Physicians' Gallery

In 1845 the new Scottish Poor Law established a funded medical service for the registered poor. By 1852 the Physicians’ Enquiry concluded that medical provision in the Highlands of Scotland was still seriously inadequate. In this talk Dr Patricia Whatley discusses the changing issues relating to the work of the general practitioner in the second half of the nineteenth century in the remote and iso...

Charlotte Holmes (University of Edinburgh) examines the history of early recipe books and their use to treat a wide range of complaints, including festive maladies such as hangovers and over indulging. Where treatments can include bat blood and stale urine – this is definitely not one to try at home! Twitter: twitter.com/RCPEHeritage Instagram: instagram.com/physiciansgallery/ Facebook: facebook.c...

Anatomy and surgery have strong extra-textual elements. The development and transmission of these crafts rely heavily on visual communication in a range of media, whether by practitioners or (other) illustrators. Some artists are justifiably renowned (eg Jan van Rymsdyk in the 18th century), some not as famous as they deserve (eg Joseph Towne and Henry Vandyke Carter in the Victorian era), and som...

When the first medical photographs were taken in 1840, the camera was presented as a revolution to medical education, psychiatry and pathology. Gradually, however, two things became apparent: medical photographs alienated the subject and they were, quite frankly, ugly. The concern with aesthetics and the relationship between the body and the patient would combine to shape the future of medical pho...

Join authors Ambrose Parry (Dr Marisa Haetzman & Chris Brookmyre) to discuss their new historical novel of medicine & murder, The Art of Dying. Set in the household of Dr James Young Simpson, The Art of Dying is a gripping dive into Victorian Edinburgh, a time of medical marvels, vicious rivalries, enlightenment and squalor. Twitter: twitter.com/RCPEHeritage Instagram: instagram.com/physiciansgall...

Tuberculosis: a contagious, infectious disease that has been a challenge over much of human history. In this talk, Dr Derek Sloan, who has worked in both high and low-income countries, accruing extensive experience in the management of infectious diseases, considers why tuberculosis still remains a threat and what can be done to combat this disease. Speaker: Dr Derek Sloan, Senior Lecturer/Consult...

This paper is a historical study and analysis of the events surrounding the emergence of the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), an integrated care pathway for dying patients, developed in the late 1990s. This paper will describe the historical background and the themes within the history of hospices and the specialty of palliative medicine which frame the specialty’s self-understanding. Dr Paul Keeley,...

Humane societies, charities whose focus was the recovery of nearly-drowned persons, sprang up throughout the transatlantic world in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. The saving of lives took many forms, but the exchange of ideas, pioneering of lifesaving equipment and exploring innovative techniques were indirect methods which had a great impact. This talk examines the context in...

In 1495 a new pandemic swept through Europe. Those infected suffered from a range of terrible symptoms, from eruptions of boils and pustules to extreme pains in their limbs. On 26 September 1496, the Nuremberg city council recorded that the French pox had arrived in their city and those infected were ‘to be cared for by the learned doctors’. However, the city’s physicians were unsure how to deal w...

Can old specimens contain new information? Mütter Museum Curator, Anna Dhody will talk about the ways scientists are looking to the past to improve our future. New technology has emerged that allow researchers access into the past, to see what infectious microbes were responsible for previous pandemics, and hopefully provide insight on how to prevent or combat future ones. Ms. Dhody is also the Di...

In renaissance Europe the great feared poisoning - as they had since antiquity - and relied on universal remedies against all poisons. A discussion of some contemporary tests of the efficacy of such remedies will lead us to consider, among other recondite matters, the effectiveness of the breasts of virgins in catching unicorns, the use of a thousand live scorpions in concocting a universal balm,...

How did men cope with sexual health issues in early modern England? How did they feel when their bodies failed them? This talk investigates how sexual, reproductive, and genitourinary conditions were understood. It tells the story of how men responded to bouts of ill health and reveals that physicians and surgeons had to vigorously encourage men to seek help. Men’s responses suggest that healers’...

