'Hanna Rion and The Weekly Dispatch's twilight sleep crusade'
Congratulations to Eleanor Taylor on her article in the latest issue of Medical Humanities. It is based on the dissertation Eleanor wrote as a Part II HPS student in 2022.
Wellcome Lecture
'Live, and let live: medical recipes and technique of the socialized self across the Ming-Qing transition', the Eighteenth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine, was given by He Bian (Princeton University) on 26 January 2023.
Congratulations to Yijie Huang
PhD student Yijie Huang's article 'Anatomizing the pulse: Edmund King's analogy, observation and conception of the tubular body' has been published in Annals of Science as winner of the journal's best paper prize.
Wellcome Lecture
'Seeds, a Dying River, and an Experiment Station: Re-examining 1960s Global Solutions to Hunger from Sonora, Mexico', the Seventeenth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine, was given by Gabriela Soto Laveaga (Harvard University) on 20 January 2022.
'Health for All?: Histories of International and Global Health'
Mary Brazelton has published a new article in History Compass.
Congratulations to Susanne Schmidt
Former PhD student Susanne Schmidt has won the 2021 Förderpreis (a prize for research by up-and-coming scholars) of the Society for the History of Science, Medicine and Technology e. V. (GWMT). Her book, Midlife Crisis: The Feminist Origins of a Chauvinist Cliché (University of Chicago, 2020), is based on her PhD thesis in the Department.
'Inscribed, Coded, Archived: Digitizing Early Modern Medical Casebooks'
Lauren Kassell has published a new piece on the Casebooks Project in the Journal for the History of Knowledge.
Congratulations to Dániel Margócsy
Dániel Margócsy and his collaborators on The Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius have won the 2021 Neu-Whitrow Prize, awarded by the Commission on Bibliography and Documentation (CBD) of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology/Division of History of Science and Technology (IUHPST/DHST) to an individual or team for creating the most innovative research tool for managing, documenting and analyzing sources within the history of science and technology.
'Cycles and Circulation: A Theme in the History of Biology and Medicine'
Nick Hopwood, Staffan Müller-Wille, and collaborators from the Fifteenth Ischia Summer School on the History of the Life Sciences have published a piece in History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences.
Wellcome Lecture
'Doctors v. midwives: Caribbean medical encounters in the age of pronatal abolition', the Sixteenth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine, was given by Sasha Turner (Johns Hopkins University) on 11 February 2021.
Congratulations to Jules Skotnes-Brown
Having passed his PhD viva successfully, Jules Skotnes-Brown has taken up his position as a Research Fellow on the Wellcome-funded project 'The Global War Against the Rat and the Epistemic Emergence of Zoonosis' led by Christos Lynteris at the University of St Andrews.
Congratulations to Rhianna Elliott
Rhianna Elliott, who has completed two years of her PhD on menstruation and the moon in early modern England, has won a secondment to the Science Museum, funded by Wellcome, for six months from January 2021. She will be working on a project to develop the museum's collections of objects related to women's health and medicine.
Congratulations to Annie Thwaite
Annie Thwaite, who recently completed her PhD on the healing virtues of magical objects in early modern England, has been appointed to a 12-month post as the Public Engagement Coordinator for the ESRC-funded project 'Secondary Education and Social Change in the United Kingdom since 1945', based in the Faculty of History.
COVID-19: perspectives from HPS
A special online seminar about how HPS can help us understand COVID-19 was held on 23 April. Presentations by Jacob Stegenga, Nick Hopwood, Mary Brazelton and Stephen John were followed by Q&A.
History lessons
You may be tiring of coronavirus news, but seeking deeper understanding. Time for history of medicine. Two pieces by members of the Department have just come out:
- Mary Brazelton, 'Epidemic control in Chinese public health: past and present'
- Richard McKay, 'Patient zero: why it's such a toxic term'
Wellcome Lecture
'The maternal imprint: gender, heredity and the biosocial body', the Fifteenth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine, was given by Sarah Richardson (Harvard University) on 13 February 2020.
Social History of Medicine
The new issue of Social History of Medicine contains two contributions from HPS people: a values statement for the Society for the Social History of Medicine guided to publication by Richard McKay, and an article on the notification of pregnancy by Salim Al-Gailani. Congratulations!
How Collections End
The 2019 issue of BJHS Themes is 'How Collections End: Objects, Meaning and Loss in Laboratories and Museums', edited by Boris Jardine, Emma Kowal and Jenny Bangham. It addresses the 'endings' of scientific collections, telling stories of dispersal, destruction, absorption, repurposing and repatriation. There are several articles on biological and medical topics, including by Helen Curry and Nick Hopwood, and all are open access. A blog post introduces the issue.
Congratulations to Katrina Maydom
Katrina Maydom has been awarded the Kenneth Emsley Prize for History for her doctoral thesis on 'Materia Medica from the Americas in British Medical Culture, c. 1680–1730'. The prize is awarded by St Edmund's College to the graduate student achieving the highest mark or recommendation in history or a related subject.
Mass Vaccination book launch
A book launch for Mary Brazelton's new book was held in the Whipple Museum on 1 November 2019.
Mass Vaccination: Citizens' Bodies and State Power in Modern China (Cornell University Press) examines China's public health campaigns of the 1950s. How did China manage to inoculate almost six hundred million people against smallpox and other deadly diseases?
Festival of Ideas
Members of the Department organised and took part in two history of medicine events during the 2019 Festival of Ideas.
'When Was Reproduction Invented?' (17 October) was a discussion about when, how and for what purposes reproduction as we know it was made. Nick Hopwood, Lauren Kassell and Jim Secord were joined by Rebecca Flemming (Classics) and Susan Golombok (Family Research).
'How Should We Deliver Babies?' (21 October) considered the highly politicised questions of how we should give birth, who should be present and what role they should play. The debate was organised by Leah Astbury, Lauren Kassell, Carolin Schmitz and Annie Thwaite and funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Congratulations to Mary Brazelton
Mary Brazelton has won the Zhu Kezhen Award for her paper 'Engineering Health: Technologies of Immunization in China's Wartime Hinterland, 1937–45' (Technology and Culture, 2019).
The Zhu Kezhen Award is the highest honour awarded by the International Society for the History of East Asian Science, Technology and Medicine (ISHEASTM) for a published journal article of original scholarship. The prize is awarded once every four years at the society's plenary conference.
Congratulations to Carolin Schmitz
Carolin Schmitz has won a prize for her book Los enfermos en la España barroca y el pluralismo médico: Espacios, estrategias y actitudes (The Sick in Baroque Spain and Medical Pluralism: Spaces, Strategies and Attitudes), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Spanish National Research Council), Madrid, 2018.
The book, which is based on Carolin's PhD thesis, won in the category of health sciences in the XXII Premios Nacionales de Edición Universitaria: Los mejores libros publicados por las universidades españolas en 2018 (XXII National Prize of University Publisher), the annual awards for the best books published by all Spanish university publishers.
Inaugural lecture
Professor Lauren Kassell gave her inaugural lecture, 'You, Me and the Moon: Magic, Medicine and the History of Science', on 28 June at Peterhouse. A garden party was held after the lecture.
Casebooks official release
The Casebooks Digital Edition has been launched, together with a site showing selected cases in full.
All 80,000 cases recorded by Simon Forman, Richard Napier and their associates between 1596 and 1634 can be browsed and searched.
The Guardian and BBC News reported on the launch, and there is an article and video on the University's news website.
Casebooks game launched
Astrologaster, a comedy video game inspired by the work of the Casebooks Project, is available now on iOS and Steam.
Created by Nyamyam, an independent game developer, Astrologaster is set in London at the end of the 16th century. Players take on the role of Simon Forman – unlicensed doctor of astrology, astronomy and physick – and use his astrological methods to treat his patients.
Medical History special issue
Reproductive Politics in Twentieth-Century France and Britain, a special issue of Medical History edited by Jesse Olszynko-Gryn and Caroline Rusterholz, has been published. Part-supported by the Generation to Reproduction strategic award, the work began as a conference held in Cambridge in September 2016.
Wellcome Lecture
'Heaven and Earth are within one's grasp: the healer's body-as-technology in classical Chinese medicine', the Fourteenth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine, was given by Marta Hanson (Johns Hopkins University) on 17 January 2019.
Casebooks Project: final release
The work of the Casebooks Project is complete. All 80,000 cases recorded by Simon Forman, Richard Napier and their associates between 1596 and 1634, with some stray cases either side, can now be browsed and searched.
The new website has an improved interface and additional pages about the astrologers, their patients, their practices, the project, and how to use these records.
Strategic Research Initiative on Reproduction
The University launched a Strategic Research Initiative on Reproduction on Friday 7 December. Around 100 academics from across the disciplines gathered in the Pitt Building for an afternoon of presentations and talks. The SRI, funded initially for three years, brings together biology and medicine, the arts, humanities and social sciences to provide cross-disciplinary approaches to some of the most challenging problems in the world today. Graham Burton (PDN) chairs the initiative, with Anne Ferguson-Smith (Genetics), Sarah Franklin (Sociology) and Nick Hopwood (HPS) as deputy chairs.
