Tag Archives: Seminar

Seminars in the History of Science, Medicine and Technology: Week 2, 30th April

Dr Lauren Kassell (University of Cambridge) — The Casebooks Project.
‘The Casebooks Project centres on one of the largest surviving sets of medical records in history. Between 1596 and 1634 the notorious London astrologer, Simon Forman, and his protégé Richard Napier, a shy Buckinghamshire clergyman, recorded 80,000 consultations. A decade ago, we piloted Casebooks with an Excel spreadsheet. Now it is a pioneering digital humanities project with a dataset, a web-based search interface and image viewer framed within explanatory documentation and shaped by a programme of academic and public engagement. As the project nears completion, this talk reflects on its lessons for the histories of science and medicine and its implications for future work in the field.’

Where? History Faculty Lecture Theatre, George Street, Oxford

When? Monday 30th April, 16:00. Tea and coffee will be available in the Common Room from 15.30.

The HSMT Seminar series is convened by Dr Roderick Bailey, Dr Erica Charters, Professor Rob Iliffe and Dr Atsuko Naono, of the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine.
All welcome to attend! For more information on this term’s seminars see the Unit’s webpage.

You can find Dr Kassell’s book, Medicine & Magic in Elizabethan London: Simon Forman; astrologer, alchemist, & physician, at the Wellcome Unit Library at shelfmark R489.F585 KAS 2005.
Also available as an ebook here – just log into SOLO for access.

Seminars in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology: Week 2, 16th October

Speaker: Dr Julie Parle (University of KwaZulu-Natal)

Title: The okapi, the wolf, the fellow, and the baboons: thalidomide in South Africa, 1956-1976

Abstract: Responsible for ‘the world’s worst and most poignant medical disaster’, thalidomide was first formally marketed on 1 October 1957, in West Germany. Instructions for its withdrawal were issued 49 months later, by which time thalidomide-containing products had reached more than 50 countries across the world, including 18 in Africa. Following a pharmaceutical okapi, and via fragmentary histories – those of a man called Wolf, a WHO Travelling Fellow, and several hundred baboons – I focus on the surprising presence and uses of thalidomide in South Africa, 1950s to 1970s. I suggest that tales of this teratogen may be of significance for widening global histories of this drug and for those of medical science and the state in South Africa in the twentieth century.

Conveners: Professor Rob Iliffe, Dr Sloan Mahone, Dr Erica Charters, Dr Roderick Bailey, Dr Atsuko Naono

When: Monday 16th October at 16:00, coffee available from 15:30 in Common Room

Where: History Faculty Lecture Theatre, George Street, Oxford

More information: http://www.wuhmo.ox.ac.uk/termly-seminars

Seminar: Behind the Mask: WW1, Plastic Surgery, and the Modern Beauty Revolution

Behind the Mask: WW1, Plastic Surgery, and the Modern Beauty Revolution
(Oxford Art History Research Seminars)

hoa_mt_3127 October 2016, 17:00 (Thursday, 3rd week, Michaelmas 2016)
Littlegate House
16-17 St Ebbe’s Street OX1 1PT (see map)
History of Art Lecture Theatre 2nd Floor

Speaker: David Lubin (Wake Forest/Oxford, History of Art)
Organising department: Department of the History of Art

Booking not required. Members of the University only.

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Seminar: ‘From Typhoid Mary to Ebola: the limits of liberty in modern plagues’

Zeb Jamrozik, Green Templeton College Visiting Scholar and researcher at the Ethox Centre will be giving a seminar on some of his research on Wednesday, 16 September at 6pm.

The seminar will take place in the E P Abraham Lecture Theatre at Green Templeton College. Directions can be found here.

Zeb will discuss Mary Mallon, who was kept in isolation by the New York Public Health Department for over 20 years because she was an asymptomatic typhoid carrier in the era before antibiotics. Likewise, when facing a disease without treatment in the recent West African Ebola outbreak, authorities instituted the ancient quarantine tactic of a cordon sanitaire.

The threat of infectious disease has been met with various limitations on the liberties of individuals, and sometimes of groups.

In this talk Zeb will give examples from the history of such practices before turning to an account of when, why, and to what degree such restrictions are justified, drawing on emerging themes in public health ethics. He will also briefly discuss novel ways of thinking about related policy problems including mass vaccination and antibiotic resistance.

There is no need to register and the lecture is free to attend.

History of Herbal Medicine Day Seminar

Illustration and Identification in the History of Herbal Medicine Day Seminar

Wednesday 18th June 2014, 10.30am-4.30pm

Jodrell Lecture Theatre, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond

The aim of this day seminar is to bring together researchers to explore issues related to plant illustration and identification in the history of herbal medicine. Correct identification of plants in the past has been of great importance, whether for foods, medicines or other purposes. But to what extent did people in medieval and early modern times learn about plants with medicinal uses from illustrations in herbals or elsewhere? Matters of interest include ways in which illustrations were produced, the role of illustrations, dissemination of information about plant identification, significant observers of plants and their approaches to plant description. This day seminar at Kew Botanic Gardens near London, UK, has been organised with a particular focus on presenting research into finding and interpreting archival and other sources relating to the history of herbal medicine.

This event is organised by the Herbal History Research Network group which aims to promote research into the history of herbal medicine. The Network helps to connect together people who share common interests in researching the history of herbal medicine through seminars and other events. For further details of the Network contact Anne Stobart at a.stobart@herbaid.co.uk, visit the event page at the IHR, or view the event poster here.

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