lundi 30 novembre 2015

Histoire des liens entre santé et environnement

Santé et environnement : Parcours et constructions historiques 

Colloque 

9 et 10 décembre 2015

Archives nationales
59 rue Guynemer
93383 Pierrefitte-sur-Seine
Métro ligne 13,
station Saint-Denis–Université


Notre société bruit de signaux inquiétants et parfois contradictoires : des maladies (grippe aviaire, SRAS, MERS, virus Ebola) semblent émerger de la faune sauvage ; l’air, l’eau, l’alimentation paraissent porteurs de polluants de plus en plus nombreux. Ailleurs, on cherche dans les loisirs verts à renouer avec une nature salvatrice et l’on est attiré par des médicaments ou une alimentation naturels. Pourtant, l’établissement du lien entre santé et environnement ne va pas de soi : il relève d’un processus complexe et changeant  au fil du temps ; il est le fait d’acteurs variés agissant dans des univers intellectuels et culturels disparates ; il est souvent le fruit de connaissances contradictoires ; il suscite, enfin, des prises de décisions reposant apparemment sur des données rationnelles qui reflètent des convictions qui le sont bien moins. Le lien entre santé et environnement soulève de nombreuses questions comme les normes, la constitution des connaissances, la place de l’expertise, le rôle des groupes de pression, la difficile prise en compte de la complexité, etc. À l’heure où les sciences humaines et sociales se tournent de plus en plus vers les questions de santé et d’environnement, ce colloque propose de faire état des recherches contemporaines en la matière. Au-delà d’un simple jeu d’érudition, cette manifestation souhaite contribuer à une meilleure connaissance de l’histoire du lien entre santé et environnement, sa construction, sa légitimation, notamment en offrant une réflexion sur les mécanismes à l’oeuvre (sociaux, culturels, scientifiques).

Mercredi 9 décembre
9 h 00 Accueil des participants
9 h 45- Ouverture
10 h 00 par Mme Patricia Blanc, directrice générale de la prévention des risques, ministère de l’Écologie, du développement durable et de l’énergie

10 h 00-12 h 30 Conférences introductives
 Président de séance : Gabriel Gachelin, SPHERE–CNRS-Paris I-Paris Diderot

À quoi sert l’histoire pour comprendre la relation contemporaine entre santé et environnement : l’exemple des pesticides
Valérie Chansigaud, SPHERE-CNRS-Paris I-Paris Diderot-UMR 7219

Aux sources de la charte de l’environnement de 2004 : l’émergence des enjeux sanitaires dans les archives ministérielles
Marie Chouleur, Bibliothèque nationale de France

Quels soubassements épistémologiques entre corps et environnement ?
Anne-Lyse Chabert, SPHERE-CNRS-Paris I-Paris Diderot-UMR 7219

La santé appliquée aux non-humains : approche éthique ou finaliste ?
Aline Treillard, doctorante, OMIJ-CRIDEAU-université de Limoges

Pause déjeuner


14 h 00-15 h 30  Penser et théoriser le milieu
 Président de séance : Thomas Le Roux, Centre de recherches historiques- CNRS/EHESS

Les hygiénistes militaires et l’environnement, de la Grande Guerre aux années 1920
Anne Rasmussen, Université de Strasbourg/SAGE-UMR 7363

Une nature malade de l’homme : cheminements idéologiques et pragmatiques de naturalistes français vers une protection intégrale et éthique du sauvage (xixe-xxe siècle)
par Rémi Luglia, Centre de recherche d’histoire quantitative-CNRS/université de Caen Basse-Normandie-UMR 6583

Interroger le milieu de la maladie. Géographie médicale et écologie humaine chez Max Sorre (1880-1962)
Dylan Simon, doctorant, équipe Épistémologie et histoire de la géographie-université Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne-UMR 8504 Géographie-cités

Pause

15 h 45- 16 h 45 L’apport original des archives
 Présidente de séance : Geneviève Profit, Archives nationales

Du laboratoire aux archives : les sources de l’interaction entre environnement et santé dans la recherche médicale
Hélène Chambefort et Margot Georges, Service des archives de l’Inserm

Les collections anatomiques comme conservatoire des relations homme/environnement : l’exemple
du Musée Dupuytren (Paris)
Nadia Benmoussa, A. Augias, J.-D. Rebibo, F. Bergheimer, P. Josset, P. Conan, A.-L. Muller, Ph. Charlier, Équipe d’anthropologie médicale et médico-légale, UVSQ,

17 h 00- 18 h 30 Quelles relations entre santé, environnement et dérèglement climatique ?
Table ronde animée par William Dab, professeur titulaire de la chaire d’hygiène et sécurité et responsable des enseignements de sécurité sanitaire au CNAM, ancien directeur général de la Santé,
Wolfgang Cramer, directeur scientifique de l'Institut méditerranéen de biodiversité et d'écologie (IMBE),
Jean-François Toussaint, professeur de physiologie à l’université Paris-Descartes, président du groupe de travail adaptation-prospective du Haut Conseil de santé publique,
Grégory Quenet, Centre d’histoire culturelle des sociétés contemporaine, UVSQ
Dr Jean-Nicolas Ormsby, directeur adjoint de l'évaluation des risques à l'ANSES.

Les médias se font l’écho de nombreuses menaces et de nombreuses personnes semblent convaincues du futur rôle du réchauffement climatique dans les risques de détérioration de la santé humaine comme de celle des milieux où nous vivons.Cette table ronde souhaite éclairer quelques questions importantes.