The launch of the SRI was followed by the launch of Reproduction: Antiquity to the Present Day in Pembroke Old Library.
Reproduction: Antiquity to the Present Day
Cambridge University Press has published Reproduction: Antiquity to the Present Day edited by Nick Hopwood, Rebecca Flemming and Lauren Kassell.
The major output of the Wellcome-funded Generation to Reproduction project, this field-defining history is the first major synthesis of decades of scholarship. Ranging from the most intimate experiences to planetary policy, it tells new stories and revises received ideas.
An illustrated article introducing the book – Reproduction, from Hippocrates to IVF – is on the University's news website.
Congratulations to Jenny Bangham
Many congratulations to Jenny Bangham, who has gained a Wellcome University Award at Queen Mary University of London for her project, 'Encountering genes: Postwar genetic counselling in the UK and Ireland'. These highly desirable awards support a lectureship, initially focused on research, leading to a permanent position. Jenny will finish her maternity leave and research fellowship before taking up the post on 1 March 2020.
Jules Skotnes-Brown wins Science Museum Group Journal Writing Prize
Congratulations to Jules Skotnes-Brown, who has been awarded the Science Museum Group Journal Writing Prize for an essay based on the MSc dissertation in history of science he completed at the University of Oxford last year. 'From the "White Man's Grave to the White Man's Home": visions of empire, African tropical health, and visitors' experiences at the 1924–1925 British Empire Exhibition' will be published in a future issue of the journal.
Congratulations to Boyd Brogan
Boyd Brogan has been appointed to a two-year fellowship at the Centre for Future Health Research at the University of York. He will take up the post in October. The fellowship will allow him to build on his work on early modern chastity diseases, funded first by the Isaac Newton Trust and the Casebooks Project, then by a Wellcome Trust Humanities Fellowship. He has also been a non-stipendiary JRF at Wolfson College, where he organises their Humanities Society lectures, and he has convened the Early Modern Work-in-Progress Reading Group and acted as Secretary to Latin Therapy. His next project examines the use of early modern witchcraft texts in the development of 19th-century theories of epilepsy and hysteria.
A wicked operation?
Congratulations to Louis Dwyer-Hemmings on his article, '"A wicked operation"? Tonsillectomy in twentieth-century Britain', in the latest issue of Medical History. It is based on the dissertation Louis wrote as a Part II HPS student in 2016. Salim Al-Gailani supervised the work.
Congratulations to Jessica Hamel-Akré
Jessica Hamel-Akré will be joining the Department next academic year, funded by a two-year Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She will be working on a project on possession, dietary medicine and women's food refusal in the British long eighteenth century, building on her doctoral work in English Studies at the Université de Montréal.
Patient Zero a finalist for the Randy Shilts Award
Many congratulations to Richard McKay: the Publishing Triangle, in announcing nominees for the best LGBTQ books of 2017, has selected Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic as one of four finalists for the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction.
Wellcome Lecture
'Poison trials, panaceas and proof: debates about testing and testimony in early modern European medicine', the Thirteenth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine, was given by Alisha Rankin (Tufts University) on 1 March 2018. Professor Rankin also led a workshop, 'Testing the Kunstkammer: bezoar, power and fraud in the sixteenth-century global drug trade', earlier on the same day.
'Seed' wins Wellcome video game competition
All Seeing Eye, in collaboration with Helen Anne Curry, have won the Wellcome Trust's Developing Beyond challenge with their virtual reality video game 'Seed'.
The competition matched video game developers with researchers in the humanities and natural sciences to develop an entertaining and immersive game that explores themes in the sciences. Winning the challenge provides All Seeing Eye with $150,000 and support to put the game into full production.
Congratulations to Jesse Olszynko-Gryn
Many congratulations to Jesse Olszynko-Gryn, who in October 2018 will take up a position as Chancellor's Fellow and Lecturer in Health and Wellbeing Across Time and Place at the University of Strathclyde. Jesse will develop his research on reproduction, diagnostics and cinema at the Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare.
Congratulations to Chloë Gamlin
Chloë Gamlin has won the Royal Society of Medicine's Norah Schuster Essay Prize for a piece of work that began as her HPS Part II Dissertation in 2016–17. The prize is awarded annually for the best essay or essays submitted on any subject related to the history of medicine, including medical science. Chloë's essay is titled '"Oh, my sin is the cause of it": age, gender and religion in early modern childhood illness'.
The operation that took medicine into the media age
A BBC News story by Ayesha Nathoo marks the 50th anniversary of the first human-to-human heart transplant.
The feminist origins of the midlife crisis
Today, the idea of midlife crisis conjures up images of male indulgence and irresponsibility, but in an article in The Historical Journal Susanne Schmidt shows that it was first successfully promoted as a feminist concept that applied to men and women equally and described the dissolution of gender roles at the onset of middle age.
How Collections End
'How Collections End: Objects, Meaning and Loss in Laboratories and Museums', a workshop featuring several talks on biomedicine, was held in the Department on 24–26 October.
Reproduction on Film, a special issue of BJHS
Check out the latest number of BJHS for an eye-opening series of articles about 'Reproduction on Film'. Edited by Jesse Olszynko-Gryn, Patrick Ellis and Caitjan Gainty, the following pieces are accessible here:
'A machine for recreating life': an introduction to reproduction on film
Jesse Olszynko-Gryn, Patrick Ellis
A cinema for the unborn: moving pictures, mental pictures and Electra Sparks's New Thought film theory
Patrick Ellis
'Items for criticism (not in sequence)': Joseph DeLee, Pare Lorentz and The Fight for Life (1940)
Caitjan Gainty
Regulating cinematic stories about reproduction: pregnancy, childbirth, abortion and movie censorship in the US, 1930–1958
David A. Kirby
'Drawing aside the curtain': natural childbirth on screen in 1950s Britain
Salim Al-Gailani
Thin blue lines: product placement and the drama of pregnancy testing in British cinema and television
Jesse Olszynko-Gryn
Animating embryos: the in toto representation of life
Janina Wellmann
Congratulations to Clare Griffin
Clare Griffin has been appointed Assistant Professor of the History of Science and Technology at Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan. She will take up the post in August 2017. Clare, who works on the history of medicine in early modern Russia, with particular expertise in the drug trade, was a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow in the Department from 2013 to 2015. She then became a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG). We had been looking forward to her returning to the Department next academic year for the final year of her Wellcome fellowship, but instead we can congratulate her on securing a permanent position.
CASEBOOKS exhibition
CASEBOOKS, an exhibition inspired by the Casebooks Project, was held at Ambika P3, University of Westminster, from 17 March to 23 April 2017.
Congratulations to Valentina Pugliano
Valentina Pugliano has won the Jerry Stannard Memorial Award 2017 for the best article in the history of pharmacy, medicinal botany and materia medica for her article 'Pharmacy, Testing and the Language of Truth in Renaissance Italy', forthcoming with the Bulletin of the History of Medicine (June 2017).
Congratulations to Gabriella Zuccolin
Gabriella Zuccolin has been awarded a post-doctoral fellowship at Villa I Tatti for the 2017–18 academic year. She will be continuing her work on the intersection of print culture, women's medicine and the role of vernacularisation in science, 1450–1600, which she began as a Wellcome Research Fellow in the Department.
Congratulations to Leah Astbury
Leah Astbury has been awarded two fellowships. She will go to the Huntington Library on a Molina Long Term Fellowship in the History of Medicine next academic year, and will then return to Cambridge as a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow for 2018–21.
The 'Ice Age' of anatomy and obstetrics
Salim Al-Gailani's article 'The "Ice Age" of Anatomy and Obstetrics: Hand and Eye in the Promotion of Frozen Sections around 1900' has just been published in the Bulletin of the History of Medicine 90 (2016), 611–642. This fascinating study of a method of slicing up frozen corpses shows how anatomists' and clinicians' disputes over the technique hinged on their divergent commitments to tactile and visual knowledge.
Wellcome Lecture
'Eugenic sterilization in California: from demographic analysis to digital storytelling', the Twelfth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine, was given by Alexandra Minna Stern (University of Michigan) on 24 November 2016. Professor Stern also led a workshop on the historical genealogy of the 'gay gene' on the same day.
Nick Hopwood wins Levinson Prize
Nick Hopwood has been awarded the History of Science Society's Suzanne J. Levinson Prize for his book Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud. The Levinson Prize is awarded biennially for the best book in the history of the life sciences and natural history.
The prize committee called the research 'formidable, yet expressed with an enviable lightness of touch' and 'a pleasure to read'. They predict 'Haeckel's Embryos will be appreciated as a model for work which considers controversy, images, reproduction and transmission of all kinds'.
