No 31, December 2003
ISSN 0962-7839
Contents
Conference reports “Medicine and Society in the Midlands, 1750-1950” Birmingham, 16-17 May 2003 —page 2 “National Health Policies in Context” Bergen, 27-28 March 2003 —page 5
Announcements Conferences and Symposia —page 7 Rose Prize —page 9 Membership News —page 10 Correction: ‘Menstruation’ conference —page 10 Roy Porter Student Essay Competition —page 10
Birmingham physician Dr John Ash (1722-1789). See Conference Report on ‘Medicine and Society in the Midlands’ on pages 2-4.
Editors: Carsten Timmermann and Cathy McClive Correspondence should be sent to Carsten Timmermann, CHSTM, The University, Mathematics Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL. Email [email protected] Web http://www.sshm.org CONFERENCE REPORT described a project undertaken by herself and her colleagues, Helena Berry, Rachel Ives and Medicine and Society in the Gaynor Western at the University of Midlands, 1750-1950 Birmingham Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity. This involved the excavation and Centre for the History of Medicine, osteological analysis of skeletal remains of University of Birmingham, approximately 850 individuals from the 16-17 May 2003 vaults of St Martin’s cemetery, prior to redevelopment of the site. Brickley This conference, sponsored by the Society suggested that the prevalence of fractures is for the Social History of Medicine and The closely linked to factors such as pathological Wellcome Trust, was dedicated to the conditions affecting a population, social memory of Dr Joan Lane (1934-2001), a factors such as inter-personal violence and well-respected historian, who made a work-place risk/technological advancement. significant contribution, both to the social Successful healing can be linked to the history of medicine and the wider history of disease load of those affected and the type of the Midlands. The aim of the conference medical care received, nutritional status and was to bring together historians interested in living conditions of the individual. medicine and society in the Midlands. Information provided by medical records and
accounts from the period was used to complement the osteological analysis, thus providing a comprehensive account of the history of medicine relating to fractures in Birmingham during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Women and Healthcare was the theme of the next session and in the first paper Stuart Birmingham General Hospital, circa 1860 Wildman (Birmingham) discussed the changing nature of hospital nurses c1841- The theme of the conference was health 1914. Wildman first reminded us of the and illness in the modern period, but the first nature of nursing before the introduction of speaker, Robert Arnott, (Director, Centre for systems of training, during the 1860s. He the History of Medicine, Birmingham) set the then described how the reforms brought scene by reminding us of the origins of the about a change in the type of person who hospital in history. Arnott traced the history entered nursing. Using information gathered Birmingham’s first hospital, St. Thomas the from census returns, probationer registers Martyr, from its foundation, c1286 to its and hospital records, Wildman discussed the dissolution in 1536. Little is known of what methods taken to improve both the medicine or charitable activities the hospital intellectual and moral standard of recruits practised, but Arnott proposed that it and thereby the standing of the profession. resembled other priory hospitals in offering In the last paper of the day, Judith Porter relief to the poor and providing medical (Worcester) examined the impact of assistance to travellers and pilgrims. Arnott maternity services on mothers in Worcester then considered its role within the growing during the inter-war years. The increasing commercial centre that was Birmingham at intervention of the medical profession in that time. Moving forward into the Modern childbirth has been cited as one of the causes Period, Megan Brickley presented a paper on of maternal mortality in the 1930s. Porter the historical importance of fractures that demonstrated the importance of research at
2 local level and argued that geographical medical institutions followed. However, location also played an important part in the Reinarz demonstrated that the numbers were impact of maternity services on the health of not as significant as suggested by the regional the mother. The day concluded with a most image the hospitals portrayed and declined enjoyable conference supper in the Sheratton further in the late nineteenth century, as Balti Restaurant. other hospitals in the region developed. Judith Lockhart (Warwick) concluded the session with a paper on the early history of the Women’s Hospital in Birmingham. Lockhart focused on the lay administration of the institution and described how her research had revealed that the hospital was the first, in 1872, to employ a lady resident medical officer and a female dispenser. The hospital also claimed to be first in the country to appoint a lady to the post of Honorary Medical Officer. Lockhart proposed that the important part that women played in the management of the institution may be one explanation for the opportunities that the hospital gave to women seeking a career in medicine.