Jeudi 10 décembre
9 h 30- 11 h 00 Constructions scientifiques de la relation santé et environnement
Présidente de séance : par Valérie Chansigaud, SPHERE-CNRS-Paris I-Paris Diderot-UMR 7219

Les limites de la climatologie médicale de 1780 à 1787 (Dunbar, Ramel, Retz)
Muriel Collart et Daniel Droixhe, Société wallonne d’étude du dix-huitième siècle

La relation environnement/santé face à un nouveau contexte scientifique en Espagne entre 1880 et 1940
Celia Miralles Buil, LARHRA-UMR 5190-Institut des sciences de l’homme

Constructions empiriques des savoirs environnementaux dans le contrôle des maladies épidémiques
Gabriel Gachelin, SPHERE-UMR 7219-CNRS-Paris I-Paris Diderot

Pause

11 h 15- 12 h 45 Mobilisations citoyennes
 Président de séance : Jérôme Fromageau, historien du droit de l’environnement – université Paris XI

Santé, environnement et mouvements sociaux : Californie, années 1990-2000
Éric Doidy, Cesaer, INRA-UMR 1041

« Ni partir, ni mourir, mais vivre ici ». Les mobilisations contre les pollutions dans la zone industrialo-portuaire de Fos-sur-mer et le gouvernement des sociétés soumises aux risques toxiques
Christelle Gramaglia, G-EAU, IRSTEA Montpellier, C. Barthélémy, LPED, université Aix-Marseille,
P. Chamaret, IECP, Fos-sur-Mer, V. Granier, IECP, Fos-sur-Mer, X. Daumalin, TELEMME, université Aix-Marseille, Marine Canavese, doctorante en sociologie ANR villes durables-projet JASSUR, Nathalie Berthier, Marie Grenet, Élisabeth Rémy

Pause déjeuner

14 h 00-15 h 30 Pollutions, normes et action publique
Président de séance : Stéphane Frioux, LARHRA – université Lumière Lyon 2

L’irruption du bruit comme facteur de dégradation de l’environnement et problème de santé : le cas des transports aériens dans la seconde moitié du xxe siècle et les réponses apportées par les services de l’aviation civile
David Berthout, Archives nationales

Contributions sociohistoriques à l’analyse des controverses dans les sites pollués pour adapter l’intervention de santé publique à la demande sociale
Clémence Pinel, PCPHS, King’s College London, C. Gramaglia, G-EAU, IRSTEA Montpellier, F. Kermarec et C. Daniau, InVS, Saint-Maurice,

Savoirs, normes et action publique à l’épreuve de la pollution par les PCB (polychlorobiphényles). Une analyse socio-historique sur le long terme (France, 1970-2010)
Aurélien Féron, doctorant EHESS-CERMES3

Pause

15 h 45- 17 h 15 La nature, source de bonne santé ?
Président de séance : Rémi Luglia, Centre de recherche d’histoire quantitative-CNRS/université de Caen Basse-Normandie-UMR 6583

La montagne, source de bonne santé : la mise en valeur et la protection d’une ressource imaginaire
(Pyrénées centrales, (xixe-xxe siècle)
Steve Hagimont, doctorant, FRAMESPA-UMR 5136-université de Toulouse−Jean-Jaurès

Un océan pollué mais aussi source de santé ? Les singulières thématiques de recherche du Centre d’études et de recherches d’océanographie médicale dans les années 1960-1970
Hervé Ferrière, EHST, Centre François-Viète et Nathalie Riou-Marquegnies

Le parc naturel de Chréa ou la fabrique du Français d’Algérie ?
Colette Zytnicki, université de Toulouse-Jean-Jaurès

17 h 30 Clôture du colloque


Contact :
ahpne.sante.environnement@gmail.com
Programme détaillé : www.ahpne.fr/spip.php?article323

Sexe, drogues et VIH en prison depuis 1980

Research Fellow at the Department of Social and Environmental Health Research

Call for applications

Salary: £37,106 to £42,139 per annum inclusive
Closing Date: Friday 11 December 2015
Interview Date: To be confirmed
Reference: VB-RF2

We are seeking to appoint a Research Fellow to work with Professor Virginia Berridge on a project on sex, drugs and HIV/AIDS in prison since the 1980s as part of Professor Hilary Marland and Dr Catherine Cox’s Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities Investigator Award on Prisoners Medical Care and Entitlement to Health in England and Ireland,1860 – 2000 http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/chm/research_teaching/research/prisoners/. The post is based in London at the Centre for History in Public Health http://history.lshtm.ac.uk/ in the Faculty of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

You will be expected to conduct research on the issues of sex, drugs and HIV as they have affected prison policy in England and Ireland since the 1980s. In addition, you will be expected to: organize a witness seminar on the subject; present research findings to conferences, seminars and workshops and the media; and write a range of outputs, including peer-reviewed journal articles and non-academic outputs for practitioners and communities. You will be required to have a PhD (or equivalent) in history, experience of conducting historical research, ideally in a health context, as well as proven ability to write up research findings for dissemination in a range of formats for different audiences including websites, reports and as peer reviewed publications. The candidate will have a proven ability in delivering research outputs to project deadlines, the ability to collaborate effectively as part of a team and excellent interpersonal and communication skills (oral and written).

The appointment will be full time, commencing January 2016 until December 2017. Salary will be on the Research Fellow Scale, (£37,106 - £42,139). Appointment will be subject to LSHTM terms and conditions, including membership of the Universities Superannuation Scheme, an annual leave allowance of 30 days pro rata plus 6 discretionary ‘Director’s Days’ and season ticket loan.

Applications should be made on-line via our website at http://jobs.lshtm.ac.uk. The reference for this post is VB-RF2. Applications should include a CV and the names and email contacts of two referees who can be contacted immediately if shortlisted. Any queries regarding the application process may be addressed to jobs@lshtm.ac.uk. For informal enquiries please contact Professor Virginia Berridge, Virginia.berridge@lshtm.ac.uk.

The supporting statement section should set out how your qualifications, experience and training meet each of the selection criteria. Please provide one or more paragraphs addressing each criterion. The supporting statement is an essential part of the selection process and thus a failure to provide this information will mean that the application will not be considered. An answer to any of the criteria such as “Please see attached CV” will not be considered acceptable.

Please note that if you are shortlisted and are unable to attend on the interview date it may not be possible to offer you an alternative date.

Further details: Job Description


dimanche 29 novembre 2015

La médecine britannique en Afrique de l'Ouest

Healing the African Body: British Medicine in West Africa, 1800-1860 

John Rankin

Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: University of Missouri (November 24, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0826220541
ISBN-13: 978-0826220547

This timely book explores the troubled intertwining of religion, medicine, empire, and race relations in the early nineteenth century. John Rankin analyzes the British use of medicine in West Africa as a tool to usher in a “softer” form of imperialism, considers how British colonial officials, missionaries, and doctors regarded Africans, and explores the impact of race classification on colonial constructs.