HIV's 'Patient Zero' exonerated
Richard McKay has contributed to research that reveals the error and hype that led to the coining of the term 'Patient Zero' and the blaming of one man for the spread of HIV across North America. The work is published in Nature with a news story. See also the University of Cambridge website and, for a sample from the very wide reporting, the BBC, the Guardian and the Washington Post.
'The toad is slow to let you know'
As Parliament debates the hormonal pregnancy test Primodos and its alleged links to birth defects, at the H-Word blog Jesse Olszynko-Gryn places the drug in the history of pregnancy testing and asks why the British government took so long to ban it. He examines the debate further in an article for History and Policy.
Reproductive Politics in France and Britain
A conference on 'Reproductive Politics in France and Britain' was held at the Faculty of English on 5–7 September 2016.
Congratulations to Leah Astbury
Leah Astbury, who recently completed her PhD on 'Breeding Women and Lusty Infants in Early Modern England', will be staying in Cambridge this academic year as a Society for Renaissance Studies Postdoctoral Fellow with matching funding from the Isaac Newton Trust. She has also won a Women in Humanities Postdoctoral Writing Fellowship at TORCH (The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities), and will be in Oxford for a couple of months. Leah will be developing a new project on marriage and health in early modern England.
CRASSH ProFutura Scientia Fellow
Congratulations to Helen Curry, who has been selected as a CRASSH ProFutura Scientia Fellow for 2017–20. During that time she will continue her research on the history of agro-biodiversity conservation, spending one year in residence at the Swedish Collegium of Advanced Study in Uppsala and two years at CRASSH in Cambridge.
Highly commended
Nick Hopwood's Haeckel's Embryos was 'highly commended' for the 2016 SHARP DeLong Book History Book Prize. The judges commented: 'Rooted in the history of science, Haeckel's Embryos demonstrates the gains to be made by disciplines beyond our own when they turn to the tools of book history to ask big questions about the reproduction and dissemination of ideas.'
Inaugural lecture
Professor Sachiko Kusukawa (Trinity College) gave her inaugural lecture, 'Worth a thousand words? Early modern scientific images', at Peterhouse on 24 June. The lecture was followed by a midsummer garden party.
Malthus: Food, Land, People
A two-day conference at CRASSH and Jesus College marked the 250th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Robert Malthus, author of An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).
The John Forrester Case
A conference and memorial event was held on 18 May 2016 to honour the memory of Professor John Forrester (1949–2015).
Recipes to Improve Your Love Life
'Recipes to Improve Your Love Life: Advice from the Eighteenth Century', a talk by Lisa Smith (University of Essex), was held in the Whipple Museum on 31 March 2016.
High-Rise
As High-Rise opens in British cinemas, Jesse Olszynko-Gryn writes in the Guardian's H-Word blog about how J.G. Ballard's novel reflected contemporary animal research and fears of urban overcrowding.
Reproduction on Film
Sex, Secrets and Lies, our fifth 'Reproduction on Film' series, took place from 3 February to 20 March 2016 at the Old Divinity School, St John's Street.
Extension
The Wellcome Trust has approved a further no-cost extension to the Generation to Reproduction strategic award, so the project will now run till 30 September 2017.
Medical genetics in Manchester
Salim Al-Gailani has been awarded a visiting research fellowship at the John Rylands Research Institute, University of Manchester, to work on the papers of medical geneticist Rodney Harris this May and June. Salim will study Harris's genetics clinic, one of the first, as part of research on the histories of prenatal diagnosis, vitamins and birth defects. Congratulations!
From Rubella to Zika
Salim Al-Gailani writes at the Guardian H-Word blog about how the history of German measles, or Rubella, after World War II can help us understand the Zika epidemic today.
Congratulations to Jenny Bangham
Jenny Bangham has been awarded a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship to work in HPS on 'FlyBase: Communicating Drosophila Genetics on Paper and Online, 1970–2000' for three years from September 2016. Formerly an MPhil and PhD student in HPS, Jenny is currently a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, where she is finishing a book on Blood Groups and the Rise of Human Genetics. We very much look forward to having her back.
Congratulations to Jim Secord
Congratulations to Jim Secord on being awarded the Society for the History of Natural History Founders' Medal. The medal is awarded to persons who have made a substantial contribution to the study of the history or bibliography of natural history.
Wellcome Lecture
'Curing diseases and exchanging knowledge: sixteenth-century physicians and their female patients', the Eleventh Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine, was given by Michael Stolberg (University of Würzburg) on 14 January 2016. Professor Stolberg also led a discussion on the same day.
John Forrester
John Forrester, the distinguished historian of psychoanalysis and former head of HPS, died on 24 November. Among many other activities and qualities, John was a committed organizer of Psy Studies, a brilliantly quirky contributor to history of medicine events and an always engaging interlocutor on the Generation to Reproduction project. We shall miss him very much. There are obituaries by Simon Schaffer in The Independent and Marina Warner in The Guardian.
Communicating Reproduction
The Fall issue of the Bulletin of the History of Medicine is devoted to Communicating Reproduction. Edited by Nick Hopwood, Peter Murray Jones, Lauren Kassell and Jim Secord, and containing an article by Peter Jones and Lea Olsan, it began in a conference held in HPS and an exhibition on Books and Babies at Cambridge University Library. See the Q&A at the JHU Press blog and the feature on medieval remedies for infertility on the University's research website.
Seed award
Many congratulations to Helen Curry, who has gained a Wellcome Trust seed award to work – appropriately – on 'Seeds for survival: A global history of seed banking'. The grant supports a major new research initiative that will investigate the history of seed banking as a global conservation practice and human health imperative.
Congratulations to Leah Astbury
Many congratulations to Leah Astbury, who has been appointed a research associate in the Generation to Reproduction group for six months from January 2016. Leah's soon-to-be-submitted PhD was funded by our strategic award and we are delighted to be able to support her further. She will develop her new project on 'Marriage, health and compatibility in early modern England' and do public engagement work.
Conference: Reproduction on Film
A conference on Reproduction on Film was held on 23–25 September 2015.
Congratulations to Boyd Brogan
Boyd Brogan has been awarded a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship for a project on 'Maladies of Seed: Chastity Diseases in Early Modern England'. Boyd has been a Research Associate on the Casebooks Project for the past year, funded by the Isaac Newton Trust. Diseases of women in Richard Napier's casebooks are a central component of Boyd's past and future research. We are delighted that he will be continuing to work in Cambridge for another three years. Many congratulations!
Public lectures
The third in a series of ESRC-funded workshops put on by the IVF Histories and Cultures Project, and organized by Sarah Franklin, Martin Johnson, Nick Hopwood, Kay Elder and Katie Dow at Christ's College, included public lectures by Nick Hopwood on 'Human embryos: A history in series' and Hannah Landecker (UCLA) on 'Metabolic, filmic, and genetic accounts of time in embryonic life'.
Reproductive Biomedicine & Society Online
Sarah Franklin and Martin Johnson have launched a new journal, Reproductive Biomedicine & Society Online, dedicated to interdisciplinary discussion and debate of the rapidly expanding field of reproductive biomedicine, particularly its many societal and cultural implications. Nick Hopwood is section editor for history.
Haeckel's Embryos
The University of Chicago Press has published Haeckel's Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud by Nick Hopwood. Telling the extraordinary story of an alleged forgery that became a textbook classic, the book explores how scientific images succeed and fail, are taken for granted and cause trouble. Along the way, it shows how embryonic development was made a process we can see, compare and debate.
An article about the book – 'Haeckel's embryos: the images that would not go away' – is on the University's research website.
Congratulations to Clare Griffin
Congratulations to Clare Griffin on her appointment as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG), within Department II (Daston). She will be continuing her research on early modern Russian medicine and working with Elaine Leong as part of the Minerva Research Group 'Reading and Writing Nature in Early Modern Europe'. The appointment is for two years from September 2015. Clare will be an Affiliated Scholar in HPS and we look forward to continuing the many conversations that she has begun during her Wellcome Research Fellowship. Many congratulations!
Reproduction on Film
Outlaws, our fourth 'Reproduction on Film' series, took place at St Philip's Church and Robinson College from 4 February to 11 March 2015.
Junior Research Fellowship
Many congratulations to Anne Hanley, who recently finished a PhD in the History Faculty and has now been appointed to a Junior Research Fellowship at New College, Oxford. Anne will look at state-supported healthcare provision for venereal diseases in England during the decades before and immediately after the formation of the NHS. Well done, Anne!
Research Fellowships
Many congratulations to Jesse Olszynko-Gryn, a research associate on the Generation to Reproduction project, who has been awarded a Wellcome Trust research fellowship to work, for three years from October, on 'Pregnancy testing over the counter, in activism and at home: Britain, c.1970–2015'.
We are also delighted to welcome Sarah Bull from the English Department at Simon Fraser University, who will be joining us, also on a Wellcome Trust research fellowship, to work on 'Medical publishers, obscenity law and the business of sexual knowledge in Victorian Britain'.