The following two papers considered the occupational health risks of Midland occupations. Anne Spurgeon (Birmingham) described the incidence of lung disease
Dr John Ash (1722-1789) associated with ‘needle pointing’ and argued that efforts to reduce the health risks were Dame Rachel Waterhouse DBE thwarted for many years by conflicts of (Birmingham) opened the conference on the interest between workers and employers. second day with a biographical sketch of Dr Tim Carter (Birmingham) continued with the John Ash (1722-1789). Ash was fairly typical question of how medical issues become of eighteenth-century physicians; his classical entangled with socio-economic issues. Using education at Oxford allowed him to mix with a 1901 Factory Inspectorate study into ‘brass the wealthier classes and establish himself in poisoning’ to illustrate his argument, Carter practice in Temple Row in Birmingham. discussed contemporary attitudes to the risks Waterhouse described how his contacts with associated with a particular industry and their the Tory aristocracy were particularly useful regulation, at a time when approaches to the in raising the capital to establish the town’s control of occupational diseases were rapidly first voluntary hospital, the General Hospital. evolving. Jonathan Reinarz (Birmingham) enlarged on the history of the General, describing how, Graham Mooney (Portsmouth) opened from the outset, the hospital provided the afternoon with a paper on public health medical services to patients from services in later Victorian Birmingham. After surrounding counties. Between 1779-1900 some background information on the the hospital received considerable funding relevant legislation, and the medical and from sources beyond the immediate town political reasons of those opposed to and county, establishing a pattern that vaccination and notification of infectious subsequent generations of Birmingham disease, Mooney described the issues leading 3 up to the provision of publicly funded health Fund, and Willis proposed that this provided services in the city. He proposed that, the template for the Birmingham Hospital having established the reporting of cases of Contributory Scheme. Instigated by infectious disease to the local authority, the Birmingham Hospitals Council in 1928, this subsequent hospitalisation of vast numbers extended the contributory scheme to workers of patients, placed enormous financial of ‘moderate means’. Willis discussed the demands on the city, both in terms of attitude of the medical profession to this institutional provision and laboratory initiative and assessed the scheme as part of provision. Mooney argued, therefore, that by civil society in Birmingham. John Welshman enabling the hospitalisation of patients and (Lancaster) brought us up to the end of our assisting in the creation of demand for period with a study of resource allocation in bacterial analysis of specimens, infectious the NHS. Using the Sheffield Regional disease surveillance had profound Hospital Board as a case study, Welshman implications for the way in which medicine demonstrated the inequalities in resource was practised in the city. allocation across the regions. Welshman argued that, in terms of such indicators as the Mental Health was the theme of the next ratio of staff to beds and the number of session, opened by Jane Adams (Warwick), consultants, the league table of resource-rich who presented a paper on the struggle to and resource-poor Regional Hospital Boards establish a County Asylum in Herefordshire. remained essentially unchanged between Adams described how, despite an active 1948 and 1974. Moreover, this disparity was campaign for such an institution from the only partially resolved by the work of RAWP mid-1830s, a public lunatic asylum was not in the early 1970s. Welshman attributed this established in Herefordshire until 1851. to the imbalance in inherited resources, the Adams then explored the factors that strength of the key personalities involved and underlay the campaign and the motives of proposed that Sheffield may have been those with involved in the provision of care further disadvantaged by the establishment of lunatics and linked the timing of the of medical schools elsewhere in the region. campaign in the 1830s to the provisions of Finally, Welshman examined the growing the New Poor Law and the establishment of awareness of inequalities prior to the creation Poor Law Unions. Lunatic Asylums were of RAWP but pointed also to the gap also the subject of the next paper, presented between evidence and action taken. by Len Smith (Birmingham). However, Leicester made early public provision for This session concluded what had been a lunatics, the asylum being planned from the most enjoyable and stimulating conference. 