Publications
This is a selection of recently published books by members of the Department. See the Whipple Museum publications page for a list of books published by the Museum.
Vanessa Heggie, A History of British Sports Medicine
Manchester University Press, February 2011
This book offers a comprehensive study, and social history, of the development of sports medicine in Britain, as practised by British doctors and on British athletes in national and international settings. It takes as its focus the changing medical concept of the 'athletic body'. Athletes start the century as normal, healthy citizens, and end up as potentially unhealthy physiological 'freaks', while the general public are increasingly urged to do more exercise and play more sports. It also considers the origins and history of all the major institutions and organisations of British sports medicine, and shows how they interacted with and influenced international sports medicine and sporting events.
More information on the Manchester University Press website
Ayesha Nathoo, Hearts Exposed: Transplants and the Media in 1960s Britain
Palgrave Macmillan, January 2009
In 1968, a year not short of news, a story from within the traditionally reticent medical profession kept making headlines: transplantation of the human heart. Following the pioneering South African operation the previous year, over 100 cardiac transplants were performed worldwide, three of them in Britain. But with most recipients dead within weeks, the procedure was all but abandoned for a decade. Hearts Exposed offers the first analysis of the media involvement in the early heart-transplant operations in Britain, understanding this as an integral part of a critical period in medical history, and a turning point in medical–media relations. Using a wealth of newly available sources, it demonstrates how unprecedented media attention reshaped professional ethics and, by threatening public trust in doctors, profoundly affected the course of transplant surgery.
More information on the Palgrave Macmillan website
Laurence Totelin, Hippocratic Recipes: Oral and Written Transmission of Pharmacological Knowledge in Fifth- and Fourth-Century Greece
Brill, January 2009
Hippocratic Recipes is the first extended study of the pharmacological recipes included in the Hippocratic Corpus. The recipes, found mostly in the gynaecological and nosological treatises, are here examined both from a philological and a sociocultural point of view. Drawing on studies in the fields of classics, social history of medicine, and anthropology, this book offers new insights into the production and use of pharmacological knowledge in the classical world. In particular, it assesses the deep interactions between oral and written traditions in the transmission of this knowledge. Recipes are addressed as texts, but the existence of 'missing links' in the written tradition are acknowledged.
More information on the Brill website
Liba Taub, Aetna and the Moon: Explaining Nature in Ancient Greece and Rome
Oregon State University Press, June 2008
Classical authors used both prose and poetry to explore and explain the natural world. In Aetna and the Moon, Liba Taub examines the variety of ways in which ancient Greeks and Romans conveyed scientific information.
Greek and Roman poets produced a significant number of widely read poems that dealt with scientific topics. Why would an author choose poetry to explain the natural world? This question is complicated by claims made, since antiquity, that the growth of rational explanation involved the abandonment of poetry and the rejection of myth in favour of science.
Taub uses two texts to explore how scientific ideas were disseminated in the ancient world. The anonymous author of the Latin Aetna poem explained the science behind the volcano Etna with poetry. The Greek author Plutarch juxtaposed scientific and mythic explanations in his dialogue On the Face on the Moon. Both texts provide a lens through which Taub considers the nature of scientific communication in ancient Greece and Rome.
'A rich and provocative book which would be an excellent complement to any study of ancient thought.' – Journal of Classics Teaching
More information on the Oregon State University Press website
Liba Taub, Αρχαία Μετεωρολογία (Greek translation of Ancient Meteorology)
Enalios, March 2008
The first book of its kind, Ancient Meteorology discusses Greek and Roman approaches and attitudes to this broad discipline, which in classical antiquity included not only 'weather', but occurrences such as earthquakes and comets that today would be regarded as geological, astronomical or seismological. The range and diversity of this literature highlights the question of scholarly authority in antiquity and illustrates how writers responded to the meteorological information presented by their literary predecessors. Ancient Meteorology is a valuable reference tool for classicists and those with an interest in the history of science.
Tim Lewens (editor), Risk: Philosophical Perspectives
Routledge, May 2007
From airport security to nuclear power and safety on trains to public health scares, debates about risk are rarely out of the headlines. How can we determine an acceptable level of risk? Should these decisions be made by experts, or by the people they affect? How should safety and security be balanced against other goods, such as liberty?
This is the first collection to examine the philosophical dimensions of these pressing practical problems. Tim Lewens gathers an impressive set of new essays from leading scholars exploring the full range of philosophical implications of risk, including contributions by Martin Kusch and Martin Peterson.
More information on the Taylor & Francis website
Lauren Kassell, Medicine and Magic in Elizabethan London – Simon Forman: Astrologer, Alchemist, and Physician
Paperback edition, Oxford University Press, January 2007
Simon Forman (1552-1611) is one of London's most infamous astrologers. He stood apart from the medical elite because he was not formally educated and because he represented, and boldly asserted, medical ideas that were antithetical to those held by most learned physicians. He survived the plague, was consulted thousands of times a year for medical and other questions, distilled strong waters made from beer, herbs, and sometimes chemical ingredients, pursued the philosopher's stone in experiments and ancient texts, and when he was fortunate spoke with angels. He wrote compulsively, documenting his life and protesting his expertise in thousands of pages of notes and treatises. This highly readable book provides the first full account of Forman's papers, makes sense of his notorious reputation, and vividly recovers the world of medicine and magic in Elizabethan London.
'A delight to read... This is an exceptional study, absorbing and solidly grounded.' – Times Higher Education Supplement
More information on the Oxford University Press website
Tim Lewens, Darwin
Routledge, October 2006
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) is best known as a biologist and natural historian rather than a philosopher. However, in this invaluable book, Tim Lewens shows in a clear and accessible manner how important Darwin is for philosophy and how his work has shaped and challenged the very nature of the subject.
Beginning with an overview of Darwin's life and work, the subsequent chapters discuss the full range of fundamental philosophical topics from a Darwinian perspective. These include natural selection; the origin and nature of species; the role of evidence in scientific enquiry; the theory of Intelligent Design; evolutionary approaches to the human mind; the implications of Darwin's work for ethics and epistemology; and the question of how social and political thought needs to be updated in the light of a Darwinian understanding of human nature. A concluding chapter assesses the philosophical legacy of Darwin's thought.
'A clear, well-written, fair, broad-ranging and student-friendly introduction to Darwinian thinking.' – Kim Sterelny, Australian National University
More information on the Routledge website
Liba Taub and Frances Willmoth (editors), The Whipple Museum of the History of Science: Instruments and Interpretations
Whipple Museum, September 2006
The Whipple Museum contains one of the most important collections in the history of science. It was founded in 1944 when Robert Stewart Whipple presented his collection of scientific instruments to the University of Cambridge. Published to celebrate the 60th anniversary of R.S. Whipple's gift to the University, this volume charts the Museum's history and focuses on a range of scientific instruments in the collection.
The book consists of 23 essays by Jim Bennett, David J. Bryden, David Chart, David W. Dewhirst, Richard Dunn, Penelope Gouk, Christopher Haley, Rupert Hall, Graham Hart, Hester Higton, Robert A. Jenks, Stephen Johnston, Alex Keller, Kenneth Lyall, Adam Mosley, Mike Rich, Simon Schaffer, Richard Staley, Liba Taub, Frances Willmoth and the Cambridge Latin Therapy Group.
'...the type of book all museums serious about research might aspire to produce.' – British Journal for the History of Science