Medical History最新文献

{"title":"When filth became dangerous: the miasmatic and contagionistic origins of nineteenth-century cleanliness practices among Swedish provincial doctors.","authors":"Annelie Drakman","doi":"10.1017/mdh.2024.34","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mdh.2024.34","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This investigation sheds light on the social history of pathogenic dirt and its significance for shaping medical practices during the nineteenth century. It consists of an analysis focusing on Swedish medicine, using 8800 yearly reports written 1820-1900 by Swedish provincial doctors for the National Board of Health in Stockholm. The main argument is that the provincial doctors' perceptions of the relationship between dirt and health during this century can be better understood by focusing on similarities in the handling of different kinds of pathological dirt over the course of many decades, rather than seeing interest in cleanliness as something mostly unprecedented. A novel cleanliness regime became dominant during the latter third of the century, meant to counter a new hybrid between everyday dirt - bodily emanations from healthy bodies - and matter believed to have caused miasmatic and contagionistic disease. New ideas about filth and its impact on health played a crucial role in the development of public health and sanitation movements, and were a precondition for everyday dirt becoming a central medical problem around the turn of the twentieth century, but as is shown, they built on old precedents. Thus, the miasmatic and contagionistic approach to disease shaped conceptions of hygiene and cleanliness.</p>","PeriodicalId":18275,"journal":{"name":"Medical History","volume":" ","pages":"1-17"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142710524","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Institutional care and education: circulation of knowledge about epilepsy in Sweden 1915–40","authors":"Johanna Ringarp","doi":"10.1017/mdh.2024.23","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mdh.2024.23","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article focuses on the circulation of knowledge about epilepsy in Sweden between 1915 and 1940. During the period medical research on epilepsy increased, which simultaneously brought a new degree of specialisation and distinction between branches of medicine. The aim of this article is to study the impact of new medical knowledge about epilepsy on the treatment and education of children with epilepsy in Sweden. In order to concretise the aim, the study focuses on the asylum Margarethahemmet. The key source material consists of Margarethahemmet’s annual reports and yearbooks. The minutes of the meetings of the Swedish General Association for the Care of the Feebleminded and Epileptic for the period 1915–1938 have been used as supplementary material. In order to trace the impact of medical discoveries on Margarethahemmet’s operations, contemporary scientific articles, mostly from Germany, have also been used. The article demonstrates how new research and new knowledge was sought internationally and nationally, to provide doctors and special teachers at the asylum with a proper knowledge about education, care and treatment for children with epilepsy. The increased understanding of the disease directly impacted the ability of a stigmatized group – people with epileptic disorder – to actively participate in society on the same terms as others.</p>","PeriodicalId":18275,"journal":{"name":"Medical History","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142257613","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Response to: Reflections on ‘Have we lost sleep?’","authors":"Niall Patrick Boyce","doi":"10.1017/mdh.2024.18","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mdh.2024.18","url":null,"abstract":"<p>I would like to thank Professor Ekirch for his reflections on ‘Have we lost sleep?’, which contain several points that I have already responded to within the paper following his peer review of my original submission to <span>Medical History</span> in 2023 (Professor Ekirch having voluntarily identified himself as a reviewer in a normally double-blind process). I acknowledge that the focus of my paper was on Ekirch’s original work from 2001; if I did not engage as he would have wished with his subsequent publications, this was simply because I do not perceive the same substantial developments in his thinking and research on the subject that he does. Indeed, the present critique by Ekirch amounts essentially to more of the same: a long list of references and quotes but little detailed discussion of any individual source. As my paper demonstrates, seemingly unambiguous evidence from a brief quotation can become less clear-cut when placed in context. I am sorry if I deploy the word ‘might’ more than Ekirch would like. This reflects, I hope, a healthy degree of uncertainty and intellectual humility in my approach to the complex issue of pre-industrial sleep. To extend Ekirch’s metaphor, if the jigsaw puzzle that both he and I are trying to assemble can take the form of a cat or a dog, it is possible that its true form is neither animal. The extent to which people woke in the night in pre-industrial Europe, the duration of such awakening, and the predominant cultural attitude towards this—concern, acceptance, or indifference—are topics about which it would seem wise to avoid sweeping statements and generalisations, given the relatively long period covered and the social, cultural, and individual diversity that must be taken into consideration. I can only repeat that I think amassing more brief references, and selectively citing relatively small physiological studies and anthropological evidence from global settings, is unlikely to provide much clarity, let alone definitive answers. I welcome Professor Ekirch’s contribution to this discussion as an indication that the question of segmented sleep in early modern Europe is by no means settled but is a matter of ongoing debate.