1780s although it did not finally open until The full programme of papers by historians 1794. Leicester Asylum was associated with working on diverse aspects of health and the Infirmary and Smith proposed that the illness in the Midlands attracted establishment of this institution has be seen representatives of history departments across as an example of the move towards specialist the country, and also many medical hospitals, to deal with those normally practitioners, local historians and archivists excluded from general infirmaries. from across the Midlands. For this, acknowledgement should be made of the The final session of the conference was organisational skills of Robert Arnott and devoted to regional healthcare in the Jonathan Reinarz, University of Birmingham twentieth century. Tim Willis School of Medicine, Centre for the History (Wolverhampton) presented a paper on of Medicine. paying for health care in the era of voluntary hospitals. The most popular method for Judith Lockhart industrial workers was the Hospital Saturday University of Warwick 4 Oslo, presented work relating to the CONFERENCE REPORT prescribing of psychoactive drugs. The definition of ‘life’ and debates about abortion National Health Policies in Context and childbirth were considered by Ornella Moscucci, Thorwald Sirenes and Merethe Stein Rokkan Centre for Social Flatseth. Kari Ludvigsen and Asmund Arup Studies, Bergen University Seip addressed the roles of psychology and 27-28 March 2003 psychiatry in policy responses to troublesome children. Stuart Anderson, a pharmacist and Earlier this year, ten participants met in a historian, considered the dynamic surprisingly warm Bergen to compare the relationship between pharmacists and the development of health policies in different British state. national contexts, in particular Britain, Norway and Sweden. Organised by Svanaug As the presentations and discussion Fjær and colleagues at the Stein Rokkan looked at the various influences on health Centre for Social Studies, Bergen University, policy within and across countries, the this workshop brought historians of health juxtapositions began to throw light on the and medicine from London School of question “What shapes health policy?” Is it Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to meet a determined by the population’s health and Norwegian group of political scientists, a behaviour, by developments in scientific historian and a literature specialist. knowledge and technology or by the process of policy-making and opinion forming? With overlapping interests including psychoactive drugs, psychiatry, psychology Thorwald’s comparison of British and and reproduction during the twentieth Norwegian abortion debates showed that century, the participants were keen to discuss contrasting definitions of the foetus were their research. The formation of health policy important in determining policies in the two involving these subjects and disciplines also countries. Here, measurement and revealed the recurring themes of classification were influential, yet we then professionalization, the role of technology saw that two countries sharing the same and expertise and the importance of underlying model could develop quite language. different policies: Svanaug described the rise of epidemiology and the infectious disease As a valuable conceptual introduction, and model that underpinned Norwegian illicit a caution to those stretching comparisons drug policies in the 1960s, but although this too far, Nina Berven set out the bases for led to a drug free approach to treating comparison and the need for conceptual Norway’s addicts, the same model in Britain tools which would ‘travel’ across settings. resulted in a policy of heroin prescribing. This also brought out the potential for confusion resulting from the use of similar If a shared understanding and terms. For instance, although ‘welfare state’ conceptualisation of a country’s ‘problems’ translated directly into Norwegian, the term did not account for the shape of health hid many differences in the two nations’ policies, could the parties involved in policy systems. making and their interests? Stuart, Sarah, Kari, and as discussant, Asmund, showed the Virginia Berridge, Ornella Moscucci and influence on policy of the health professions, Sarah Mars, from the LSHTM History their structures and relationships with the Group, Svanaug Fjaer, at the Stein Rokkan state. Centre and Asmund Arup Seip, from the Fafo Institute for Applied Social Science,
5 Stuart’s description of the British The modes of communication and the pharmacy profession, where community way in which issues were presented pharmacy and its small business model constituted a significant influence on health dominated, leading to resistance against policies, whether in terms of language used, salaried status for pharmacists contrasted or the involvement of the media. The impact with Sarah’s description of the British of activism on health policies, and its medical profession in the treatment of drug increased potential through the media came dependence, where the dominance of salaried across in Virginia’s comparisons of the large NHS psychiatrists resulted in attempts to scale anti-opium movement of the nineteenth control the business model of private century and the much narrower, prescribers and their chosen approach to professionalised Action on Smoking and treatment. Kari contrasted the hospital Health (ASH) of the late twentieth. Here, based treatment