Rankin goes beyond contemporary medical theory, examining the practice of medicine in colonial Africa as Britons dealt with the challenges of providing health care to their civilian employees, African soldiers, and the increasing numbers of freed slaves in the general population, even while the imperialists themselves were threatened by a lack of British doctors and western medicines. As Rankin writes, “The medical system sought to not only heal Africans but to ‘uplift’ them and make them more amenable to colonial control . . . Colonialism starts in the mind and can be pushed on the other solely through ideological pressure.”

Médecine, humanités et sciences sociales

The 8th Annual Medicine and the Humanities and Social Sciences Conference

Call for Papers

Sam Houston State University
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Huntsville, Texas

March 17-18, 2016


The College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Sam Houston State University invites abstracts for paper and poster presentations on topics related to the intersections between medicine, the humanities, and the social sciences. This interdisciplinary conference, which is open to contributions from all relevant fields, includes plenary sessions, scholarly panels, roundtables with community representatives and stakeholders, a full poster exhibition, student sessions, and a student poster competition. 

The aims of the conference are to promote interdisciplinary discussion around contemporary health challenges and to develop networks for future research. Social and behavioral scientists, medical humanities scholars, healthcare professionals, and students interested in careers in healthcare are encouraged to participate in this important conference devoted to examining how social factors facilitate the health and well-being of children and adults across the global community. 

The conference will be held on the campus of Sam Houston State University on March 17-18, 2016. Sam Houston State is located in Huntsville, Texas, about an hour north of Houston’s Intercontinental Airport.

Conference sessions/topics may include but are not limited to
  • Community Health
  • Health Disparities
  • Health and the Environment
  • History of Medicine
  • Medicalization of Society
  • Medicine and the Arts and Literature
  • Medicine and Ethics
  • Medicine, Globalization, and New Infectious Diseases
  • Medicine, Health, and Society
  • Medicine and Public Policy
  • Medicine: Traditional/folkloric/alternative and Contemporary
  • Medicine and (World) Languages
  • Nutrition and Wellness
  • Political Determinants of Decision-Making in Medicine
  • Preparing Students for the New MCAT
  • Public Health and Prevention
  • The Obesity Epidemic

Oral paper presentations will be twenty minutes in length, with time for questions and discussion afterwards. 

Student researchers will also be able to participate in a poster competition. Students’ posters will be reviewed by the Poster Judging Panel and evaluated according to (1) quality and importance of the scientific or critical question; (2) content: design and methodology; and (3) oral explanation by author(s). In order to be considered for a poster prize, at least one author must be present during the designated poster review session to provide a brief explanation of the research or critical inquiry.

Please submit a paper or poster abstract of between 300 to 500 words with background, objectives, methods, results, and conclusion. Submissions should be received by December 31, 2015. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Abstract Review Committee and evaluated according to importance of the question, content design and methodology, and organization and clarity. Receipt of abstract submissions will be acknowledged via e-mail to the submitting author. After the review process is complete, the author will be notified regarding the acceptance or rejection of her or his abstract.

Participants must register for the conference by Friday, February 26, 2016, to be included in the official program. Information about registration will be sent to all interested parties.

Please send your abstract electronically to

Medicine and the Humanities and Social Sciences Conference
Abstract Review Committee
Care of Paul W. Child, Program Committee Chair: eng_pwc@shsu.edu

samedi 28 novembre 2015

Une brève histoire du vice au Canada

Une brève histoire du vice au Canada depuis 1500

Marcel Martel

Traductrice : Geneviève Deschamps

Presses de l'Université Laval
Discipline: Histoire
232 pages
29.95 $
ISBN : 978-2-7637-2523-9


Investir dans le vice peut être très lucratif. Pourtant, les individus et les fonds communs de placement ont généralement résisté à l’appât du gain et se sont montrés peu disposés à investir dans ce type d’action. Après tout, peut-on tirer une fierté de soutenir l’industrie du tabac, sachant que le produit qu’elle vend est mauvais pour la santé ? Et qu’en est-il des entreprises de jeux d’argent et de hasard ? N’ont-elles pas une responsabilité sociale envers les joueurs compulsifs qui perdent tellement d’argent qu’ils en viennent à considérer le suicide comme une option ?

Une brève histoire du vice au Canada depuis 1500 s’intéresse aux débats et aux réglementations qui ont influencé, pendant plus de 500 ans, les attitudes des Canadiens à l’égard de certains vices. Les premiers colons européens ont instauré un ordre moral chrétien régissant les comportements sexuels, les jeux d’argent et de hasard et la consommation d’alcool. Plus tard, certaines transgressions ont été considérées comme des problèmes de santé nécessitant un traitement. Ceux qui refusaient de considérer ces comportements comme des maladies affirmaient qu’ils faisaient partie de l’éventail normal des comportements humains.

Cette synthèse historique montre comment la régulation morale a évolué au fil du temps et comment elle a façonné la vie des Canadiens. Elle cherche à expliquer pourquoi certains comportements ont été ciblés pendant des périodes précises et pourquoi certains individus et groupes se sont sentis habilités à tenter de résoudre des problèmes sociaux collectifs. Avec, en toile de fond, l’évolution de l’État, l’accroissement de la participation citoyenne à la vie politique et l’usage de plus en plus fréquent des tribunaux par les activistes, l’auteur illustre la complexité des diverses formes de régulation sociale et de contrôle du vice.

Congrès des trois sociétés

Eighth Joint Meeting of the BSHS, CSHPS, and HSS

Call For Papers

22-25 June 2016, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

The eighth joint meeting of the British Society for the History of Science, the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science, and the History of Science Society will take place in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Previous successful meetings were in Philadelphia (2012), Oxford (2008), Halifax, Nova Scotia (2004), St Louis (2000), Edinburgh (1996), Toronto (1992), and Manchester (1988).

The theme of the meeting will be ‘Transitions.’ Although presenters are not confined to this theme, the Program Committee is seeking papers or sessions that reflect this theme and encourages participants to consider the broader scientific, scholarly and social implications associated with moments of scientific transition. Transitions might include such ideas as moving from one scientific meme to another, one locality to another or generational change.

The programme will include themed sessions, plenary lectures and panels. A typical presentation will be 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for questions, but special sessions such as round tables and panels will be accommodated.

The conference will take place at the University of Alberta. Founded in 1905, U of A is located in Edmonton, Canada’s most northern major city. Edmonton is known as the ‘Gateway to the North’ and is the capital of the province. It is a major economic and cultural hub, situated on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River. The conference will include education and outreach activities, a reception at the Art Gallery of Alberta and a Conference Dinner. Delegates can explore the vibrant arts scene, and there are many festivals in June, including the Edmonton International Jazz Festival. Accommodation will be available on campus and near campus.

