ensured a lasting Brazilian role in the modernistic capital built deep in Brazil’s reinforced with the success of smallpox international public health agenda. hinterland, was a powerful symbol of eradication. Research into Brazil’s As a result of its support for the this postwar developmental project. postwar relations with the international Allies during World War II, Brazil By relating underdevelopment to the health agenda era offers valuable clues came to forge even closer linkages in endemic diseases of rural areas, Brazilian about the limits and possibilities of international health, highlighted by its public health became associated with the developing more cooperative and close association with the World Health national capitalist development project. innovative global health programmes in Organization, its Regional Office for Brazilian public health also entered the country and across Latin America. the Americas (the Pan American Health the ‘eradication era’ in the 1950s, a move Organization) and other UN agencies. that was actively encouraged by regional Gilberto Hochman is a Researcher and Professor in the Postgraduate Programme in the History of Indeed, Brazil was closely attuned to the and international agencies. The focus, Sciences and Health, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation so-called ‘sanitary optimism’ marking initially, was on yaws and endemic goitre, (E hochman@fiocruz.br). the two decades following the end of the and specific nationwide interventions

Summer 2011 | 19 Health education in rural Brazil Oswaldo Cruz Foundation

Nísia Trindade Lima and Marcos Chor Maio

he relationship between other countries in Latin America, personnel; these conflicts became public health and rural reinforcing the importance of important objects of study by social T populations in societies analysing cultural contexts before scientists employed by SESP. that endured colonial domination the promotion of health initiatives. Studies produced in the 1950s and post-colonial inequalities is an In the Brazilian experience, point out that the training of SESP important theme in global health there was nothing novel about personnel was in tune with the history. One of the thorniest issues is identifying rural populations as cultural values of large urban centres health education, which has a history backward. Research from the 1940s, but out of step with rural realities. of the use of vertical campaign such as the work by sociologist Communities were, therefore, models based on guidelines taken Emilio Willems, stressed the unequal offered what was supposedly a straight out of Western medicine development of Brazilian society less impersonal type of service (usually without any recognition while also advocating that the social through community health workers of folk healing practices). scientist take on a role as a crucial (visitadoras), who checked the overall The advent of so-called magic actor in processes of change. health status of children and pregnant bullets such as chloroquine and DDT The guidelines of international women, and also provided counselling made the post-World War II era a bodies and the work of sociologists to the population in general. Gaining time of optimism about scientific like Willems deeply affected the people’s confidence required a certain knowledge and its ability to achieve activities of the Special Public degree of familiarity – and this was positive social outcomes. Health was Health Service (Serviço Especial de not always present. Rates of staff also seen as a factor in economic Saúde Pública, SESP); this agency turnover also often caused health development, while the habits and was created in 1942 as part of a workers associated with SESP to feel beliefs of rural people were identified cooperation agreement between like strangers within the communities as a hurdle to the processes of the Brazilian and US governments. they were tasked with serving. improvement. It was around then During the 1950s, SESP became At the same time, these SESP that the Institute of Inter-American a broad-ranging agency that workers were instrumental in shifting Affairs – the principal US agency for incorporated social scientists in its understandings of so-called cultural technical assistance in the field of health education work, primarily in resistance – their critiques of the health – and the Institute of Social the form of Brazilians with advanced form of health programmes caused Anthropology signed an agreement postgraduate training in the USA. new notions of reform to take hold, that would engage anthropologists in Sociologists and anthropologists wherein poverty was presented as health programmes in Latin America. were expected to guide this work the main block to bringing rural Its guidelines relied especially on the by training other professionals populations into the process of research of Robert Redfield, above all and conducting community economic and social development. his concept of ‘folk culture’, according research. They also played the role While these dissonant voices did to which rural people constitute a of intermediaries, interpreting not discard the precepts of health specific subculture characterised by medical discourses for the general education, they favoured fostering the routine resistance to modernisation. population. Yet their role was in fact documentation of rural people’s living Applying this concept in health much broader, especially as they conditions. They also grappled with research, anthropological studies observed problems in the field not challenges that remain with us to this emphasised the perception that always attributable to ‘resistance’ day: the insertion of social policies reliance on available knowledge was within rural populations; instead, that fight poverty in larger health the weakest link in the mechanics problems of social mobilisation were national and international projects. of health protection. One of the more commonly linked to the ways identified discrepancies was the fact in which the health programmes Nísia Trindade Lima is Vice-President of Teaching, Information and Communication, and a Researcher that in many locations what health were conceptualised and run. Such and Professor in the the Postgraduate Programme teams considered as advances were observations were frequently made in the History of Sciences and Health, at the not interpreted the same way by the at the health centres set up by SESP Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (E [email protected]). people themselves. This was true in in a number of municipalities (these Marcos Chor Maio is Researcher and Professor in the Postgraduate Programme in the History relation to the malaria campaign in institutions focused on maternal of Sciences and Health at the Oswaldo Cruz Peru, where DDT was used on a broad and child health). As these centres Foundation (E [email protected]). scale; although the malaria rate was tried to devise innovative methods, reduced, inhabitants did not associate such as courses for midwives, this development with DDT spraying. major points of tension developed Similar examples were found in many between the population and health