New lecturer
Warm congratulations to Mary Brazelton, who will be taking up the new lectureship in Global Studies of Science, Technology and Medicine in the HPS Department from 1 September 2015. Currently a visiting lecturer at Tufts, and with a PhD from Yale, Mary is an expert on Chinese medicine and science, working especially on immunology and public health in the 20th century.
Wellcome Lecture
'One-seed, two-seed, three-seed? Reassessing ancient theories of generation', the Tenth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine, was given by Rebecca Flemming (Classics, Cambridge) on Thursday 15 January 2015.
Public lecture
Linked to the second of a series of three ESRC-funded IVF Histories and Cultures Workshops organized by Sarah Franklin, Martin Johnson, Nick Hopwood and Kay Elder, Martin and Kay gave a public lecture at Christ's College on 'Events leading to the birth of Louise Brown'.
Festival of Ideas
A Festival of Ideas debate, 'Is menstruation healthy?', was held on 22 October 2014 at Pembroke College.
'Transforming Pregnancy Since 1900'
A special issue of Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences published this month reflects on the social, medical and technological shifts that have shaped the experience and management of pregnancy since the turn of the 20th century. The publication comes out of a workshop held in the Department in 2012, supported by the Wellcome Trust-funded Generation to Reproduction project. The collection includes open access articles by Generation to Reproduction team members Salim Al-Gailani on the history of prenatal vitamin supplements and Jesse Olszynko-Gryn on pregnancy diagnosis in 1930s Britain. The special issue was edited by Salim with Angela Davis (University of Warwick).
Con/Tested
'Con/Tested: Sperm Science, Sterility and Masculinity' was held on 11–12 September 2014 in the Department of Sociology. The conference was organised by Liberty Barnes (Department of Sociology) and Christina Benninghaus (Department of History and Philosophy of Science).
An article about the conference – 'Tiny sperm, big stories' – is on the University's research website.
Jenny Bangham wins Marc-Auguste Pictet Prize
Many congratulations to Jenny Bangham, who has been awarded the 2014 Marc-Auguste Pictet Prize in the history of the life sciences in the twentieth century for her PhD thesis, written in HPS, on 'Blood groups and the rise of human genetics in mid-twentieth-century Britain'. The jury said that the thesis 'makes a very significant contribution to our understanding of the history of genetics and, more generally, to the history of the material culture of science'.
Now at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Jenny is also an affiliated research scholar in HPS. She will receive the prize and give a lecture at a ceremony in Geneva.
Congratulations to Ayesha Nathoo
Many congratulations to Ayesha Nathoo, who has been awarded a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship to work for three years from 1 October 2014 at the Centre for Medical History, University of Exeter on 'Cultivating Relaxation in Twentieth-Century Britain'. Ayesha will also be a collaborator on the Hubbub project at Wellcome Collection (London) – an exploration of rest and busyness – led by Felicity Callard. Well done!
Extension
The Wellcome Trust has approved a further no-cost extension to the Generation to Reproduction strategic award, so the project will now run till 30 September 2016. Many of us are hard at work on a big book to be published by CUP, which will reassess the history of reproduction over the long term, and we plan more events, including a film series in the spring. We will continue the Generation to Reproduction seminars even beyond the end of the award.
Wellcome Trust award for Casebooks Project
The Wellcome Trust has made a three-year Strategic Award of just over a million pounds for completion of the Casebooks Project.
Many congratulations to Lauren Kassell and the Casebooks team.
Congratulations
Congratulations to Leah Astbury, who has been awarded first prize for her paper on 'Caring for Newborns in Early Modern England' in the Social History Society postgraduate conference paper competition. The prize is worth £200 and the paper will be published online and invited for submission as an article for the Society's journal, Cultural and Social History.
Visions of Science
Congratulations to Jim Secord on the publication of Visions of Science: Books and Readers at the Dawn of the Victorian Age (OUP).
Cities and Towns as Epidemiological Drivers
A workshop on 'Cities and Towns as Epidemiological Drivers: Emerging Issues in Urban Historical Demography' was held at the Department of Geography on 17–18 March 2014.
Wellcome Lecture
'The clinic of the birth: obstetric ultrasound, medical innovation and the clinico-anatomical project', the Ninth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine, was given by Professor Malcolm Nicolson (University of Glasgow) on Thursday 16 January 2014. A paper by Professor Nicolson was discussed at a workshop on the same day.
Research fellowship
Gabriella Zuccolin, who has been lecturing on medieval medicine this term, has been awarded a three-year Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship to work on a project on 'Women's medicine between script and print, c.1450–1600'. Congratulations!
Reproduction workshop
The Cambridge Interdisciplinary Reproduction Forum held its ninth Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reproduction at CRASSH on 15 November 2013.
Inaugural lecture
Professor Sarah Franklin (Department of Sociology) gave her inaugural lecture, 'After IVF: the Reproductive Turn in Social Thought', on 30 October 2013.
Farewell and thanks to Laura Dawes
Laura Dawes, who has been events and outreach officer on the Generation to Reproduction project since February, is moving on. Laura will be a visiting scholar at CHSTM in Manchester and then based in the United States, concentrating on her new book on the industrial disease 'phossy jaw' and developing her consultancy work in science writing and historical research. Many thanks to Laura for her contributions to the project.
History of Medicine at the Festival of Ideas
The Generation to Reproduction project presented a debate – 'Can Europe reproduce itself? Debating Europe's fertility' – on 28 October 2013. Rebecca Flemming discussed medical ideas in the Greek and Roman worlds in her lecture 'Forging frontiers in classical medicine: exploring the body' on 26 October.
New postdoctoral fellow
We welcome Margaret Carlyle, who will be joining the Department as a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada) postdoctoral fellow. Margaret received her PhD from McGill University where she wrote on 'Cultures of Anatomy in Enlightenment France (c.1700–1750)'. Her new project in the Department is looking at birthing technologies in Enlightenment France, c.1715–1789. Welcome, Margaret!
Making Love, Making Gender, Making Babies
A conference on 'Making Love, Making Gender, Making Babies in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s' was held at CRASSH on 6–7 September 2013.
In/Fertility and Sacred Space
A conference on 'In/Fertility and Sacred Space: From Antiquity to the Early Modern' was held at CRASSH on 15–16 July 2013.
Notebooks workshop
'Notebooks, Medicine and the Sciences in Early Modern Europe', the inaugural workshop of the Notebooks Network, was held in the Department on 12–13 July 2013.
Embryos in Wax
The Whipple Museum has reprinted Nick Hopwood's Embryos in Wax. This book and others are available by post or via the online ordering system.
New job
Congratulations to Jenny Bangham, who has been appointed Research Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin until April 2016. She will be part of the research group 'Twentieth-Century Histories of Knowledge about Human Variation'.
Born to Rule
'Born to Rule: Public Lectures on Royal Births in Tudor and Stuart England' took place on 18 and 25 June 2013. Audio recordings of the lectures are available online.
Research and teaching positions in history of reproduction
Many congratulations to Salim Al-Gailani and Jesse Olszynko-Gryn, who have been appointed to two-year positions supported by the Generation to Reproduction programme and HPS departmental funds. Salim will be Research and Teaching Associate in History of Modern Medical Science. He will contribute to our teaching programme and research the history of folic acid as a technology of pregnancy, with its implications beyond reproduction for the globalization of biomedical knowledge, the management of risk and the role of consumer activism in shaping public health policy. Jesse will be Research Associate in History of Reproduction. He will extend his PhD work by reconstructing the transformation of pregnancy testing from the 1960s, with the replacement of live frogs by laboratory immunoassays and over-the-counter kits, and shifting power relations especially between the women tested, doctors and chemists. We much look forward to the next phases of their associations with the project.
Pregnancy testing – with toads
Generation to Reproduction PhD student Jesse Olszynko-Gryn spoke on BBC Radio 4's Making History on the history of pregnancy testing. The piece was broadcast at 3pm on Tuesday 16 April. From about 20.20, Jesse and one of his informants talked to the presenters about pregnancy testing in the 1950s, and how it relied on live toads.
Peter Jones on Fit to Rule
Peter Jones appeared on Fit to Rule: How Royal Illness Changed History on BBC Two at 9pm on Monday 8 April. Peter spoke on the reproductive histories of King Henry VIII and Queen Mary.
Vere Harmsworth chair
Congratulations to our history of medicine colleague Alison Bashford, who has been elected to the Vere Harmsworth Chair of Imperial and Naval History. Alison took her BA and PhD from the University of Sydney, where she is currently Professor of Modern History. She has published four books, including Purity and Pollution: Gender, Embodiment, and Victorian Medicine (1998), Imperial Hygiene: A Critical History of Colonialism, Nationalism, and Public Health (2004) and Life on Earth: Geopolitics and the World Population Problem (2013), and edited five, including Medicine at the Border: Disease, Globalization and Security, 1850 to the Present (2006) and the Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics (2010). Alison has been a frequent visitor to Britain, and we look forward to more intense intellectual exchange. Her current project concerns the global aspects of Malthus and Malthusianism.