The Programme Committee welcomes proposals for sessions or individual papers based around the conference theme from researchers at all stages of their careers. Participation is in no way limited to members of the three organising societies, but there will be a discount for members. Intending participants should also note that the usual HSS rules concerning presenting at successive conferences do not apply to this meeting.

The deadline for submitting a session or paper proposal is 4 December 2015.

Full details of how to submit your session or abstract can be found at: www.uab.ca/3societies

Enquiries concerning the program should be directed to: aede@ualberta.ca

Enquiries concerning the conference should be directed to: threesocieties2016@ualberta.ca

vendredi 27 novembre 2015

Dernier numéro d'History of Psychiatry

History of Psychiatry

December 2015; 26 (4)








Claude-Olivier Doron
Félix Voisin and the genesis of abnormals

J Cutting and M Musalek
The nature of delusion: psychologically explicable? psychologically inexplicable? philosophically explicable? Part 1

Pascal Le Maléfan and Andreas Sommer
Léon Marillier and the veridical hallucination in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century French psychology and psychopathology

Lara Rzesnitzek
‘A Berlin psychiatrist with an American passport’: Lothar Kalinowsky, electroconvulsive therapy and international exchange in the mid-twentieth century

Eitan Bronschtein
The multiaxial assessment and the DSM-III: a conceptual analysis

Roberta Passione
Epistemological issues in the history of Italian psychiatry: the contribution of Gaetano Perusini (1879–1915) 

Holger Steinberg
The creator of the term ‘anancasm’ was Hungarian: Guyla Donáth (1849–1944) 


Classic Text No. 104

SE Starkstein and GE Berrios
The ‘Preliminary Discourse’ to Methodical Nosology, by François Boissier de Sauvages (1772)

Book Reviews

Mathew Thomson
Book Review: Andrew Scull, Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity From the Bible to Freud, from the Madhouse to Modern Medicine

Yolana Pringle
Book Review: Leonard Smith, Insanity, Race and Colonialism: Managing Mental Disorder in the Post-Emancipation British Caribbean, 1838–1914

Lucas Richert
Book Review: Susan Lamb, Pathologist of the Mind: Adolf Meyer and the Origins of American Psychiatry

Chris Millard
Book Review: Elizabeth Lunbeck, The Americanization of Narcissism

Anne-Kathleen Tillack-Graf
Book Review: Thomas R. Müller, Wahn und Sinn. Patienten, Ärzte, Personal und Institutionen der Psychiatrie in Sachsen vom Mittelalter bis zum Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts

Sam Fellowes
Book Review: Peter Zachar, Drozdstoj St. Stoyanov, Massimiliano Aragona and Assen Jablensky, Alternative Perspectives on Psychiatric Validation: DSM, ICD, RDoC, and Beyond

Research on the history of psychiatry

Dissertation Abstracts 

Letter to the Editor

Humberto Casarotti
Henri Ey’s Études Psychiatriques, Traité des Hallucinations and La Conscience, 2nd edn: the history of the Spanish translations 

Les objets de la psychiatrie

Objects of psychiatry: Between thing-making, reification & personhood

Call for Papers

Zurich, June 8 – 11, 2016

Psychiatry is situated at the interface between the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. The ensuing hybrid nature invites inter- and transdisciplinary research approaches. This conference aims to give a platform to such approaches asking the central question: Who or what is, becomes or constitutes psychiatry’s object?

Taking its starting point from the study of concrete research objects – case notes, images, films and texts, diagnostic concepts and labels, research instruments and therapeutic procedures, doctors and patients – it invites reflection on how objects are related to subjects, selves and personhood. Can this relationship be conceptualized along the lines of the traditional Western dichotomy between object and subject or does it have to be fundamentally re-thought? And is it linked to other classical dichotomies e.g. the one between matter and meaning? Is there a role for agents as object-, subject-, self- or thing-makers?
OBJECTS OF PSYCHIATRY takes up current debates within psychiatry namely the debate about the reification of psychiatric diagnoses like “schizophrenia”, but also deliberations about autonomy, human rights and participation. At the same time, it considers how the humanities situate psychiatric objects in wider societal contexts and discourses and bring into focus their historical genesis and configuration.
Drawing together heterogeneous traditions of thought and methods, it invites participants to build – and to reflect on – transdisciplinary bridges between sciences and humanities as well as between theory and practice. Contributions are invited, but not limited to, perspectives from psychiatry, philosophy, psychology, linguistics, history, history of science and medicine, neurosciences, as well as cultural, literary, film & visual studies. Medical Humanities
approaches are welcome.

International Conference organised by the interdisciplinary research project: “Schizophrenia”: Reception, semantic shift, and criticism of a concept in the 20th century. University of Zurich, Psychiatric Hospital Zurich University. http://www.schizophrenie.uzh.ch.

Proposals (max. 250 words) for 20-minute papers should be sent to Veronika Rall, veronika.rall@fiwi.uzh.ch, Deadline: Dec. 1, 2015.

jeudi 26 novembre 2015

Histoire de la pilosité faciale

Framing the Face. New perspectives on the history of facial hair


Conference

Saturday 28th November,

Friends Meeting House, Euston Road, London NW1

Over the past five centuries, facial hair has been central to debates about masculinity. Over time, changing views of masculinity, self-fashioning, the body, gender, sexuality and culture have all strongly influenced men’s decisions to wear, or not wear, facial hair. For British Tudor men, beards were a symbol of sexual maturity and prowess. Throughout the early modern period, debates also raged about the place of facial hair within a humoural medical framework. The eighteenth century, by contrast, saw beards as unrefined and uncouth; clean-shaven faces reflected enlightened values of neatness and elegance, and razors were linked to new technologies. Victorians conceived of facial hair in terms of the natural primacy of men, and new models of hirsute manliness. All manner of other factors from religion to celebrity culture have intervened to shape decisions about facial hair and shaving. 

And yet, despite a recent growth in interest in the subject, we still know little about the significance, context and meanings of beards and moustaches through time, or of its relationship to important factors such as medicine and medical practice, technology and shifting models of masculinity. To promote research on this issue we will be hosting a one-day workshop in London. 

