Tag Archives: Leverhulme Lectures

Closing Leverhulme Lecture, 6 June

An Unnatural History: The Re-Emergence of Infectious Disease in the 20th Century’

Presented by Professor Christoph Gradmann, University of Oslo
Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Wellcome Unit for the history of Medicine, Oxford
Christoph Gradmann
These lectures will be hosted at
TORCH – The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities
Radcliffe Humanities Seminar Room
Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford

Trinity Term 6th Week
Thursday 5 June – 17:00
The Return of Natural History: Re-Emerging Infections, the End of Antibiotics and New Public Health

In this closing lecture of the series ‘An Unnatural History: The Re-Emergence of Infectious Disease in the 20th Century’ debates about the nature and control of infectious disease from the 1980s to the early 2000s are explored. The following topics shall be addressed: The entanglement of biology and technology at the end of the 20th century; changing notions
of infections and of infectious causality; understanding multiple drug resistance; evolutionary biology, disease ecology and emerging infections. In addition we shall have a look at the frequently proclaimed ‘end of antibiotics’. Finally we shall explore how questions concerning infectious diseases and their control have re-entered public imagination.

All are welcome.

The complete list can be found here http://www.wuhmo.ox.ac.uk/events/unit-events.html

Leverhulme Lectures: ‘An Unnatural History: The Re-Emergence of Infectious Disease in the 20th Century’

LEVERHULME LECTURES
‘An Unnatural History: The Re-Emergence of Infectious Disease in the 20th Century’

Presented by Professor Christoph Gradmann, University of Oslo
Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Wellcome Unit for the history of Medicine, Oxford

These lectures will be hosted at
TORCH – The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities
Radcliffe Humanities Seminar Room
Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford

Trinity Term 3rd Week
Thursday 15 May – 17:00   
Stalking Microbes: Antibiotic Resistance, Nosocomial Infections and the Demise of the Modern Hospital 1950-1990

In the late 19th century hospitals were seen as harbingers of scientific medicine. Equipped with antisepsis, serum therapy and surgical theatres they heralded the promise that the laboratory revolution entailed for infectious disease: To create environments where such conditions could be controlled. The arrival of rational therapies based on the application of sulphas and antibiotics from the mid 1930ies replied to this promise and hospital medicine appeared to be omnipotent in relation to infectious disease for a historic moment.

Yet, the story took a different turn quickly. The arrival of new pathologies caused by resistant bacteria, nosocomial infections and so forth all seemed to be intimately related to the practice of modern anti-infective therapy. What was worst was that it seemed that the place where such problems culminated was the modern hospital itself! As a result, the 1950s to 1980s became decades of a search for an up-to-date hospital hygiene. It is the story of this search and of the responsible medical discipline, hospital hygiene that the lecture will follow.

Trinity Term 6th Week
Thursday 5 June 17:00
The Return of Natural History: Re-Emerging Infections, the End of Antibiotics and New Public Health

All are welcome.

The complete list can be found here http://www.wuhmo.ox.ac.uk/events/unit-events.html

Infectious Disease and the Therapeutic Revolution 1930-1970 (Leverhulme Lecture)

‘An Unnatural History: The Re-Emergence of Infectious Disease in the 20th Century’

Presented by Professor Christoph Gradmann, University of Oslo
Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Wellcome Unit for the history of Medicine, Oxford

These lectures will be hosted at
TORCH – The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities
Radcliffe Humanities Seminar Room
Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford

Hilary Term 8th Week
Wednesday 12 March
16:00    Infectious Disease and the Therapeutic Revolution 1930-1970
This lecture approaches the history of drug therapies of infectious diseases from 1935-1980 as a succession of three waves of innovation. The first of these is the arrival of sulpha drugs from 1935. These were the product of a mature industry which could quickly mass-produce such substances. Relevant phenomena that we associate with fungal antibiotics such as the standardisation of treatment or the arrival of drug resistant strains were in fact present in application of sulphas already. By contrast, fungal antibiotics which arrived from 1941 came part and parcel with a new type of industry, fermentation on industrial scale. They also paved the way for new – mostly American – players on the drug market. Their prestige as wonder cures rested not just on their efficacy but on their marketing under war time conditions.
The third wave, ensuing around 1960, was one that took anti-infective medicines from disease driven to marketing driven drug development, defining new pathologies and markets such as hospital infections and resistant bacteria.

Trinity Term 3rd Week
Thursday 15 May
17:00    Stalking Microbes: Antibiotic Resistance, Nosocomial Infections and the Demise of the Modern Hospital 1950-1990
   
Trinity Term 6th Week
Thursday 5 June
17:00    The Return of Natural History: Re-Emerging Infections, the End of Antibiotics and New Public Health

All are welcome.