20 | Wellcome HISTORY Women, cancer and public health in Brazil Oswaldo Cruz Foundation

Luiz Antônio Teixeira

Photomicrograph showing carcinoma of the cervix. Wellcome Library

he fi rst responses to created by the IG and how this a blueprint. From 1973 onwards, with gynaecologic cancer in Brazil fostered a cervical cancer prevention the creation of the National Program Tdate from the beginning of model based on the combined use for Cancer Control, these campaigns the 1940s, with the development of colposcopic examination and began to receive a high level of support of gynaecology as an autonomous exfoliative cytology (Pap smear). from the Ministry of Health. However, course separated from obstetrics, By the end of the 1960s, the Pan gaps remained in these initiatives. and the appearance of the fi rst American Health Organization (PAHO) The late 1980s marked a turning gynaecological care centres linked started to consider cervical cancer point. Further health reforms to medical schools that included as an important public health issue culminated in the creation of the cervical cancer prevention and in Latin American countries, and National Health System (Sistema Único treatment among their activities. suggested an expansion of screening de Saúde), which was able to ensure From 1936, the gynaecology professor programmes aimed at controlling the that the profi le of cervical cancer Arnaldo de Moraes implemented at illness across the region. Prevention control programmes started to change. the Rio de Janeiro Medical School campaigns started to appear in From 1995, as consequence of the a renovation of gynaecological response, and followed the US and demands of the feminist movement, practices based on recently developed European models that used cytology the Ministry of Health organised a knowledge. This led him to create as fi rst exam and colposcopy in cases project for wide-ranging community the Instituto de Ginecologia (IG), where the slide analysis showed screening for cervical cancer based on where he encouraged research into anomalies (which enabled greater cytological examinations. The project the prevention of cervical cancer. The coverage). The Cervical Cancer Control was carried out by the National Cancer IG would rapidly become a centre for Program in Campinas, São Paulo, was Institute (Instituto Nacional de Câncer) diff usion of preventative techniques; the fi rst large-scale eff ort in Brazil. and developed the basis for the creation its model would be followed by other Implemented in 1965, with technical of the national cervical screening institutions in big cities, which in support from PAHO, it worked in programme in place today. Such the 1950s began to develop clinics collaboration with municipal and state developments illustrate how seriously for cervical cancer prevention. health centres, hospitals and other Brazilian government and civil society Recent work by Ilana Lowy at philanthropic medical institutions, and organisations now view cervical the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation and achieved unprecedented population cancer as a public health problem. Yolanda Eraso at Oxford Brookes coverage. At the end of the 1960s University have revealed the impact other institutions in São Paulo State Luiz Antônio Teixeira is a Researcher and Professor in the Postgraduate Programme in the History of of German scientifi c work on started to elaborate campaigns for Sciences and Health, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation Brazilian gynaecology; they have also the control of cervical cancer, and (E teixeira@coc.fi ocruz.br). described the scientifi c networks used the Campinas methodology as

Summer 2011 | 21 Brazil’s international scientifi c relations Oswaldo Cruz Foundation