for troubled children in changing modes of communication were Sweden with school-based approach in crucial, and language re-emerged as shaping Norway: the Swedish hospital-based health public perception and policy. care system resulted from close ties between medical profession and central government, Finally, technological innovation and its orientated to cure rather than prevention, take-up clearly marked policy developments, while Norway’s paediatrics expert groups had both in their effects on behaviour on the weaker representation in policy making. ground, such as the introduction of the cigarette widening tobacco smoking, or in As well as these structural explanations, medicine, where, as in the case of the familiar theme of significant individuals reproductive technologies, they might bring remained strong, particularly in small circles both apparent ‘solutions’ and new dilemmas. of policy actors where there was cross-over between the civil service and expert While historical factors cannot be professional groups. This was found in both ‘controlled’ for, cross national comparisons Norway’s child psychology policies and can help to test hypotheses and sometimes British drug and alcohol policies. The role of lend new a sight of contextual factors with patients and the ‘public’, activism and which we have become overly familiar. consumerism emerged in Ornella, Virginia and Merethe’s works. Sarah Mars London School of Hygiene and Tropical Ornella’s paper demonstrated how, Medicine despite medical opposition to drug induced pain relief during childbirth during the early years of the last century, public demand and lay campaigning stimulated its provision, with London obstetrician Eardly Holland observing in 1933 “In fashionable private practice in London the cry is for ‘drugs, drugs & still more drugs’; & one gets no credit unless one dopes deeply.” Similar tensions could be seen in 1980s Britain when the medical addiction establishment led by salaried psychiatrists restricted their prescribing of opiates while the more consumerist model of private practice responded to demand from patients.
6 approaches of cultural history regarding their SYMPOSIUM ANNOUNCEMENT theoretical premises, and the methodological implications they have for medical history. Health, Medicine and Cultural Which of the theoretical premises are History heuristically useful for us? Where do we have to be careful not to transfer approaches, Centre for the History of Medicine theories and models developed in and for and Disease, University of Durham other fields to the history of medicine? It has 30 January, 2004 been noted that within cultural studies often the historical dimension has been neglected. Sponsored by the Wellcome Trust and the Hence, there is also the question what a Society for the Social History of Medicine. In cultural history of medicine can offer to Collaboration with the School for Health and cultural studies. the Department of Philosophy, University of Durham, and the School of Historical Although numerous books and articles Studies, University of Newcastle have been published on various aspects of cultural history and cultural studies, only a It is widely agreed that medicine as well as few publications have taken up the task to science are part of culture and do not stand specifically engage with the cultural history of as natural kinds outside of culture. The medicine. This workshop will to bring production of medical knowledge, medicine’s together historians who work on different practices and its institutions, as well as the aspects of cultural history of medicine. We ways in which disease and the body are would like to discuss the following key issues: framed, perceived and experienced, are socially fashioned and hence historically the ways and means of producing, contingent. Such an anti-essentialistic representing and distributing medical position has had far reaching consequences knowledge via images and language for historical research and for teaching. It not the material and technological culture of only changed the range of research topics medicine (bringing in, for example, the realm of the experience of disease and the body experiencing disease and the body, or the issue of representation and imaging) but also Speakers include Bertrand Taithe the way of our writing, of our narratives of (Manchester), Steve Sturdy (Edinburgh), Julie the history of medicine. Anderson (Manchester), Michael Stolberg (Würzburg), and Mark Jenner (York). The term ‘culture’ encompasses in its heterogeneity not only social practices and For further details, registration and the full power relations (e.g. in healing) or language programme, please visit our web page at and linguistic traditions (e.g. in the www.dur.ac.uk/chmd/events/workshop.htm communications between doctor and patient or contact: or in scientific writing). It embraces also the material culture of medicine (e.g. instruments Dr Lutz Sauerteig and machines used to produce meaningful Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease, knowledge about the body) and the Wolfson Research Institute, production, representation and circulation of University of Durham, Queen’s Campus, medical knowledge and ideas. University Boulevard, Stockton-on-Tees TS17 6BH, UK The aim of this workshop is to discuss Phone: +44 (0)191-33-40702 what Cultural History can offer to History of [email protected] Medicine. We want to examine the various