For further information please contact the organisers: Dr Alun Withey, University of Exeter
A.Withey@exeter.ac.ukDr Jennifer Evans, University of Hertfordshire J.evans5@herts.ac.uk

9:30-10:00 Registration

10:00-11:30 Panel One: Representations of Facial Hair in Popular Culture/Media

Ellie Rycroft Facial Hair and Liminal Masculinities on the Early Modern Stage

Het Phillips The Moustache as Masculinity’s Moral Signifier in Screen Media

Helen Casey Poirot’s Moustache: The cultural language of facial hair in fictional characters.


11:30-12:00 Break


12:00-13:00 Panel Two: Self-fashioning and Identity

Hanna Weibye,  Speaking through his beard: facial hair as self­narrative in the case of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778­1852)

Maria Victoria Alonso Beardless young men? Some notes on the visual representation of masculinity in Nineteenth-century Spanish young artists.

13:00-14:00 Lunch


14:00-15:30 Panel Three: External influences on facial hair fashion

John Gagné Italian Beards and the Horizons of Violence around 1500

Justin Bengry Consuming Men: Masculinities and Shaving Advertisements

Christopher Oldstone-Moore Title (TBC)

15:30-16:00 Break

16:00-17:00 Plenary
Dr Margaret Pelling ‘The head and front of my offending’: Barbers and self-presentation in early modern England

La dispersion des maladies dans l'océan indien

Disease Dispersion and Impact in the Indian Ocean World

Call for communications

International Conference
Indian Ocean World Centre (IOWC), McGill University, Canada
23-24 September 2016

organised by the IOWC & Max Planck Fellow Group "Connectivity in Motion: Port Cities of the Indian Ocean" of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, Germany

This conference focuses on the causes, means of dispersal, geographical extent and impact of human diseases in the Indian Ocean World (IOW), from early times to the present day. The IOW, a macro-region running from Africa through the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia to the Far East, comprises both continental (Asia and Africa) and maritime (Indian Ocean, China seas, Indonesian Sea) spaces. The disease histories of these regions have been affected by a number of both human and environmental factors, including war, land distribution, water storage and distribution, deforestation, migration, volcanism, cyclones, and climate change.

We welcome papers that explore the dispersion and impact of human diseases in and across the IOW in any time period, and in any region. Papers which address theoretical and methodological questions about how to study “travelling diseases” and/or epidemiological issues, on the basis of their empirical data, are also welcome. We particularly welcome interdisciplinary studies that focus on societies indigenous to the IOW, and on women and children.

The conference fee is $70 for non-students, and $35 for students. Conference participants will be required to pay for their own travel and accommodation, but refreshments, lunch and a conference dinner will be provided.

Those interested should send a title and short (1-2 paragraph) abstract to iowc@mcgill.ca, by 15 December 2015. Prospective participants will be informed if their paper has been accepted by 1 March 2015.

Contact Info: 
Prof. Gwyn Campbell
Indian Ocean World Centre, McGill University
Contact Email: 
iowc@mcgill.ca

mercredi 25 novembre 2015

Cinquante ans de psychiatrie à l’Université de Montréal

Cinquante ans de psychiatrie à l’Université de Montréal (1965-2015)


Santé mentale au Québec -Volume 40, numéro 2, été 2015

Sous la direction de Emmanuel Stip

Hugues Cormier
Éditorial

Emmanuel Stip
Présentation. Histoire de la psychiatrie à l’Université de Montréal : passages et impasses

Pierre Doucet
Devenir psychiatre au Québec dans les années 1950-1960

Isabelle Perreault
La folie, c’est de n’avoir pas d’autres normes que soi-même : la psychiatrie au cours de l’après-guerre au Québec

Hubert Wallot
Quel est l’avenir du Centre hospitalier Louis-H. Lafontaine ?

Hubert Wallot
De l’École Gamelin à Rivière-des-Prairies : de la cassure du château à sa restauration ?

Wilfrid Reid et Arthur Amyot
Le rôle des psychanalystes dans l’histoire du Département de psychiatrie de l’Université de Montréal

Ouanessa Younsi
Histoire vécue, histoire transmise : regards de psychiatres sur l’évolution du Département de psychiatrie de l’Université de Montréal

Alain Lesage
50 ans de service public pour les politiques et l’organisation de services de psychiatrie communautaire au Québec : partie I

Alain Lesage
50 ans de service public pour les politiques et l’organisation des services de psychiatrie communautaire au Québec : partie II (2003-2015 et suite)

Pierre Lalonde
La psychiatrie au Québec : autrefois/maintenant

François Borgeat et Maurice Dongier
Le changement de nos valeurs et certitudes au long de ce demi-siècle

Laurent Mottron
Considérations sur la place de la psychiatrie en autisme, à partir de l’histoire récente des rôles professionnels vis-à-vis de l’autisme au Québec

Martin Gignac, Bernard Boileau, Charles Nagy Bedwani, Vicenzo DiNicola, Yvon Gauthier, Alain Lévesque et Louis Morissette
La croisée des chemins, 50 ans de soins aux enfants

Isabelle Paquette, Arthur Amyot et Geneviève Létourneau
L’éclosion de la gérontopsychiatrie à l’Université de Montréal, une histoire à découvrir

Anne-Marie Bouchard, Louis Morissette et Fédéric Millaud
L’Institut Philippe Pinel et le Département de psychiatrie de l’Université de Montréal : des parcours intriqués

Jacques Montplaisir
La médecine du sommeil : 1965-2015

Roger Godbout
Le développement d’une approche clinique pour les troubles du sommeil en pédopsychiatrie

Sonia Lupien
L’histoire de la science du stress : de Hans Selye à la découverte des anti-inflammatoires

Céline Lamontagne et Lorraine Palardy
Les Impatients : un parfum de santé

Alexis Thibault
Cinquante ans de résidence : nécessité et pertinence de l’ARPUM

Histoire des neurosciences

De l'histoire des neurosciences à la neuropsychiatrie du futur

Colloque

Organisé dans le cadre d'une collaboration entre le Comité d'Histoire de la FENS et l'ICM
3-4 décembre 23015

Amphithéâtre de l'ICM, Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris

Inscription gratuite mais obligatoire: nicole.fourn@icm-institute.org



Jeudi 3 décembre 2015

14h Accueil café

I. Introduction - Les concepts : de l’histoire à l’innovation (prés. séance Laura Bossi)

14h30 Bienvenue Yves Agid (ICM) et Lorenzo Lorusso (FENS)