Magali Romero Sá

training Latin American physicians fi gure in Brazilian scientifi c circles, and scientists developed their own Kehl was the son-in-law of Belisário strategies and produced specifi c Penna, an important fi gure in public networks and distinctive results. health circles who later became Minister The German pharmaceutical of Education and Public Health for a industry maintained close ties with brief period. Kehl headed the country’s post-World War I medical and eugenics society and founded the scientifi c initiatives towards Latin journal Boletim Eugênico. He published America. It supported eff orts to articles and books of international encourage exchanges with foreign renown and was the main proponent countries with the aim of opening of eugenics in Brazil. As scientifi c new markets and expanding the director of Bayer in Brazil starting in scope of its action. There were strong 1923, he was the main promoter of the convergences of interests between company’s products nationwide through The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation’s Moorish Pavilion. medical and scientifi c ambitions its magazines O Farmacêutico Brasileiro Casa de Oswaldo Cruz Historical Archives, Fiocruz and the pharmaceutical industry. and A Vida Rural, which he edited. Even though German scientists did Together with Revista Terapêutica – y work examines the not always deliberately act as agents published in Portuguese in Leverkusen, policies for tightening promoting the German pharmaceutical Germany, for circulation in Lusophone Mscientifi c relations with industry, they did favour enormously countries – these magazines were also Latin America adopted by Germany, the opening of new economic used to disseminate his eugenic beliefs. France and the USA in the fi rst half of opportunities for companies that in Bayer not only lent its full support to the 20th century. Understanding these turn contributed by strengthening publicising eugenics through its three initiatives is vital to an assessment of the scientifi c activities weakened by magazines, it also headquartered the international relations during that the War and the disturbances that Central Brazilian Commission on period in their broadest sense as well followed the Treaty of Versailles. Eugenics, founded by Kehl in 1931. as the changes that took place in The Bayer pharmaceutical company In 1932, Kehl became partner of the science and in medical practices as played an important role in the process, newly founded Instituto Behring de they internationalised in the interwar especially through the close relations Terapêutica Experimental, of which period. Within this setting, Brazil, it developed between its laboratory 80 per cent of the shares belonged and especially its capital city of Rio scientists and researchers from to the Behring-Werke, of Marburg, de Janeiro, attracted scientists and various European and Latin American and the remaining 20 per cent to constituted a centre of intellectual institutions, primarily in research, Kehl and the German manager of exchange, becoming a Latin American development and experimentation Bayer in Brazil, Hermann Kaelble. hub in the texturing of relations with with drugs to treat tropical diseases. The German physician Walter Menk, European countries and the USA. Walter Kikuth, a researcher from a former employee of the Institute The period in question was marked Hamburg’s Institute for Maritime of Maritime and Tropical Medicine by international competition over and Tropical Diseases who conducted in Hamburg, was named Technical niches of scientifi c penetration in investigations on veterinary medicine Director of the new company in Brazil. Latin America, with foreign nations at the Oswaldo Cruz Institute’s Kehl’s actions contributed moving into the region’s industry protozoology laboratory in Brazil in signifi cantly to the pre-eminence of and commerce and into its academic 1927–28, is of special interest to the the Bayer industry in the Brazilian and institutional arenas (sectors that present study. In 1929, he was hired by market, as well as Germany’s eff orts were gaining strength in various Bayer, where he continued the research to recover its prestige, infl uence and Latin American countries). The he had begun in Brazil and developed commercial hegemony after World USA and Germany were France’s important drugs for fi ghting tropical War I. A study of Brazil in scientifi c chief rivals here, and these disputes diseases, most notably Atebrine, a network during the interwar period grew more heated as policies and synthetic antimalarial drug widely highlights the signifi cance of a wider initiatives involving scientifi c exchange used by Brazil’s Health Department. refl ection about the complexity of programmes acquired a more Bayer relied on Renato Kehl, a geopolitical, economic and ideological international tone. Brazilian scientists Brazilian eugenicist and physician of interests in north–south relations. were active participants in the process German descent, who acted as the of knowledge circulation and scientifi c company’s direct intermediary in Magali Romero Sá is a Researcher and Professor in the Postgraduate Programme in the History of cooperation. Germans, French and relations with the Brazilian government Sciences and Health, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation Rio Americans involved with teaching and and scientifi c community. A respected De Janeiro, Brazil (E magali@coc.fi ocruz.br).

