History of Pre-Modern Medicine Seminar Series, 2012-13

A new academic seminar series organised by a group of historians of medicine based at London universities and hosted by the Wellcome Library will start to meet in 2012-13.

The series will be focused on pre-modern medicine, which we take to cover European and non-European history before the 20th century (antiquity, medieval and early modern history, some elements of 19th-century medicine). The seminars are open to all.

Programme for 2012-13

2012

20 November - Jonathan Barry & Peter Elmer (both University of Exeter)
Understanding Medical Practice in Early Modern England: biography and prosopography

4 December - Sam Cohn (University of Glasgow)
Plague and ‘Syphilis’ in Early Modern Europe: the Rise of Cultural Toxins

2013

22 January - Lisa Smith (University of Saskatchewan)
Fertility Troubles and Domestic Medical Knowledge in Eighteenth-Century France and England

5 February - Alun Withey (University of Exeter)
Politeness and Pogonotomy: Shaving and Masculinity in Georgian Britain

19 February - Helen King (Open University)
Agnodice’s First Patient: Gendering Childbirth in Antiquity and Early Modern Europe

5 March - Silvia de Renzi (Open University)
Hippocrates on the Tiber: Airs and Diseases in the Making of Baroque Rome

All seminars will take place in the Wellcome Library, 2nd floor, 183 Euston Road, NW1 2BE. Please deposit bags and coats in the ground floor cloakroom and meet in the 2nd floor foyer. Doors at 6pm prompt, seminars will start at 6.15.

Organising Committee: Elma Brenner (Wellcome Library), Sandra Cavallo (RHUL), John Henderson (BirkbeckUL) Colin Jones (QMUL, convenor), William MacLehose (UCL), Anna Maerker (KCL). Christelle Rabier (LSE), Patrick Wallis (LSE), Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim (Goldsmiths).

Enquiries to Ross MacFarlane (Wellcome Library: R.MacFarlane@wellcome.ac.uk ) or Prof. Colin Jones (Queen Mary University of London: c.d.h.jones@qmul.ac.uk).

Image: Anatomical Theatre in Leiden from Les delices de Leide, une des célèbres villes de l'Europe, Leiden: P. van der Aa, 1712.