7 COLLOQUIUM Medical Humanities in the Nursing CALL FOR PAPERS Curriculum. Music. Mélanges, crases, Philosophy. temperaments: La chimie du Poetry and Music: Readings and Recitals. vivant dans la medecine et la Reflective Practice. biologie anciennes Religion. Visual Media. Institut universitaire romand d’histoire de la medecine et de la Abstracts of between 200 and 300 words santé (IURHMS), Lausanne and should be submitted by e-mail on a pro- Geneva forma available from the Conference’s 6-8 May 2004 Academic Administrator:
Deadline for abstracts: 15 January 2004. Dr Alison Golby For details, please contact: Email [email protected]
IURHMS They should identify the theme, give a 1, chemin des Falaises title, and include name, affiliation, postal CH-1005 Lausanne address, and telephone number. The deadline Tel +41-21-314 7050 is 27 February 2004. Decisions will be Fax +44-21-314 70 55 communicated by 23 April 2004. Those Email [email protected] wishing to receive further details of the Conference should send their contact details to Dr Golby. CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS Conference Organizers: Professor Anne Borsay, Dr Paul Wainwright, and Dr David Medicine and the Humanities: Greaves, Centre for Philosophy, Humanities Towards Interdisciplinary and Law in Healthcare, School of Health Practice Science, University of Wales Swansea.
Association for Medical Humanities, nd 2 Annual Conference CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT University of Wales Swansea AND CALL FOR PAPERS 19-20 July 2004 The Cultural History of Health Abstracts are invited for short, fifteen- and Beyond minute papers on topics falling within any of the conference themes to be explored in the Ministère de la Recherche, parallel sessions listed below: Paris, France 7-10 September 2005 Arts and Health. This important conference is being History. sponsored jointly by the European Literature. Association for the History of Medicine Medical Humanities in International and Health and the Society for the Social Perspective. History of Medicine. It seeks to gauge the Medical Humanities in the Medical state of the discipline of medical history in Curriculum. the last decade and to explore the many new 8 directions emerging in the field. It will hopes to stimulate, enrich and develop what address recent trends in the history of has become one of the most exciting lines of medicine and explore the points of inquiry within the discipline of history. convergence between the history of medicine, life sciences, cultural, economic We now invite proposals for and environmental history, together with presentations, as well as posters, within this other important disciplines. broad framework. Abstracts in English, not exceeding 500 words in length, may be Once the preserve only of those trained in submitted either electronically or in paper medicine, history of medicine has in recent form by 30 June 2004 to: decades been a field undertaken by both historians and medical practitioners, and it Professor Dr Patrice Bourdelais continues to diversify and attract scholars Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales from a wide range of disciplines. It has 54 Boulevard Raspail mirrored developments in historiography F-75006 Paris more generally, having provided fruitful Email [email protected] terrain for social historians for some decades and, more recently, cultural historians. CALL FOR ESSAYS The conference hopes to address all domains of medicine and health: mental Society of Apothecaries of London & health, professional versus lay medical Royal College of General Practitioners cultures, health services and administration as The Rose Prize well as individual preventive behaviour or scientific doctrines. Suggestions for sessions This prize commemorates William Rose, that foster cross-national and comparative Apothecary of London, whose court case of themes or perspectives are particularly 1701-04 established the legal foundation of welcome. General Practice in England and Fraser Rose, a co-founder of the Royal College of General Key themes that might be addressed Practitioners. The Worshipful Society of include: Apothecaries of London and the Royal College of General Practitioners are pleased colonial, postcolonial and subaltern to announce that the Rose Prize for original medicine work in the History of British General medicine, politics and power Practice will be awarded for the first time in the intersections of medicine and Spring 2005. psychology medicine and health in visual culture Submissions are invited from all non- patients, bodies and experiencing illness professional historians either as individuals metropole and periphery or as a group who are, or who have been, medical and illness narratives involved in primary health care. The work medicine as text should be original