</p>","PeriodicalId":18275,"journal":{"name":"Medical History","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142269261","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Reflections on ‘Have we lost sleep?’","authors":"A. Roger Ekirch","doi":"10.1017/mdh.2024.20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mdh.2024.20","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The article, ‘Have we lost sleep? A reconsideration of segmented sleep in early modern England’, <span>Medical History</span>, 67, 2 (2023), 91–108, by Niall Boyce is devoted to criticising my historical research pertaining to 1) the predominance of segmented sleep in the pre-industrial Western world and 2) the nineteenth-century transition of sleep to today’s pattern of continuous slumber that most people in modern societies seek to achieve, albeit not always successfully. This response addresses Boyce’s reinterpretation of the evidence and indicates whether this is erroneous or selective. My analysis thereby reasserts the predominance of segmented sleep in pre-modern Western Europe. Boyce’s assessment rests not on his original investigation of primary sources but on my first study relating to segmented sleep, published in 2001. Not least of the flaws of ‘Have We Lost Sleep?’ is its surprising inattention to my subsequent works that have expanded, modified, and bolstered this initial publication.</p>","PeriodicalId":18275,"journal":{"name":"Medical History","volume":"88 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182481","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Medical and Physical Journal and the construction of medical journalism in Britain, 1733–1803","authors":"Alan Mackintosh","doi":"10.1017/mdh.2024.19","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mdh.2024.19","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Medical practitioners, inevitably scattered across the country, need frequent periodicals to communicate the latest medical information. Journals are an essential component of the infrastructure of modern medicine, yet they were slow to achieve firm roots in Britain during the eighteenth century, with few sustained quarterly periodicals and the only attempt at a monthly lasting a year. Then in 1799, Richard Phillips, owner of <span>the Monthly Magazine</span>, published the <span>Medical and Physical Journal</span>, the first sustained monthly medical journal, which lasted for thirty-four years. Ever since, Britain has never been without a monthly or weekly general medical journal. Responding to the need for a strong commercial focus, the <span>Journal</span> used a magazine format which blended reviews and abstracts of already published material with original contributions and medical news, and it quickly achieved a national circulation by close engagement with all types of practitioners across the country.</p><p>Contrary to the historiography, the <span>Journal</span> was distinctly different from the contemporaneous monthly science journals. The key to success was two-way communication with all practitioners, especially the numerous surgeons and surgeon-apothecaries who were increasingly better trained and confident of their status. Much of the content of the <span>Journal</span> was written by these readers, and with rapid, reliable distribution and quick publication of correspondence, controversial topics could be bounced back and forth between all practitioners, including the distinguished. Initially, the editors tried to maximise circulation by avoiding any controversy, but this started to change in the first few years of the next century.</p>","PeriodicalId":18275,"journal":{"name":"Medical History","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182480","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Treating with minerals in the Middle Ages: the rare substance mūmiyāʾ (pitch-asphalt) and its medicinal uses in Byzantium","authors":"Petros Bouras-Vallianatos, Fabian Käs","doi":"10.1017/mdh.2024.25","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mdh.2024.25","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Premodern medicine used a variety of mineral substances for therapeutic purposes. The present article deals with pitch-asphalt, and, in particular, a precious kind of it called <span>mūmiyāʾ</span> originating in Persia. It was first described in detail in the Arabic pharmacological tradition, and its fame spread throughout the medieval Mediterranean, including Byzantium. By editing and examining for the first time a previously unexplored medieval Greek text on <span>mūmiyāʾ</span>, this study offers new insights into the medicinal uses of this substance. It also significantly increases our understanding of the intense cross-cultural transfer of medical knowledge from the Islamicate world to Byzantium by showing that this was not merely based on the translation of a few Arabic medical works into Greek, but was a multifaceted phenomenon involving a complex nexus of sources that require further investigation.