New job
Many congratulations to Jenny Rampling, who has been appointed Assistant Professor in History at Princeton University, as part of the Program in History of Science, from January 2014. Jenny has been in the Department since 2006, first as PhD student, then as Wellcome Trust Research Fellow. During that time she has been extremely active, particularly in leading reading groups and organizing seminars, including, with Hasok Chang, the AD HOC Seminar (History of Chemistry) in Cambridge and London.
Reproduction on Film
Making Babies, our third 'Reproduction on Film' series, took place at the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse from 11 February to 18 March 2013.
Events and outreach officer
Please extend a very warm welcome to Dr Laura Dawes, the new events and outreach officer on the Generation to Reproduction project. Laura, who comes to us all the way from Canberra, trained in mathematics and statistics at Murdoch University, and in economic and social history at Oxford, and then completed a PhD in history of medicine at Harvard with a dissertation on childhood obesity. Welcome, Laura!
Creating Life
The theme for the 13th Ischia Summer School on the History of the Life Sciences is 'Creating Life: From Alchemy to Synthetic Biology'. The deadline for applications is 15 February. Nick Hopwood co-organizes the school and Peter Murray Jones and Helen Curry are among the faculty.
Research fellowships
Congratulations to Valentina Pugliano, who has been awarded a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship to work on 'Nature's old archipelagos: medicine, science and environment in the Venetian Levant, c.1450–1750'. Valentina has recently completed a DPhil at the University of Oxford on 'Botanical artisans: apothecaries and the study of nature in Venice and London, 1550–1610'. Well done, Valentina!
Many congratulations also to Richard McKay, who joins us from King's College London thanks to a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship on 'Before HIV: homosex and venereal disease, c.1939–1984'. The project will explore how, in the middle decades of the twentieth century in Canada, the US and the UK, healthcare workers and other groups became increasingly interested in the role of men who had sex with other men in the transmission of sexually transmitted infections.
Wellcome Lecture
'Generatio: medieval debates about procreation, heredity and "bioethics"', the Eighth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine, was given by Maaike van der Lugt (Université Paris Diderot – Paris 7 / Institut Universitaire de France) on Thursday 17 January 2013. A paper by Maaike van der Lugt was discussed at a workshop on the same day.
Fictional pregnancies and the test
Jesse Olszynko-Gryn contributed the first entry to MaMSIE, a blog that aims at Mapping Maternal Subjectivities, Identities and Ethics. Jesse discusses representations of early pregnancy in novels and the difference that hormonal tests, invented in the late 1920s, did or did not make.
Congratulations
Congratulations to Hannah Newton, whose book The Sick Child in Early Modern England has been shortlisted for the History Today/Longman Book of the Year Prize.
Symposium and lecture
Generation and Reproduction in Medieval Europe, a one-day symposium, was held at King's College on 8 December 2012. It was preceded by a lecture given by Marianne Elsakkers (Utrecht) in the Department on 7 December.
Reproduction workshop
The Cambridge Interdisciplinary Reproduction Forum held its eighth Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reproduction at CRASSH on 23 November 2012.
Debating Reproduction
Debating Reproduction: Hospital Birth, a Festival of Ideas event about the medical and social issues surrounding the 20th-century 'revolution' in childbirth, was held on 1 November 2012 at the Mill Lane Lecture Rooms.
Registration and Recognition
Congratulations to Simon Szreter on the publication of Registration and Recognition: Documenting the Person in World History (OUP/British Academy), co-edited with Keith Breckenridge. Registration has typically been viewed as coercive, and as a product of the rise of the modern European state. This volume shows that the registration of individuals has taken remarkably similar, and interestingly comparable, forms in very different societies across the world. The volume also suggests that registration has many hitherto neglected benefits for individuals, and that modern states have frequently sought to curtail, or avoid responsibility for, it.
New job
Congratulations to Vanessa Heggie, who has been appointed to a five-year University Fellowship at the University of Birmingham, which will be succeeded by a permanent position as Senior Lecturer. She will take up the position early in 2013.
Vanessa has been an indispensable member of the teaching and research communities in the Department since 2007, first as a Mellon Teaching Fellow, then as a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow and finally as a Teaching Associate on the 'Generation to Reproduction' Wellcome Strategic Award. We wish her the very best at Birmingham and look forward to continued future collaboration with her and her associates.
New job
Shirlene Badger, currently events and outreach officer on the Generation to Reproduction project, has been appointed Senior Research Associate at the Cambridge Institute of Public Health, starting next month. She will be seconded to the Public Health Genomics Foundation for the first four years, where she will lead their part of the Evaluation and Implementation theme for the Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre. She will be conducting ethnographic case studies across various teams in order to explore the translation of genetic technologies from research to clinical practice. We are very grateful to Shirlene for her work in HPS this year and wish her the very best in her new position.
PhD studentships
Congratulations to Leah Astbury, formerly of the History Faculty now in HPS, who has been awarded a PhD studentship attached to our Wellcome Trust strategic award for a project on motherhood and medicine in early modern England.
A warm welcome also to Caroline Musgrove from Cardiff, who is beginning an AHRC-funded PhD in the Faculty of Classics on 'Women and generation in a world of pagans and Christians'.
History of infertility
We welcome Christina Benninghaus from the University of Bielefeld. She has come to work on the making of the experience of infertility in Germany around 1900, with support from a two-year Marie Curie Fellowship from the Gerda Henkel Foundation.
The H Word
Vanessa Heggie and Rebekah Higgitt have launched a Guardian blog devoted to history of science. Topical early entries on The H Word include 'Sex testing and the Olympics' and 'The athlete who drank too much Coca-Cola'.
Reproducing China
A conference on 'Reproducing China: Childbirth, One Child, and Beyond' was held at CRASSH on 13–14 July 2012.
Making Human Heredity
A workshop on 'Making Human Heredity: Populations and Public Health in the Postwar Era' was held in the Department on 28–30 June 2012.
The Sick Child in Early Modern England
Congratulations to Hannah Newton on the publication of The Sick Child in Early Modern England, 1580–1720 by Oxford University Press. The book launch was held on 25 April in the Whipple Museum.
Transforming Pregnancy
An interdisciplinary conference on 'Transforming Pregnancy Since 1900' was held in the Department on 29–30 March 2012.
Reproduction on Film
Our second 'Reproduction on Film' series, covering the topic of Monstrosity, took place at the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse from 27 February to 21 March 2012.
New job
Elaine Leong, who currently holds a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship in the Department, has been awarded a five-year Minerva Professorship at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin from September 2012. Many congratulations!
Postdoctoral fellowship
Jenny Bangham, who is in the third year of her PhD in HPS, has been awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. She will be working from October, for one year, in the research group 'Historicizing Knowledge about Human Biological Diversity in the 20th Century' directed by Veronika Lipphardt. Well done!
Events and outreach officer
Many thanks to Francis Neary for his large contribution to the 'Generation to Reproduction' programme as events and outreach officer over the last two years, including taking the lead in curating the 'Books and Babies' exhibition and running two mini-seasons of films. Francis is going full-time on the Darwin Correspondence Project, so we will stay in touch. Taking over is Dr Shirlene Badger, an experienced sociologist trained at the Centre for Family Research. We are delighted that she is joining the team.
Wellcome Lecture
'Revisiting the Mendelian revolution', the Seventh Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine, was given by Staffan Müller-Wille (University of Exeter) on Thursday 19 January 2012. A paper by Dr Müller-Wille was discussed at a workshop on the same day.
Communicating Reproduction
A conference on Communicating Reproduction was held in the Department on 5–6 December 2011.
Reproduction workshop
The Cambridge Interdisciplinary Reproduction Forum held its seventh Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reproduction at CRASSH on 18 November 2011.
Debating Reproduction
'Debating Reproduction: IVF', our first debate on the history of scientific and ethical issues surrounding in vitro fertilisation, took place at Cambridge University Library on 20 October 2011 as part of the Festival of Ideas.
PhD studentships
We welcome Ramona Braun (Paris), who has been awarded a Wellcome Trust doctoral studentship to work on 'Laparoscopy in the control of human fertility: practice, instruments and knowledge transfer in British and German gynaecology, 1950–1980'. Congratulations!
A warm welcome also to Anne Hanley (Sydney), who is beginning a PhD in the Faculty of History on venereology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She is funded by the Cambridge Trusts and an Allen Cambridge Australia Scholarship.
Simon Forman anniversary
September 2011 marks the 400th anniversary of Simon Forman's death. To commemorate this anniversary, his life and writings are featured in 'The Astrologer's Tables', History Today, September 2011.
Lauren Kassell delivered a public lecture on 'Simon Forman: Astrology, Medicine and Quackery in Elizabethan England' on 27 September 2011 at the Museum of the History of Science, University of Oxford: a podcast is available.
Alchemy conference
A conference on 'Alchemy and Medicine from Antiquity to the Enlightenment' was held at Peterhouse on 22–24 September 2011.
The Casebooks Project
Lauren Kassell and the Casebooks Project team have launched a new website for The Casebooks Project: A Digital Edition of Simon Forman's and Richard Napier's Medical Records 1596–1634.