and previously material cultures of medicine unpublished, with demonstrable emphasis on war and medicine primary source material, and it should have been undertaken in the previous two years. It The conference aims to bring together should also be appropriately illustrated. Any leading representatives and exponents of topic on the history of British general these new directions with other interested practice may be chosen. Typescripts should scholars to lay groundwork for continuing not exceed 8,000 words, but submissions in contact and interaction among them. It other media will be accepted provided that 9 they are of comparable intellectual rigour. Medical History and Population Health and Publication will be encouraged. Chair of the Department of Medical History and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin- The winner(s) will have their name(s) Madison. In 2003, Basic Books published his engraved on the plinth of the Rose Bowl, book on the history of medicine and social which they will keep for two years, and they thoughts in Australia, The Cultivation of will also receive a suitably inscribed Whiteness: Science, Health, and Racial Destiny in certificate. The award will be presented at Australia. Currently he is completing a book either Apothecaries’ Hall or The College and on the history of tropical medicine and ideas the winner(s) will be expected to give a short of race in the colonial Philippines. His next presentation of their work. project concerns the history of investigations of kuru in the highlands of New Guinea. For further details and entry forms contact: Ms Kate Messent CORRECTION The Royal College of General Practitioners 14 Princes Gate Report on ‘Menstruation’ conference London SW7 1PU in Gazette 29, April 2003, page 6 Tel +44-20-7581 3232 Email [email protected] The report of the Menstruation Conference held in Liverpool in January states that it took place in “the luxurious CAMPAIGN setting of Liverpool University’s medical school”. A statement that must be very Open-Air School site in South London puzzling to frequenters of that venue. under threat The former Aspen House Open Air The conference actually took place at the Liverpool Medical Institution, a Grade 2* School for Delicate Children was in 1926 listed building which is the home of probably the first purpose built example of an Open Air School in Britain (there were Liverpool’s medical learned society. The Liverpool Medical Institution is an entirely upwards of 70 before WWII, educating children with TB and asthma). The unique independent organization for qualified medical practitioners and healthcare site - a walled garden with four listed timber professionals in the North West chalets and a number of support buildings, surrounded with mature trees - is currently Mair Pierce Moulton under threat, offered for sale to the highest Librarian bidder by Lambeth Council. To find out Liverpool Medical Institution more, please visit the Save the Orchard Centre website: http://www.friendsorchard.org.uk/ ROY PORTER STUDENT Duncan Law [email protected] ESSAY COMPETITION
Call for Submissions
MEMBERSHIP NEWS Rules
Warwick Anderson The Society for the Social History of Medicine invites submissions to its 2003 Roy Warwick H. Anderson, M.D., Ph.D., has Porter Student Essay Prize Competition. been appointed Robert Turell Professor of 10 1 Prize: One prize will be awarded for the Society's Representative on the Editorial the best original, unpublished essay in the Board, and the Editors of Social History of social history of medicine in this Medicine, with the assistance of other competition. The winner will be awarded members of the editorial board. £500.00. The winning entry may also be published in the journal, Social History of 5 To enter [please note the changed Medicine, subject to the usual editorial address] procedures, including double blind Please complete the form on the back refereeing. cover of this edition of the Gazette an send it with 4 copies of the essay to Dr. Lesley 2 Eligible Candidates: Students: Diack, Dr. Lesley Diack, Research Fellow, undergraduate or postgraduate, part-time or School of Pharmacy, Schoolhill, Aberdeen, full-time. AB10 1FR, United Kingdom. The deadline All candidates must join the Society for for entries is 31 December 2003; a decision the Social History of Medicine. A will be made by 31 March 2004, and the membership form is available on the back announcement of the prizewinners will be cover of this journal or on SSHM’s website made at the AGM of the Society.
Disclaimer Any views expressed in this Gazette are those of the Editors or the named contributor; they are not necessarily those of the Executive Committee or general membership. While every care is taken to provide accurate and helpful information in the Gazette, the Society for the Social History of Medicine, the Chair of its Executive Committee and the Editor of the Gazette accept no responsibility for omissions or errors or their subsequent effects. Readers are encouraged to check all essential information appropriate to specific circumstances.
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