14h40 Le philosophe : À quoi sert l'histoire des sciences? Claude Debru

15h10 L’historien : Histoire des neurosciences ou épistémologie historique? Jean-Gaël Barbara

15h40 Le scientifique : Une histoire pour le futur ? Yves Agid

16h10 Discussion

16h30 Pause café


II. Figures de l'histoire des neurosciences en France (prés. séance Claude Debru)

16h45 Jean Martin Charcot hier et aujourd'hui Christopher Goetz

17h15 Jules et Augusta Dejerine, les explorateurs du cerveau Michel Fardeau

17h45 Les neurologues, torpilleurs pendant la Grande guerre Jacques Poirier

18h10 Discussion


18h30 Cocktail


Vendredi 4 décembre 2015

08h30 Accueil café

III. Les illustrations par discipline : de l’histoire à l’innovation

a. La neurophysiologie (prés. séance Jean-Claude Dupont)

09h00 Le neurone Michel Imbert

09h20 La cellule gliale Yves Agid

09h40 L'école de Alfred Fessard Jean-Gaël Barbara

10h00 Discussion


10h20 Pause-café


b. Les cognisciences (prés. séance Michel Imbert)

10h35 L’histoire des cognisciences François Clarac

11h05 Biologie de la lecture: 150 ans d'histoire Laurent Cohen

11h30 Alan Turing, visionnaire de l'intelligence artificielle Jean-Gabriel Ganascia


11h50 Discussion


c. La psychiatrie (prés. séance Anne Fagot -Largeault)

12h00 Notes d'histoire de la psychiatrie Jean-Pierre Olié

12h30 La schizophrénie Raphael Gaillard


12h50 Pause déjeuner


13h20 La dépression Philippe Fossati

13h40 La recherche en psychiatrie Roland Jouvent

14h00 Discussion


d. La neuro-dégénérescence (prés. séance C. Goetz)

14h20 L’histoire de la neurodégénérescence Laura Bossi

14h50 La maladie d’Alzheimer Bruno Dubois

15h15 La maladie de Parkinson Jean Claude Dupont

15h40 Discussion


16h00 Pause-café

e. Exemples de maladies neuropsychiatriques (prés. séance Jean-Pierre Olié)

16h15 L'autisme entre neurologie et psychiatrie Anne Fagot- Largeault

16h40 La maladie de Gilles de la Tourette Céline Chérici

17h00 Archives inédites de Gilles de la Tourette Olivier Walusinski

17h20 Discussion


IV. 17h35 Table ronde - Conclusion et perspectives (prés. séance Yves Agid)

Claude Debru
Anne Fagot- Largeault
Christopher Goetz
Jean Claude Dupont
Jean Pierre Olié

18h30 Fin du colloque



Comité d'organisation
Yves Agid, ICM, CHU Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris
Jean-Gaël Barbara, CNRS, SPHERE, Paris
Laura Bossi, SPHERE, Paris
Céline Chérici, Université de Picardie, Amiens
Jean-Claude Dupont, Université de Picardie, Amiens

Orateurs et présidents de séance
Yves Agid, ICM, CHU Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris
Jean-Gaël Barbara, CNRS, SPHERE, Paris
Laura Bossi, SPHERE, Paris
Céline Chérici, Université de Picardie, Amiens
François Clarac, CNRS, Université Aix-Marseille, Marseille
Laurent Cohen, ICM, CHU Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris
Claude Debru, Académie des Sciences, Paris
Bruno Dubois, ICM, CHU Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris
Jean-Claude Dupont, Université de Picardie, Amiens
Anne Fagot-Largeault, Collège de France, Paris
Michel Fardeau, Institut de Myologie, CHU Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris
Philippe Fossati, ICM, CHU Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris
Raphaël Gaillard, Centre Hospitalier Sainte Anne, Paris
Jean Gabriel Ganascia, Université Paris VI, Paris
Christopher Goetz, Rush University, Chicago, USA
Michel Imbert, École Normale Supérieure, Paris
Roland Jouvent, CHU Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris
Lorenzo Lorusso, FESN, Université de Brescia, Italie
Jean-Pierre Olié, Centre Hospitalier Sainte Anne, Paris
Jacques Poirier, CHU Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris
Olivier Walusinski, Médecin et historien, Brou

Sous le patronage de :
Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle (ICM), Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris
FESN Federation of European Neuroscience Societies
Société des Neurosciences
CNRS
Laboratoire SPHERE, Université Paris Diderot
Club d'Histoire des Neurosciences

mardi 24 novembre 2015

Avortement sous l'apartheid

Abortion Under Apartheid. Nationalism, Sexuality, and Women's Reproductive Rights in South Africa
Susanne M. Klausen

Oxford University Press
October 2015
ISBN: 9780199844494 


Abortion Under Apartheid traces the criminalization of abortion in South Africa during the apartheid era (1948-1990), the emergence of a flourishing clandestine abortion industry, and 1975 passage of the country's first statutory law on abortion. The book examines the politics of sexuality, racism and nationalism in apartheid culture, arguing that the authoritarian National Party Government regulated white women's reproductive sexuality in the interests of maintaining white supremacy. One major focus is the battle that erupted in the late 1960s when doctors and feminists called for liberalization of the colonial-era laws criminalizing abortion. The movement for abortion law reform spurred a variety of political, social and religious groups to grapple with the meaning of abortion in the context of changing ideas about the traditional family and women's place within it. Abortion Under Apartheid shows that all women, regardless of race, were oppressed under apartheid. Yet, although the National Party was preoccupied with denying young white women reproductive control, black women bore the brunt of the lack of access to safe abortion, suffering the effects of clandestine abortion on a shocking scale in urban centers around the country.

At the heart of the story are the black and white girls and women who -- regardless of hostility from partners, elders, religious institutions, nationalist movements, conservative doctors and nurses, or the racist regime -- persisted in determining their own destinies. Although a great many were harmed and even died as a result of being denied safe abortion, many more succeeded in thwarting opponents of women's right to control their capacity to bear children. This book conveys both the tragic and triumphant sides of their story.