</p>","PeriodicalId":18275,"journal":{"name":"Medical History","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182482","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The first recorded outbreak of epidemic dropsy, 1877–80: Climate, empire, and colonial medical science between India, Bengal, and Mauritius","authors":"Yadhav Deerpaul, Alexander Springer, Philip Gooding","doi":"10.1017/mdh.2024.24","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mdh.2024.24","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article reconstructs the first outbreak of epidemic dropsy recorded in documentary evidence, which occurred in Calcutta, Mauritius, and northeastern India and Bengal in 1877–80. It uses current medical knowledge and investigations into the wider historical contexts in which the epidemic occurred to re-read the colonial medical literature of the period. It shows that colonial policies and structures in the context of variable enviro-climatic conditions increased the likelihood that an epidemic would break out, while also increasing the vulnerability of certain populations to infection and mortality. Additionally, it shows how the trans-regional nature of the epidemic contributed to varying understandings of the disease between two colonial medical establishments, which influenced each other in contradictory ways. The article’s core contributions are to recent trans-regional perspectives on disease transmission and colonial medical knowledge production in the Indian Ocean World.</p>","PeriodicalId":18275,"journal":{"name":"Medical History","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182478","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Culpeper’s herbal The English Physitian and its debt to apothecary John Parkinson","authors":"Graeme Tobyn","doi":"10.1017/mdh.2024.22","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mdh.2024.22","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this textual comparison of seventeenth-century herbals, I show in detail that most of the descriptions and medicinal uses of English herbs included in Culpeper’s small folio <span>The English Physitian</span> (1652) and its enlargement of the following year were lifted straight out of the works of John Parkinson, apothecary. This was a deliberate act by Culpeper, to make available to the people of England the best information on native plant medicines for use in treating their illnesses. He attacked the College of Physicians of London, whom the great majority of the population could not afford to engage, for trying to keep this knowledge secret. Among later historians of the herbal tradition, Culpeper’s work was not accorded the same status as the great English herbals of William Turner, John Gerard, and John Parkinson, not because this borrowing was recognised but because its astrological content worked to divert attention from the quality and source of much of its guidance on treatment. Even contemporaries of Culpeper did not recognise the extent of the borrowing. Comparisons also reveal the limitations of Culpeper’s powers of plant description and his lack of interest in the developing science of botany. The editorial decisions Culpeper made to reduce a great folio herbal to a much smaller book to be sold for 3d touch on domestic and other non-medical uses, while points of discussion common to both authors such as the doctrine of signatures and superstitious beliefs about plants are explored.</p>","PeriodicalId":18275,"journal":{"name":"Medical History","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2024-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142182477","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Nourishing food, clean air and exercise: medical debates over environment and polar hygiene on Robert Falcon Scott's British National Antarctic expedition, 1901-1904.","authors":"Edward Armston-Sheret","doi":"10.1017/mdh.2024.3","DOIUrl":"10.1017/mdh.2024.3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The late nineteenth and early twentieth century saw dramatic new developments in climatic medicine, particularly the institutionalisation of thinking about tropical hygiene. There were also more limited efforts to understand how hygiene theories should be applied in a polar environment. Studying the British National Antarctic Expedition (1901-1904), led by Robert Falcon Scott, helps us understand how these practices had both similarities and differences from applications of hygiene in other contexts. The expedition offers unique insights into debates about hygiene, environment, and health because of the important, and well documented, role that medics, naval officers and scientists played in organising logistical arrangements for the journey to Antarctica. In analysing the writings of expedition members and organisers, this paper examines the ways that the universal tools of hygiene theories were applied and developed in a polar environment. Many of the most acute threats seemed to come not from the outside environment but from the explorers' supplies and equipment. There was general agreement on many issues. Yet the expedition's organisers, medics and leadership had numerous arguments about the best way to preserve or restore health. These disagreements were the product of both competing medical theories about the cause of disease and the importance of embodied (and somewhat subjective) observations in establishing the safety of foods, atmospheres and environments in this period.</p>","PeriodicalId":18275,"journal":{"name":"Medical History","volume":" ","pages":"308-324"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140143827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Medical schools in empires: connecting the dots - CORRIGENDUM.","authors":"Hohee Cho, Martin Robert","doi":"10.1017/mdh.2024.37","DOIUrl":"10.1017/mdh.2024.37","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18275,"journal":{"name":"Medical History","volume":"68 3","pages":"341"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142794873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}