22 | Wellcome HISTORY Amythaon’s poultice Work in Progress

Klaus-Dietrich Fischer

mythaon’s poultice is an item rely on is basically that printed in of Oribasius printed by Raeder has absent from Der Neue Pauly 1525, repeated without reference to diatheseis (‘conditions’) where Galen, A but present, like so many further manuscripts by René Chartier Aetius (provided by Irene Calà) and recipes in ancient collections, in a century later and the Leipzig the Latin versions of Oribasius, The Encyclopedia of Ancient Natural professor of medicine Karl Gottlob including in addition Cassius Felix Scientists: The Greek tradition and its Kühn almost two centuries ago. The and Modena, have ‘tensions’ (diataseis/ many heirs. In the relevant article, Paul only printed edition of book 10 of tensuras/distensiones). It is evident that T Keyser makes it clear that he favours Aetius is a Latin translation made by Raeder’s Greek text must be changed. Max Wellmann’s view that Amythaon a German Renaissance scholar, Janus It seems likely that Cassius Felix’s was an ancient doctor, assigning Cornarius. For Oribasius and Paul of distensiones (‘bulging’) should likewise his lifetime tentatively to the years Aegina, the situation is much better; be amended to tensiones (for examples, between 120 BCE and 80 CE. Keyser critical editions were produced by two see the concordance of Cassius Felix does not even dismiss the statement in Danish scholars, less than 90 years published by Maire and Fraisse). The Cassius Felix (writing just before the ago. This will serve as a reminder that pestle is called tritorium (‘grinder’, middle of the fifth century CE) that the the study of ancient medicine, and ‘pounder’) in the Latin Oribasius (and, Amythaon in question was the father especially the study of Galen, is not at incidentally, in the Latin Alexander), of Melampous (‘Blackfoot’), whose tribe an end, but should, and must, go on. both in the younger and the older settled in what is now the USA. I will Now I turn to our Latin witnesses. versions, and again in the Modena suspend judgement here, and move to Of one of them, Philagrius (circa first ms., while the translation of Philagrius territory I am more familiar with, i.e. half of the fourth century CE), the uses the more classical word pilum. Greek and Latin texts about recipes. longest extracts survive only in Latin Amythaon’s poultice (malagma, and translation and were incorporated The study of ancient sometimes epithema) seems to be first in the Latin version of the sixth- medicine, and especially attested in Galen, e.g. in Compound century Byzantine doctor Alexander Drugs arranged by Places (XIII 967 of Tralles. Two different Latin the study of Galen, is not Kühn); Oribasius (second half of the translations of Oribasius’s Synopsis at an end, but should, fourth century CE, at syn. 3.57) gives were in all likelihood produced us a faithful copy of this text, which before that of Alexander, but the and must, go on. Galen in turn had excerpted from discussion about where and when Asclepiades the Pharmacist. Later, they were made, and which is the It does not appear rash to conclude Aetius (first half of the sixth century, at older and which the younger, has that the text of the recipe in the 10.11) repeats the recipe with (possibly) recently been reopened (Aa = Par. Modena ms. is connected with one of a minor variation in the amount of oil lat. 10233, called the older translation the Latin translations of Oribasius. to be used. As far as the ingredients by the Swedish scholar Henning And again, we find evidence in our specified are concerned, our Greek Mørland, and La = Laudunensis 424, Latin transmission that throws and our Latin witnesses are in total Li = Leipzig, Stadtbibliothek, Rep. I 2e light on our Greek texts: Philagrius, agreement. Consequently, it would cod. 24, Stuttgart, Württembergische Cassius Felix and the Latin Oribasius be unreasonable to doubt that all Landesbibliothek HB XI 8, which for concur in their mentioning of the testimonies that I will discuss transmit the passage in question represent action of the compound on the spleen the same recipe, a fact I would like to the so-called younger translation). (as does the Physica Plinii: chapter stress since in Aetius, for instance, a But Amythaon’s poultice occurs 83 is Ad splenem) in a manner that second malagma Amythaonos follows, additionally in two Latin collections ‘dissolves’ or ‘disperses’ (diaforeticus). which differs, and Paul of Aegina (first of recipes, the Physica Plinii The easiest (although not the only half of the seventh century, at 7.16.33, Bambergensis (83.2) and what I call possible) way of accounting for this following Galen XIII 983 Kühn) lists yet the Compositiones Mutinenses (ms. coincidence is the assumption that another variety for a different purpose, Modena O.1.11), the latter printed in these elements were present in the i.e. stiff and distorted joints. The one a really not very satisfactory way by original or a later but widespread I want to exhibit here is meant to Riccardo Simonini (I have revised his version of Amythaon’s poultice. cure in the first place a tension in the collation with the aid of a microfiche upper abdomen, but will also benefit whose quality is in many places too Professor Klaus-Dietrich Fischer is based at the Institute for the History, Philosophy, and Ethics a hardened spleen and, again, joints poor to allow for better readings). of Medicine in the University Medical Centre of that can be moved only with difficulty. I will now present some the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz Anybody not familiar with the field conclusions of my study of the (E kdfi[email protected]). of ancient medicine will be surprised witnesses to Amythaon’s poultice that the text of Galen we have to mentioned earlier. The Greek text

Summer 2011 | 23 WellcomeHISTORY

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