Poisons et médicaments dans la Chine médiévale

Toxic Cures: Poisons and Medicines in Medieval China

Dr Yan Liu (Jackman Humanities Institute Postdoctoral Fellow)


4.10 -5pm, Wednesday 25th of November 2015

Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto
125 Queens Park, 3rd floor, Room 310



A striking feature of traditional Chinese medicine, perhaps against our common knowledge, is its regular use of poisons. For example, one of the most frequently deployed drugs in China was aconite (fuzi), a highly toxic herb. Why did poisons figure prominently in traditional Chinese pharmacy? What contributed to their therapeutic value? And how does a study of poisons teach us about medieval Chinese society? Probing the roots of this tradition from the third to the tenth century, when the major outlines of Chinese toxicology took shape, my talk examines the centrality of poisons to the practice and theory of medicine in China with special attention to a variety of techniques that transformed poisons into medicines. Moreover, it explores how poisons altered the body in Daoist alchemical practice and how this knowledge shaped the medical understanding of toxic substances. I also highlight the complexity of drug materiality that defied stable categorization. Whether a substance was a medicine or a poison, I contend, always depended on the method and context of its usage, the bodily experience it induced, and its perceived value in society. This study seeks to not just unveil an important yet ignored history of Chinese medicine, but also bring fresh insights into the paradoxical nature of drug therapy in our own life.

For enquiries contact: n.everett@utoronto.ca

lundi 23 novembre 2015

Histoire de la relation médecins-patients

Doctors and Patients: History, Representations, Communication from the Antiquity to the Present 


Maria Malatesta (ed.)

San Francisco
University of California Medical Humanities Press
 2015


For the first time, a book considers the doctor/patient relationship in the long period and from a broad geographical perspective. Historians, anthropologists and doctors reflect on the factors that, from the Classical age until the present, have altered the care relationship and the power relations embedded within it. The book also highlights that communication and narration, understood as constitutive aspects of care, are the elements which link the past to the present. From the encounter between religion and medicine to the centuries-long struggle between doctors and patients in defence of their respective positions, from medical dramas to efforts to humanize medicine, the book describes the doctor/patient relationship in all its cultural, transnational and transtemporal dimensions.

Médecine et modernité dans le long 19e siècle

Medicine and Modernity in the Long Nineteenth Century


Call for papers


St Anne’s College, Oxford

10th – 11th September 2016

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: CHRISTOPHER HAMLIN AND LAURA OTIS


In our current ‘Information Age’ we suffer as never before, it is claimed, from the stresses of an overload of information, and the speed of global networks. The Victorians diagnosed similar problems in the nineteenth century. The medic James Crichton Browne spoke in 1860 of the ‘velocity of thought and action’ now required, and of the stresses imposed on the brain forced to process in a month more information ‘than was required of our grandfathers in the course of a lifetime’. Through this two day interdisciplinary conference, hosted by the ERC funded Diseases of Modern Life project based at Oxford, we will explore the phenomena of stress and overload, and other disorders associated with the problems of modernity in the long nineteenth century, as expressed in the literature, science, and medicine of the period. We seek to return to the holistic, integrative vision of the Victorians as it was expressed in the science and literature of the period, exploring the connections drawn between physiological, psychological and social health, or disease, and offering new ways of contextualising the problems of modernity facing us in the twenty-first century. We are particularly interested in comparative perspectives on these issues from international viewpoints.

Topics might include, but are not limited to:
  • Representations of ‘modern’ disorders and neuroses in literature and the medical press
  • Defining modernity and its problems in the nineteenth century
  • Medical and psychiatric constructions of modern life
  • Social and mental health and welfare
  • Diseases from pollution and changing nineteenth-century environments
  • Diseases from worry, overwork, and mental or physical strain
  • Diseases from excess, self-abuse, stimulants, and narcotics
  • The role of machinery and technology in causing or curing disease
  • Changing relationships between doctors and patients
  • Emerging medical specialisms
  • Global modernities

We welcome proposals from researchers across a range of disciplines and stages of career. We plan to publish a selection of papers from the event in the form of an edited volume. Please send proposals of no more than 300 words accompanied by a short bio, to medicineandmodernity@ell.ox.ac.uk by Friday, 4th December 2015.

Amelia Bonea, Melissa Dickson, Jennifer Wallis, Sally Shuttleworth.

dimanche 22 novembre 2015

Le corps souffrant dans l’œuvre philosophique de Sénèque



Sapientia contemptrix doloris. Le corps souffrant dans l’œuvre philosophique de Sénèque 


Jean-Christophe Courtil


 Leuven, Peeters, 
« Latomus » 351, 
2015, 620 p.



Sénèque respecte scrupuleusement l’orthodoxie stoïcienne en affirmant à plusieurs reprises que l’intégrité physique, en tant qu’« indifférent » moral, ne doit en aucun cas être un objet d’attention. Toutefois, parallèlement à ces considérations, il compose une œuvre dans laquelle la souffrance physique occupe une place considérable. La présente étude, à travers l’examen des théories et des représentations du dolor physique dans l’œuvre philosophique de Sénèque, se propose de résoudre ce paradoxe apparent, et de déterminer précisément les fonctions d’un tel emploi. Après avoir défini la notion de dolor physique, elle démontre l’omniprésence du motif du corps souffrant et en dégage les raisons contextuelles. Elle envisage en outre la dimension médicale des représentations de la souffrance, afin de définir le niveau des connaissances techniques du philosophe et l’origine des théories pathologiques et thérapeutiques qui affleurent dans son œuvre. Enfin, elle examine le dolor physique au sein de la pensée philosophique de Sénèque afin de démontrer que le dolor possède une fonction éthique de premier ordre, aussi bien d’un point de vue théorique que pratique.