Books and Babies
Books and Babies: Communicating Reproduction, an exhibition supported by our Wellcome Trust strategic award, is on at the University Library until December. Curator Francis Neary said: 'The show is about how people have talked and written about reproduction. We're interested in the link between communication media and this intimate part of our lives that has also been a big public concern.'
BBC News has produced an audio slideshow of images from the exhibition.
Biology and the Public
The 12th Ischia Summer School on the History of Life Sciences was about 'Biology and the Public: Participation and Exclusion from the Renaissance to the Present Day'. Nick Hopwood co-organized the school, and Anne and Jim Secord were among the faculty.
Mellon fellowship
Many congratulations to Elma Brenner! With the completion of her Wellcome Research Fellowship, she is moving on to a Mellon Fellowship at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto for next academic year. She has also been awarded a one month Dr and Mrs James C. Caillouette Fellowship at the Huntington Library in San Marino.
Teaching associateship
Vanessa Heggie has been appointed to a two-year Teaching Associateship in History of Modern Medicine and Biology funded by our Wellcome Trust Strategic Award and departmental funds. Many congratulations!
Wellcome research fellowships
Congratulations to Elaine Leong and Hannah Newton, both of whom have been awarded Wellcome Trust research fellowships.
Elaine worked as an Teaching Associate in HPS in 2006–7, then moved to the University of Warwick where she's held a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. She will be returning to Cambridge in September 2011 to work on a project titled 'Reading and writing medicine in early modern England'.
Hannah joins HPS in October 2011, to work on a project entitled, '"Better by degrees": recovery from illness in early modern England, c.1580–1720'. She comes from the University of Exeter, where she undertook her PhD on children's medicine in early modern England.
Postdoctoral fellowship
Nick Whitfield, who is finishing a PhD in HPS, has been awarded a Government of Canada Postdoctoral Research Fellowship to spend a year from September in the Department of Social Studies of Medicine at McGill University in Montreal. Nick will use the archive of the Canadian communist surgeon Norman Bethune to research his development of a mobile blood transfusion unit during the Spanish Civil War and its role as a model for London's Emergency Blood Transfusion Service. Congratulations!
Workshops
A workshop on 'Reproduction and the Sciences in Cambridge' was held in the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience on 8 April 2011, and a workshop on 'Leprosy, Language and Identity in the Medieval World' was held at King's College on 12–13 April 2011.
Reproduction on Film
Our first 'Reproduction on Film' series, covering the topic of Reproductive Dystopias, took place during March 2011 at the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse. See James Poskett's blog entry for the Wellcome Trust about The Stepford Wives.
Singer Prize commendations
Congratulations to Jenny Bangham and Susannah Gibson on being awarded special commendations in the 2010 BSHS Singer Prize competition. Jenny's essay was on 'The Rhesus controversy: scientific notations, paper tools and their articulation' and Susannah's on 'Newtonian vegetables and perceptive plants'.
A History of British Sports Medicine
Congratulations to Vanessa Heggie on the publication of A History of British Sports Medicine by Manchester University Press. The book explores a series of transformations in 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.' Order now and beat the Olympic rush!
Wellcome Lecture
'Encountering Aristotle's Masterpiece, or how to find a racy book about reproduction', the Sixth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine, was given by Mary Fissell (Johns Hopkins University) on Thursday 20 January 2011.
Visiting scholar
We welcome Mary Fissell, from the Institute of the History of Medicine of the Johns Hopkins University, to the Department as a visiting scholar for seven months. Mary, who is supported by a Wellcome Trust research expenses grant, will give the Wellcome Lecture and lead several seminars and reading groups. These will draw on her work on early-modern generation, and especially her project on Aristotle's Masterpiece, the best-selling book on sex and reproduction, first published in 1684 and still in print in the early twentieth century.
Demography network
Congratulations to the Bremen-based network on 'Population, Knowledge, Order, Change: Demography and Politics in the Twentieth Century in Global Perspective' on receiving funding from the German Research Foundation. Our own Jesse Olszynko-Gryn is a network member.
Nobel Prize for Robert Edwards
Congratulations to Robert Edwards, the IVF pioneer, on the award of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2010. Martin Johnson, a former student of Professor Edwards, gave a lecture, 'Bob Edwards and IVF: The early days', at a symposium in his honour at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Watch the video here.
Reproduction workshop
The Cambridge Interdisciplinary Reproduction Forum held its sixth Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reproduction in the Department on Friday 12 November 2010.
Sex Before the Sexual Revolution
Congratulations to Simon Szreter and Kate Fisher on the publication of Sex Before the Sexual Revolution: Intimate Life in England, 1918–1963 by Cambridge University Press. The book is based on extensive oral histories and is rich in policy implications.
Population seminars at the Faculty of Classics
A series of seminars on 'Population' in the Ancient World was held on Mondays at 5.15pm in the Faculty of Classics from 11 October.
PhD studentship
The Generation to Reproduction programme has advertised a doctoral studentship. We also welcome applications from students wishing to be nominated, in any field of the history of medicine, for the Wellcome Trust's annual doctoral studentship competition, or for a quota master's award to take the MPhil in History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine.
Darwin in communication
The British Council's 'Darwin now' network between Peking University and the University of Cambridge co-sponsored a conference on 'Darwin in communication' in Beijing on 26–28 August. Haiyan Yang, Guosheng Wu and Jim Secord organized the event, at which Jim Moore, Tim Lewens, Nick Hopwood and Peter Bowler also spoke.
Seriality and scientific objects
Nick Hopwood, Simon Schaffer and Jim Secord have edited a special double issue of History of Science on 'Seriality and scientific objects in the nineteenth century'. This was prepared through workshops held in the Department between 2007 and 2009.
Funding human conception research
Martin Johnson and colleagues have a paper in Human Reproduction about why the MRC refused Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe funding for the research that eventually led to the birth of the first 'test-tube baby', Louise Brown. John Biggers (Harvard) wrote an editorial about the article, which was also featured in the Independent on Sunday, New Scientist and New Statesman. Along with a collection of some 25 interviews with leading players in the history of mammalian embryology and IVF, this substantial paper is the main output from a pilot project funded by the Wellcome Trust.
PhD studentships
Congratulations to Jesse Olszynko-Gryn, who has been awarded one of the PhD studentships attached to our Wellcome Trust strategic award for a project on history of pregnancy testing, and to Dmitriy Myelnikov, who has won a doctoral studentship in the Trust's annual competition to work on the history of genetically modified mice.
New appointment
Congratulations to Siân Pooley, who has been appointed Teaching Associate in the Modern Economic and Social History of Britain in the History Faculty. Funded by our strategic award, Dr Pooley will cover Simon Szreter's teaching in 2010–11, while he is on leave researching the effects of venereal diseases on the British fertility decline.
Historians of science and medicine appointed to the History Faculty
Congratulations to Sujit Sivasundaram and Emma Spary, both trained in HPS, on their appointments as lecturers in the Faculty of History. Two other newly-hired historians, Felicitas Becker and Alexandra Walsham, also have medical historical interests.
Research and Teaching Associate in Early Modern Medicine
Congratulations to Karin Ekholm, who has been appointed as a Research and Teaching Associate in Early Modern Medicine. The post runs for two years from January 2011, and is funded jointly from the Wellcome Trust Strategic Award on Generation to Reproduction and by the Newton Trust. Karin is completing a PhD at the University of Indiana on 'Generation and its Problems: William Harvey, Nathaniel Highmore and Their Contemporaries'. We are looking forward to having her join the Department.
Research network on Economies of Reproduction
A research network on Economies of Reproduction has been launched with the support of the German Research Foundation. It will promote 'Interdisciplinary Research on the Past and Present of Human Reproduction, 1750–2010'. We congratulate Florence Vienne and her colleagues and look forward to lively exchange. Sarah Franklin, Zeynep Gürtin-Broadbent and Nick Hopwood are already associated with the project. Nick gave the opening lecture at the inaugural workshop in Berlin on 7 May.
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship 2010–12: Science, Medicine and Society in Africa
Congratulations to Ruth Prince, who has been appointed as Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow jointly in the Centre of African Studies and the Department of History and Philosophy of Science. She will take up the position in October 2010 and will be based in the Centre of African Studies.
Wellcome research fellowship in Classics
Congratulations to David Leith for his award of a Wellcome research fellowship to work on 'The fragments of Asclepiades of Bithynia' in the Faculty of Classics from September 2010.
Wellcome research fellowship
Congratulations to Rohan Deb Roy, who has been awarded a Wellcome research fellowship, starting in January 2011, to work on 'Insects: British Empire, knowledge networks and the making of medical entomology, 1850–1920'.
Wellcome major grant for Casebooks Project
Congratulations to Lauren Kassell, who has been awarded a major grant from the Wellcome Trust for 'The Casebooks Project: Simon Forman and Richard Napier's Medical Records, 1596–1634'. The award consists of postdoctoral awards to John Young, Robert Ralley and Michael Hawkins, backed with equipment and other expenses, to assist in development and completion of the project. It is due to start 1 April 2010 and will last for 39 months.