This talk explores how and why the casualty department was transformed over the course of the 20th century, going from a chaotic, under-staffed and under-resourced backwater to a high-tech domain with highly specialized staff and services. Using examples from both sides of the Atlantic, the talk pays particular attention to the ways in which the emergency department became a space of sifting, sort...

The 1890s were a critical decade in the novel science of immunology. Emerging developments in bacteriology and tropical medicine revealed numerous microorganisms responsible for epidemic diseases. Putative vaccines and antitoxins emerged against typhoid fever, bubonic plague and diphtheria. Another strand of immunology from this period, however, has largely been overlooked. Collaborating with rese...

During the last 100 years, the treatment of diabetes mellitus in Britain underwent radical transformation. One of the most striking features of twentieth-century diabetes care was the increasing amount of self-management of the disease. In this talk, Dr Martin Moore explores how medical thought, patient experience and everyday practice of self-management were also influenced by broader structures...

Andreas Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica (1543) is a landmark publication in the history of medicine, well known for its illustrations. Yet, the actual function of these illustrations within Vesalius own project of classical anatomy has not always been appreciated. In this talk, Dr Sachiko Kusukawa examines the different - and often ingenious - ways in which Vesalius used anatomical images in...

After WWII, British doctors and politicians thought that they could import the perfect solution for dental illness: drinking water fluoridation. But the campaigns they faced brought together the libertarian Right, the socialist Left, advocates of ‘real foods’ and the nascent Green movement. Anti-fluoridisers campaigned for ‘freedom’ against an interfering government, amid medical scandals such as...

In the 1600s Peter Sartorius, a citizen and surgeon of Strasbourg, compared syphilis to ‘an angry dog’, which viciously threatened communities. These talks investigate the past, and present, of this notorious sexually transmitted disease. From stereotypes and scaremongering to laboratories and diagnostics. Mona O’Brien explores how Europeans came to understand syphilis and some of the measures tha...

In this talk Dr Allan Beveridge discusses the nineteenth centry Scottish pioneer of psychiatric medicine Sir Alexander Morison and the collection of illustrations of asylum patients which he commissioned. Speaker: Dr Allan Beveridge (History and Humanities Editor of the Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh) Twitter: twitter.com/RCPEHeritage Instagram: instagram.com/physiciansgal...

The place of the public within public health is a critical issue for contemporary public health in Britain. Whether it involves appealing to individuals to stop smoking, or asking patients what they think of health services, the ‘public’ is constantly constructed and reconstructed within public health policy and practice. This talk seeks to set these concerns in historical context, aiming to explo...

William Orpen (1878-1931) produced numerous pictures of doctors and artists. Orpen suggests that in medical diagnostics, as in the production and evaluation of artworks, specialised visual skills are required. In his painting A Mere Fracture (1901), which depicts a doctor examining a leg for a fracture, Orpen showed the close observation of surface detail and the knowledge of anatomy that he belie...

The military success of a fighting force depends in large part on the availability of fit, healthy troops, but the austere conditions of war often conspire to allow disease to flourish, and in every armed conflict up to very recent times, disease has claimed more victims than has battle injury. Beverly Bergman, a former military consultant public health physician who is now researching veterans’ h...

In Scotland’s enlightenment a bride stabs her husband on their wedding night; a nobleman kills his brother; a veteran kills his devoted wife – who then pleads mercy for him on her deathbed. Over centuries the law has recognised that those with mental disorders may not be held accountable for their actions – but even if acquitted they may not necessarily go free. This talk considers the origins of...

During the last 100 years, the treatment of diabetes mellitus in Britain underwent radical transformation. One of the most striking features of twentieth-century diabetes care was the increasing amount of self-management of the disease. In this talk Dr Mark Strachan discusses the latest, cutting-edge research currently being undertaken in Edinburgh. Speaker: Dr Mark Strachan (Consultant Physician...

Between the French Revolution and WWI, Europe and America witnessed a golden age of medical image-making. The first generation of mass-market anatomical and pathological textbooks and atlases offered crisp, detailed colour illustrations of the human body in health and sickness, but they also embodied – literally – a revolution in ideas about life, disease and death. Drawing on the images collected...