Physicians' Gallery

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...

The 1800s saw a series of scandals concerning individuals being locked away in lunatic asylums – the victims of unscrupulous persons who wanted to be rid of a ‘difficult’ family member, spouse or friend. But who were the victims of this trade? And to what extent was it carried on? Why was it a problem for the wealthy and less so for the poor? Was a male head of household simply able to ‘put away’...

Dr Burney uses the notorious case of the serial murderer John Christie (1953) to explore the contours of English homicide investigation at mid-century and detail the broader ‘forensic culture’ within which the case unfolded. Crucial to the Christie story is the way that forensic pathology and forensic science operated in a relationship of mutual dependence, and how this reflected an effort on the...

Since the early modern period, artists and anatomists have worked towards perfection; the perfection of anatomical models in three dimensions. But how did they achieve the sophisticated results that survive to this day? Whilst early models in wax were celebrated for their lifelike appearance, such models were fragile and did not allow for the hands-on interaction increasingly called for by medical...

In 1914, abdominal wounds were managed expectantly, without surgical intervention, and the majority of patients died. By 1915, early operative treatment was introduced by pioneering surgeons to try to combat the heavy loss of life. It was realised that early deaths, within a few hours of wounding, were caused by haemorrhage, while later deaths were caused by sepsis. Early surgical intervention was...

“For by the word Nose, throughout all this long chapter of noses, and in every other part of my work, where the word Nose occurs,- - I declare, by that word I mean a Nose, and nothing more, or less.” No reader of Laurence Sterne’s wildly-popular novel Tristram Shandy (1759-67) could be in doubt that sometimes a nose is not just a nose. In this lecture, Dr Noelle Gallagher explores the weird and wo...

The plague was one of early modern Europe’s most deadly and feared diseases. At the forefront of developing public health campaigns in the face of epidemics, from the 14th century onwards, were the doctors who advised on the prevention and treatment of the disease. This talk considers continuity and change in the attitudes and advice given by doctors between 1500 and 1700. In particular, it sets t...

Tracey Jolliffe discusses the science of syphilis in the 21st century. She explores the use of antibiotics to treat this disease and the health problems it can cause. From fatality rates to laboratory diagnosis, Jolliffe uncovers the current picture of syphilis in Scotland. Speaker: Tracey Jolliffe (Biomedical scientist, NHS) Twitter: twitter.com/RCPEHeritage Instagram: instagram.com/physiciansgal...