Wellcome History newsletter
contains a feature article by Salim Al-Gailani on 'Teratology and the Clinic', a 10-page section about our Generation to Reproduction strategic award, a piece on Making Visible Embryos and a review by Richard Barnett.
Wellcome research fellowship
Congratulations to Jenny Rampling, who has been awarded a Wellcome research fellowship, starting in January 2010, to work on 'Medicine and the making of English alchemy, 1300–1700'.
Wellcome Lecture
'Divorcing sex and reproduction: the discussion of artificial insemination in Britain, 1918–1948', the Fifth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine, was given by Angus McLaren (University of Victoria) on Thursday 3 December 2009. Professor McLaren also led a workshop discussion on the same day.
Wellcome research fellowship
Congratulations to Vanessa Heggie, who has been awarded a Wellcome research fellowship with matching funding from the Isaac Newton Trust to work on 'Higher, colder, further: extreme physiology and endurance'.
Reproduction workshop
The Cambridge Interdisciplinary Reproduction Forum held its fifth Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reproduction on 30 October 2009 at CRASSH.
'Generation to Reproduction' strategic award: appointments
The first three appointments have been made to positions on our Wellcome strategic award in the history of medicine on the theme Generation to Reproduction.
- Dr Francis Neary joins the team as events and outreach officer. He is a historian of science with much outreach experience, most recently the successful 'Darwin the Geologist' exhibition at the Sedgwick Museum. Francis will work on the project on Tuesdays in Michaelmas Term, moving to three days a week in the new year.
- Salim Al-Gailani (HPS) will take up the two-year position of research associate in history of reproductive sciences when he has finished his PhD on obstetrics, teratology and antenatal care around 1900. He will work on the physiology and pathology of pregnancy in the mid-twentieth century.
- Jacqueline Cahif (University of Glasgow) will join us, when she has completed her PhD on prostitution and venereal diseases in mid-19th century Philadelphia, as a one-year research assistant in modern social and medical history, working with Simon Szreter (Faculty of History) on the history of VD in Britain in relation to the fertility decline, 1860–1940.
Congratulations to all!
Casebooks database online
The pilot study of The Casebooks Project: Simon Forman and Richard Napier's Medical Records, 1596–1634 is now complete. Lauren Kassell directed the project and Rob Ralley and Peter Forshaw worked as Research Associates. The pilot has generated a database of Simon Forman's casebooks, 1596–1603. We are now seeking funding for the full project. The pilot was supported by the Wellcome Trust.
Best article
Vanessa Heggie's article '"Only the British appear to be making a fuss": the science of success and the myth of amateurism at the Mexico Olympiad, 1968' in Sport In History (vol. 28, pp. 213–235) has jointly won that journal's award for best article of the year.
Strategic award
The University of Cambridge has secured major funding in the history of medicine from the Wellcome Trust. A strategic award of £785,000 for five years from 1 October 2009 will allow a cross-disciplinary group of researchers to take a concerted approach to the history of reproduction.
PhD studentship
Congratulations to Elisabeth Ritter (McGill University), who has been awarded a PhD studentship by the University's Centre for Trophoblast Research in the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience. Beginning in spring 2010, Martin Johnson and Nick Hopwood will supervise a project on the history of the placenta in the twentieth century.
New job
Congratulations to Laurence Totelin on her appointment to a lectureship in Ancient History at the School of History and Archaeology, Cardiff University, to start in September 2009.
Wellcome doctoral studentship
Congratulations to Jenny Bangham (HPS MPhil this year), who has been awarded a Wellcome doctoral studentship to work on 'Blood groups between transfusion testing, population genetics and anthropology: Arthur Mourant and human diversity in postwar Britain'.
Workshop
A workshop on 'Seriality and scientific objects in the age of capital and empire, 1848–1919' was held in the Department on 22–23 April 2009. Organized by Nick Hopwood, Simon Schaffer and Jim Secord, it was funded by the Wellcome Trust, the Max Planck Society's research network on 'History of scientific objects' and the Cambridge Victorian Studies Group.
Wellcome research fellowship
Congratulations to Natalie Kaoukji, who has been awarded a Wellcome research fellowship, starting in October 2009, to work on 'Reading and writing the prolongation of life'.
Workshop
A one-day international workshop on Ancient Greek and Roman Scientific, Medical and Technical Writing was held at Newnham College on 21 March.
Wellcome Lecture
'Making the invisible visible: the hidden history of families, schools, civil rights, media and science in the production of learning disabilities', the Fourth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine, was given by Rayna Rapp (New York University) on Thursday 4 December 2008. Professor Rapp also led a discussion earlier in the day.
Ischia Summer School
Nick Hopwood is a director of the Eleventh Ischia Summer School on the History of the Life Sciences, which takes place at Villa Dohrn, Ischia, Italy, from 28 June to 5 July 2009. The theme is 'From Generation to Reproduction: Knowledge and Techniques from the Renaissance to the Present Day'. The deadline for applications is 31 January 2009.
PhD studentship
The University's Centre for Trophoblast Research aims to fund up to three PhD studentships starting in October 2009, with Martin H. Johnson and Nick Hopwood offering a project on the history of the placenta since 1750.
Reproduction workshop
An Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reproduction was held at CRASSH on Friday 14 November 2008.
New pilot project
The Wellcome Trust has awarded Lauren Kassell funding for a pilot study for 'The Casebooks Project: An On-line Edition, Database and Image Archive of Simon Forman's and Richard Napier's Astrological Casebooks, 1596–1634'. The pilot project will database Forman's records (1596–1601) and develop an application for funding for the full project. Peter Forshaw and Rob Ralley are Senior Research Assistants on the project. The pilot will run from November to June.
New job
Congratulations to Tatjana Buklijas on gaining a research fellowship at the Liggins Institute in Auckland, New Zealand. We are very grateful to Tatjana for her major contribution to research, teaching, organization and outreach over the last several years, most recently through the Making Visible Embryos exhibition. We wish her well and look forward to her continuing association with the Department.
Online exhibition
The Department is pleased to announce the launch of an online exhibition, Making Visible Embryos. Designed and written by Tatjana Buklijas and Nick Hopwood, it was funded by our Wellcome enhancement award in the history of medicine.
Workshop
A workshop on 'Seriality and scientific objects in an age of revolution, 1780–1848' was held in the Department on 16–17 June 2008. Organized by Nick Hopwood, Simon Schaffer and Jim Secord, it was funded by the Wellcome Trust, the Max Planck Society's research network on 'History of scientific objects' and the Cambridge Victorian Studies Group.
New appointment
Congratulations to Richard Barnett, who has been appointed a Teaching Associate in the history of modern medicine and science. He will be joining us in September from the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL.
Wellcome research fellowship
Congratulations to Elma Brenner, who has been awarded a Wellcome research fellowship to work on 'Leprosy and society in Rouen, c. 1100–1500'. She will be joining us in October.
Workshop
A workshop on Ancient Greek and Roman medical and scientific writing was held at Newnham College on 15 March 2008.
Conference
'The "Missing Link": medicine in late antiquity and the early middle ages' was held at King's College on 8 March 2008.
Conference
'Secrets and knowledge: medicine, science and commerce, 1500–1800' was held at CRASSH on 15–16 February 2008.
Wellcome research fellowship
Congratulations to Hilary Powell, who has been awarded a Wellcome research fellowship to work on 'The hagiography of healing: miracle narratives as discourses on disease and disability'. She will be joining us from Oxford in July.
New pilot project
The Wellcome Trust has awarded Martin Johnson (Physiology, Development and Neuroscience), Nick Hopwood (HPS) and Sarah Franklin (LSE) support for a pilot project on mammalian embryology, and especially human IVF, in the UK since 1945.
Wellcome Lecture
'Proving a negative? How important was sexual abstinence during the fertility decline?', the Third Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine, was given by Simon Szreter (St John's College) on Thursday 29 November 2007.
Reproduction workshop
An Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reproduction was held at CRASSH on Friday 16 November 2007.
New appointment
Congratulations to Vanessa Heggie, who has been appointed a Mellon Fellow in the history of twentieth-century medicine in the Department for two years from 1 September. Vanessa joins us from the University of Manchester, where she has worked on the body around 1900 and is completing a history of sports medicine in twentieth-century Britain.
AHRC doctoral studentship
Congratulations to Nick Whitfield (HPS MPhil, 2006) on being awarded an AHRC doctoral studentship to work on 'Blood donation in London, 1930s–1970s'.
Workshop
Tatjana Buklijas and Maryon McDonald (Social Anthropology) co-organised a Leverhulme-funded workshop on 'Anatomy in context' at which Andrew Cunningham, Nick Hopwood and Ruth Richardson also spoke.
New job
Congratulations to Andreas Mayer on gaining a research fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin.