La médecine antique en question

Where does it hurt? Ancient Medicine in Questions and Answers

Call for papers

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
LEUVEN 30–31 AUGUST 2016
CONFIRMED KEYNOTE SPEAKER: PROF. DR. ROBERT MAYHEW (SETON HALL UNIVERSITY)

Asking the right questions and obtaining the right answers is vital to modern medical healthcare. It is
essential for efficient doctor-patient communication, forming an important component of medical treatment. This was no different in Antiquity. Already the Hippocratic writings give us an idea of which kinds of questions physicians asked in diagnosing their patients, and which answers they received in return (see, e.g., the case histories in the Epidemics). However, one can imagine that patients or, in case of severe illness, their relatives were often incapable of providing an accurate answer to (some of) the doctor’s questions. Galen, for instance, says that certain types of pain are actually felt by patients, but cannot be described by them when asked to (Loc. Aff. 2, 9 [8, 117 Kühn]). As such, a good doctor had to be able not simply to ask the right questions, but also to look for the right answers himself, if necessary.
The use of question-and-answer (Q&A) formulas is widely attested in ancient medical literature. By
employing specific interrogative turns in their discourses, medical authors not only sought to provide
practical information for proper treatment of patients, but also to amass theoretical insights about the
human body and its physiological and pathological processes more generally. They dealt with several
types of questions, including questions that sought to locate, define and explain certain illnesses or disorders in the body (“Where does it hurt?”, “What is it that hurts?”, ”Why does it hurt?”). Questions of this kind were common in medical treatises of the Greco-Roman period (they can be found, e.g., in medical manuals, medical papyri and collections of problemata). The popularity of the Q&A format is largely due to the fact that it became well-entrenched in the ancient medical school curriculum.
Through its dialogical and interrogative structure, it provided teachers and students with a useful method to question and memorize all types of medical knowledge, both practical and theoretical. Once condensed in a textual form, it was also useful in transferring this knowledge between author and reader.
This conference aims to bring together scholars from the field of medical history and related fields (history of science, [natural] philosophy, theology, literary studies, linguistics, ...) with the goal of examining the role of Q&A in medical literature, from the Hippocratic writers to Late Antiquity and its reception in the Middle Ages. The conference is open to various approaches, and aims to address –
but is not restricted to – questions of content (e.g., transfer and transformation of medical knowledge in Q&A style), textuality (e.g., development from orality to written text), context (e.g., sociointellectual relations between doctor/patient, teacher/student, author/reader), and use (e.g., theoretical contemplation vs. practical application of medical knowledge).
Please send your abstract (ca. 500 words) and a short bio (ca. 10 lines) by 15 January 2016 to Erika Gielen (Erika.Gielen@hiw.kuleuven.be) and Michiel Meeusen (Michiel.Meeusen@arts.kuleuven.be).
Presentations should be 20 minutes in length. In your abstract, please include a clear summary of your argument and an indication of how your paper would contribute to critical reflection on the topic as a whole. Early career researchers are especially encouraged to send in an abstract. The organisers hope, but cannot promise, to be able to offer accommodation to speakers.

samedi 21 novembre 2015

Malades, soignants, hôpitaux, représentations en Roussillon, Languedoc & Provence

Questions de santé sur les bords de la Méditerranée. Malades, soignants, hôpitaux, représentations en Roussillon, Languedoc & Provence XVIe-XVIIIe siècle

Gilbert LARGUIER  (éd.)




Presses Universitaires de Perpignan
ISBN ou ISSN : 9782354122423
Prix : 20.00 €
Collection : Etudes
Thème : Histoire


C’est au cours de l’époque moderne (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle) que les questions de santé commencent à être abordées de manière éclairée, avec une attention plus grande apportée à l’hygiène, la mise en place de mesures visant à éviter la propagation des épidémies, la réorganisation des établissements hospitaliers et d’assistance, les débuts d’une véritable recherche médicale. Tous ces thèmes, facettes d’une révolution en profondeur qui touche à la fois à la société, à l’Etat, à la médecine et aux sciences, aux comportements et aux croyances, sont abordées de manière concrète dans les différentes contributions, complémentaires les unes des autres, qui portent sur le sud de la France, mais ont valeur d’exemple beaucoup plus large. La question fondamentale est en effet : comment une société fait-elle face aux questions de santé ? On pourra voir que les préoccupations contemporaines étaient formulées de manière beaucoup plus claire et pertinente qu’on ne le pense avant la période industrielle.

Le médecin bohémien Georg Handsch

Humanist self-fashioning and ordinary medical practice. The Bohemian physician Georg Handsch (1529–c. 1578) and his notebooks

Prof Michael Stolberg (University of Würzburg) 

24th November

Wellcome Library, 183 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE.
Doors open at 6pm prompt, the seminar will start at 6.15pm.

The professional identity of learned physicians underwent some major changes in the 16th century. The rise of humanism reshaped the world of the ‘res publica literaria’ in which learned physicians prominently participated. At the same time, growing numbers of physicians settled in large and small towns all over Central and Western Europe and sought to make a living as medical practitioners. Drawing on the voluminous notebooks of a little known and rather unsuccessful Bohemian physician by the name of Georg Handsch, and some other physicians’ letters and practice journals, this paper will take a look at the ways in which fairly ‘ordinary’ physicians coped with this tension: how they self-fashioned themselves as humanist intellectuals, but also engaged with the medical lay-world and interacted with (and learnt from) the townsfolk in an effort to secure a place in urban society and to hold their own in the medical marketplace.

More info here: http://blog.wellcomelibrary.org/2015/11/humanist-self-fashioning-and-ordinary-medical-practice/

vendredi 20 novembre 2015

Principes et pratique de la chirurgie au XIXe siècle

Crucial Interventions: An Illustrated Treatise on the Principles & Practice of Nineteenth-Century Surgery 
Richard Barnett


Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Thames & Hudson; 1 edition (November 9, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0500518106
ISBN-13: 978-0500518106


A beautifully illustrated look at the evolution of surgery, as revealed through rare technical illustrations, sketches, and oil paintingsThe nineteenth century saw major advances in the practice of surgery. In 1750, the anatomist John Hunter described it as “a humiliating spectacle of the futility of science”; yet, over the next 150 years the feared, practical men of medicine benefited from a revolution in scientific progress and the increased availability of instructional textbooks. Anesthesia and antisepsis were introduced. Newly established medical schools improved surgeons’ understanding of the human body. For the first time, surgical techniques were refined, illustrated in color, and disseminated on the printed page.

Crucial Interventions follows this evolution, drawing from magnificent examples of rare surgical textbooks from the mid-nineteenth century. Graphic and sometimes unnerving yet beautifully rendered, these fascinating illustrations, acquired from the Wellcome Collection’s extensive archives, include step-by-step surgical techniques paired with depictions of medical instruments and depictions of operations in progress.

Arranged for the layman (from head to toe) Crucial Interventions is a captivating look at the early history of one of the world’s most mysterious and macabre professions. Illustrated in color and black-and-white throughout