Modern Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

Minor Subject 114 in Part II Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS)
Paper 13_2 in the BBS Major Subject History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine

Paper manager: Rosanna Dent (Michaelmas); Nick Hopwood (Lent & Easter)

Overview

Lectures are held in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science.

Michaelmas Term

  • Science in the Making of Modern Medicine
    Salim Al-Gailani (8)
    Mon 12noon (weeks 1–4), Tue 2pm (weeks 1–4)
  • Medicine, Race and Ethnicity
    Rosanna Dent (4)
    Mon 12noon (weeks 5–6), Tue 2pm (weeks 5–6)

Lent Term

  • Science and Medicine since World War I
    Nick Hopwood (8)
    Mon 12noon (weeks 1–4), Tue 2pm (weeks 1–4)
  • Histories of International and Global Health
    Rosanna Dent (4)
    Mon 12noon (weeks 7–8), Tue 2pm (weeks 7–8)

Introduction

Born in hospitals, vaccinated, X-rayed, taking antibiotics, receiving transplants – medicine sets the parameters of our lives and provides one of the most important fields of action for science. We tend to take this for granted, but it is a recent innovation. These courses are about how, and with what consequences, a new, scientific medicine was made for the modern world.

Our focus is on western Europe and the United States, their empires and former colonies, because the medicine made here diverged from other medical systems to become internationally dominant – though frequently contested and often competed against.

Two longer lecture courses survey the roles of science in the 19th-century creation of modern medical institutions, professionals and practices, and in the 20th-century transformation of medicine into a major object of economic, political and ethical concern. Two shorter courses focus on global and international health and on medicine, race and ethnicity respectively.

Aims and learning outcomes

  • to acquaint students with fundamental issues in historical writing on medicine and allied sciences since 1750;
  • to provide students with an understanding of the principal changes that created the medical and biomedical institutions, professionals and practices of the modern world;
  • to introduce students to the processes through which medicine was transformed into a major object of economic, political and ethical concern; and
  • to encourage students to explore major themes in the historical relations between the sciences and modern medicine.

Lectures

Science in the Making of Modern Medicine

Salim Al-Gailani (8 lectures, Michaelmas Term)

This course outlines the roles of the sciences in the making of modern medicine from the French Revolution to World War I. We explore the creation in the long 19th century of new institutions, especially hospitals and laboratories, and of new ways of understanding and treating disease, including through pathological anatomy, germ theories, vaccines and x-rays. We investigate how relations between doctors, individual patients and general publics changed, and explore the role of medicine in managing the health of populations.

Medicine, Race and Ethnicity

Rosanna Dent (4 lectures, Michaelmas Term)

This course investigates scientific and medical constructions of race and ethnicity in the 19th and 20th centuries. Lectures and readings will address the development of racial categories and their implications for biomedical research and therapies, the role of race in medicine under conditions of slavery and colonialism, and the lasting social and political implications of these historical processes.

Science and Medicine since World War I

Nick Hopwood (8 lectures, Lent Term)

Although our medicine had in its essential features been made by World War I, only in the 20th century did it become a major economic and political concern, and a profession with far-reaching authority in the management and even definition of human life. Highlighting the turning points of World War II and the crisis of the 1970s, this course explores the roles of science in medicine and of medicine in science. We cover the invention of medical research and the 'biomedical complex', insulin and penicillin, the oral contraceptive pill and in vitro fertilisation, as well as critiques of medical science.

Histories of International and Global Health

Rosanna Dent (4 lectures, Lent Term)

This course introduces the histories of current approaches to global health. Beginning with colonial origins in tropical medicine, topics include the rise of international health organisations, the tensions of developmentalist and decolonising approaches, and the reconfiguration of global health in the wake of HIV/AIDS. We will examine the contradictions and productive potential of humanitarianism, biosecurity, solidarity-based community health and targeted technological interventions.

Preliminary reading