Conference
'Cases in Science, Medicine and the Law', a two-day conference, was held at CRASSH on 20–21 April 2007.
PhD workshop
A PhD workshop on medieval and early modern science and medicine was held on 23 March 2007. This workshop provided specialist doctoral training for PhD students from across the UK.
Reproduction workshop
The second of two Interdisciplinary Workshops on Reproduction was held on 2 March 2007.
College research fellowship
Ayesha Nathoo has been elected to a stipendiary research fellowship at Clare Hall. She is going to finish her book, Hearts Exposed: Transplants and the Media in 1960s Britain, and begin a project on Lennart Nilsson's fetal photographs. Congratulations!
Andrew Cunningham on Radio 4
Andrew Cunningham is the writer and presenter of The Making of Modern Medicine, a new 30-part series on BBC Radio 4, broadcast on weekdays at 3.45pm from Monday 5 February.
Temporalizing the great chain of being
'Temporalizing the great chain of being: a reappraisal after 70 years', a one-day workshop, was held on Tuesday 16 January 2007.
Wellcome Lecture
'Doctors, motherhood and insanity of childbirth in Victorian Britain', the Second Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine, was given by Hilary Marland (University of Warwick) on Thursday 23 November 2006. A paper by Professor Marland was discussed at a workshop earlier in the day.
Reproduction workshop
The first of two Interdisciplinary Workshops on Reproduction was held on 17 November 2006. The second workshop will be held on 2 March 2007.
New appointment
We welcome Rebecca Flemming, a historian of ancient Roman medicine, who has been appointed to a University Lectureship in Classics.
Conference
The conference 'Astrology and the body, 1100–1800' was held on 8–9 September 2006.
Directorship of the Darwin Correspondence Project
Jim Secord has accepted the position of international Director of the Darwin Correspondence Project in the University Library. The American Council of Learned Societies will fund a 20% secondment. This appointment greatly strengthens links between the Department and the five full-time and four part-time staff of the Darwin Project, which is publishing all correspondence to and from Charles Darwin.
New job
Congratulations to Emese Lafferton, who has been a Wellcome research fellow here, on her appointment to a three-year Lectureship in history and sociology of medicine in the Science Studies Unit, University of Edinburgh.
Pilkington Teaching Prize
Congratulations to Nick Hopwood on winning a Pilkington Teaching Prize. The University awards Pilkington Teaching Prizes each year to recognise excellence in teaching.
Wellcome doctoral studentships awarded
Congratulations to Salim Al-Gailani and Signe Nipper Nielsen on being awarded the Wellcome doctoral studentships attached to our enhancement award. Salim's project is on '"To give teratology a clinical aspect": Antenatal pathology and hygiene in Edinburgh around 1900' and Signe's on 'Early modern conceptions of generation in Denmark, 1648–1810'.
Book shortlisted
Lauren Kassell's Medicine and Magic in Elizabethan London (soon to be available in paperback) was shortlisted for the Royal Historical Society's Whitfield Book Prize for the best first book on British history.
New job
Congratulations to Soraya de Chadarevian, a senior research associate and affiliated lecturer in the Department for many years, who has been appointed Professor in the Department of History and the Center for Society and Genetics at UCLA. We thank Soraya for her immense contribution to our research and teaching, wish her all the best and look forward to her continued association with the Department.
Conference
The conference 'Science and medicine in the multinational empires of Central and Eastern Europe' was held on 23 June 2006.
New appointment
We warmly welcome Elaine Leong, a specialist in lay medicine in early modern England, who will be employed as a Wellcome-funded teaching associate while Lauren Kassell is on research leave in 2006–7.
Rausing Lecture
The Eleventh Annual Hans Rausing Lecture was given by Nelly Oudshoorn (University of Twente) on 'From victims to heroes: rethinking the role of users in technoscience', and included discussion of her studies of the male pill.
Conference on embryos
'Talking embryos: interdisciplinary conversations exploring the social roles of the embryo' was held at King's College, Cambridge and sponsored by CRASSH.
Wellcome Lecture
'Women's bodies in sixteenth-century medicine: using the classical tradition', the First Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine, was given by Professor Helen King (Reading University) on Thursday 1 December 2005. A paper by Professor King was discussed at a workshop earlier in the day.
Major award for Victorian Studies
With colleagues from Classics, History and English, Jim Secord has been awarded £1M by the Leverhulme Trust for research on 'Past versus present: abandoning the past in an age of progress'. The five-year project begins in October 2006 and will employ several research fellows. With Clare Pettitt, Jim will direct a strand, 'The anxiety of progress', which aims to reassess the impact of progressive, developmental views by exploring the relations between scientific writing and prose fiction, especially in the decades before 1859.
Wellcome research fellowship
Laurence Totelin has been awarded a Wellcome research fellowship, starting in January 2006, to work on 'What's in a name? Authorship and authority in the transmission of medicinal recipes from Hippocrates to Galen'. Congratulations!
Free School Lane Workshop on Reproduction
A one-day workshop on 'reproduction', with talks by members of the Departments of HPS and Social Anthropology and the Centre for Family Research, was held on Monday 17 October.
Ucam-histmed: a new history of medicine discussion list
Ucam-histmed, a new electronic list for people in the Cambridge area with interests in history of medicine, broadly understood, was launched on 3 October 2005. The list will carry announcements of events, professional opportunities and conversations about matters of common interest in research, teaching and preservation. The aim is to improve communication among medical historians in the various departments of the University of Cambridge and beyond.
Wellcome studentships available
The Department invites applications for two history of medicine prize studentships funded by a five-year enhancement award in history of medicine. We seek outstanding candidates whose doctoral research would fall in the field 'From generation to reproduction', i.e. who would investigate some aspect of how, since 1500, our world of reproductive practices and controversy was created.
We also invite applications from candidates with interests in all areas of history of medicine who would like to be nominated for the Wellcome Trust's annual master's award and doctoral studentship competitions.
Wellcome doctoral studentships awarded
Congratulations to Leon Rocha (HPS) and Bonnie Evans (who joins us from Oxford) on gaining doctoral studentships in the Trust's annual competition. Leon's project is entitled 'Zhang Jingsheng's utopian project', and Bonnie's project is 'A history of psychotherapeutic practice and regulation in London, 1945–2005'.
Wellcome research fellowship
Rob Ralley has been awarded a three-year Wellcome research fellowship to work on 'Medical times in England, 1450–1550'. Congratulations!
New seminar series
'From generation to reproduction' is a new series of seminars, funded by the Wellcome Trust. The first talks were given in Easter Term 2005 by Katharine Park, Martin Richards, Barbara Duden and Helga Satzinger. The next are scheduled for the first four Tuesdays in Lent Term 2006.
Workshop
'Between the farm and the clinic: agriculture and reproductive technology in the twentieth century', a one-day workshop funded by the Wellcome Trust, was held on 29 April.
American Association for the History of Medicine
Tatjana Buklijas, Ayesha Nathoo and Nick Hopwood spoke at the American Association for the History of Medicine's annual meeting in Birmingham, Alabama on 7–10 April.
New book
Medicine and Magic in Elizabethan London – Simon Forman: Astrologer, Alchemist, and Physician by Lauren Kassell was published in April 2005 by Clarendon Press.
Wellcome research fellowship
Tatjana Buklijas has been awarded a Wellcome research fellowship (2005–8) to work on 'The politics of anatomy in Vienna, 1914–1945'. Congratulations!
Wellcome project grant
Andrew Cunningham has been awarded a Wellcome project grant to work on 'The career of Aristotelian anatomy: Aristotle, Fabrici, Harvey'. Congratulations!
Wellcome enhancement award doctoral studentships
The Department invites applications for two history of medicine prize studentships funded by a five-year enhancement award in history of medicine. We seek outstanding candidates whose doctoral research would fall in the field 'From generation to reproduction', i.e. who would investigate some aspect of how, since 1500, our world of reproductive practices and controversy was created.
We also invite applications from candidates with interests in all areas of history of medicine who would like to be nominated for the Wellcome Trust's annual master's award and doctoral studentship competitions.
History of medicine enhanced
The Department of History and Philosophy of Science has secured core funding in the history of medicine from the Wellcome Trust. The five-year enhancement award recognizes the Department's re-establishment as a centre of undergraduate teaching, postgraduate training and postdoctoral research in medical history.
Funding for studentships, research leave, a website, seminars, workshops and conferences has been awarded to Nick Hopwood (history of modern medicine and biology), John Forrester (history and philosophy of psychoanalysis and psychiatry), Lauren Kassell (early modern medicine), Jim Secord (history of life sciences) and Nick Jardine (history of natural history and historiography of medicine).
The grant will strengthen the distinctively interdisciplinary medical history programme of the largest HPS department in the UK. It will be used specifically to build expertise in the area 'From generation to reproduction', within which the award-holders will intensify efforts to show how, since 1500, our world of reproductive practices and controversy was created.
A major public-engagement activity will be a website on 'Making the visible embryo' to be designed by Tatjana Buklijas.
