{"title":"Supplying Relief: Civil Medical Assistance during the Korean War, 1950-3.","authors":"Dongkue Lee, Mark Harrison","doi":"10.1093/shm/hkaf028","DOIUrl":"10.1093/shm/hkaf028","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study examines the United Nation (UN)'s efforts to provide emergency relief for civilians during the Korean War, one of the deadliest and most devastating conflicts for civilians since World War II. The UN coordinated civilian relief during and after the war, developing a logistical system, legal framework and payment mechanism through UK banks in pounds sterling, and a distribution strategy based on European experience. United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency (UNKRA) managed financial and legal issues, determined packing and shipping methods, resolved storage problems and distributed medical supplies in the field, either through United Nations Civil Assistance Corps Korea or UNKRA. The UN's efforts to provide civilian medical assistance to Korea set an exemplary model for later relief efforts and this study shows how this holistic system was created on the basis of experience gained during World War II and the creation of entirely new mechanisms for purchasing and delivering medical aid.</p>","PeriodicalId":21922,"journal":{"name":"Social History of Medicine","volume":"39 1","pages":"117-137"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13034124/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147594361","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A White Death Among the Ranks. Tuberculosis in the Austro-Hungarian Army, 1882-1914.","authors":"Jan Błachnio","doi":"10.1093/shm/hkae095","DOIUrl":"10.1093/shm/hkae095","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article is devoted to the incidence of tuberculosis in the Austro-Hungarian Imperial-Royal Army between the years 1882 and 1914, with a special focus on the region of Cisleithania. The first part of the article discusses the organisation of the Austro-Hungarian armed forces, drawing attention to those features of the organisation that may prove informative when researching the health status of the wider population as a whole. The question of the extent of the threat of tuberculosis in Austria-Hungary is then addressed, which shall allow us to move on to the incidence of the disease in the Imperial Royal Army. Drawing on archivally collated statistics, I consider the morbidity-mortality curves and the susceptibility to the disease of the soldiers of each army type. The next part of the paper considers a possible crossover between the incidence of tuberculosis in civilian society and in the army, using the example of selected regiments billeted in Cisleithania. The last part of the article shall discuss the preventive measures taken by military authorities, such as dismissing those struck down with the disease from active service and the implementation of a more rigid hygienic regime.</p>","PeriodicalId":21922,"journal":{"name":"Social History of Medicine","volume":"39 1","pages":"48-70"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13034125/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147594247","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"'An experiment pervyd for a thynge y lost': 'Non-medical' Charms and <i>experimenta</i> in Medieval Medical Manuscripts.","authors":"Heather A Taylor","doi":"10.1093/shm/hkae053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkae053","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This essay conducts a close examination of manuscripts of English provenance from the late Middle Ages which, while predominantly medical in nature, also contain non-medical charms and <i>experimenta</i>. It considers how these manuscripts might provide evidence for a particular type of medical practice, one which was founded in text-based learning, but which also sought to address the non-medical concerns and anxieties of medieval patients through the application of charms and <i>experimenta</i> not exclusively related to healing. This enables a more detailed picture to be drawn of medical practice in the Middle Ages but, more specifically, of medical practice within a particular stratum of society, whereby patients or clients may have looked to engage the services of a practitioner whose literacy and text-based knowledge afforded him status, but who also addressed issues that were perhaps more commonly treated by humbler diviners and healers.</p>","PeriodicalId":21922,"journal":{"name":"Social History of Medicine","volume":"38 4","pages":"748-770"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12818004/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146019784","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From the Deathbed to the Register: Administering the Dead in the Early Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Empire.","authors":"Cihangir Gündoğdu, Gülhan Balsoy","doi":"10.1093/shm/hkae059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkae059","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The Ottoman Empire instituted state-sponsored inspection and registration of the dead in the early nineteenth century. For the first time, medical professionals known as <i>tabib</i> were hired to investigate the causes of deaths within Istanbul's perimeters. This initial surveillance effort in 1838-39 created the city's first two death registers, comprising 9,500 individual cases in total. In the light of these records, the current study investigates the surveillance of death and disease in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire by situating it within the global context of registering the dead, examining the first Ottoman regulations to detail the procedures concerning the registration process and identifying the professionals engaged therein. Since the primary concern of the present study is an investigation of the administration of the dead and medical surveillance, we emphasise the discrepancies observed in the registration process and scrutinise both the medical categories used and the registering physicians' professional backgrounds.</p>","PeriodicalId":21922,"journal":{"name":"Social History of Medicine","volume":"38 4","pages":"771-786"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12817988/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146019721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"'The Doctor Made Clear His Utter Contempt of Me, and I Can Remember It Still': Unmarried Women's Experiences of Accessing the Pill in Scotland <i>c.</i> 1968-1980.","authors":"Kristin Hay","doi":"10.1093/shm/hkae060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkae060","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In 1968, the barrier of marital status was removed from oral contraception. This meant that for the first time, unmarried women could legally access contraception for both social and medical reasons. As a biomedical drug, the pill required women to engage more frequently with the medical profession, purportedly redefining the patient-practitioner dynamic. However, despite the removal of legislative barriers to family planning services, societal attitudes towards the use of the pill by unmarried women continued to regulate individual behaviours and restrict their contraceptive choices. This was heightened in Scotland, which lagged behind the rest of mainland Britain in implementing family planning services. Using oral testimony, coupled with archival evidence, this article traces the implementation of family planning services by the Scottish state. It then examines unmarried women's early experiences of accessing the pill, and the impact of societal attitudes, gender inequalities and medical hostilities on their reproductive autonomy.</p>","PeriodicalId":21922,"journal":{"name":"Social History of Medicine","volume":"38 3","pages":"647-669"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12511523/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145281164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"'How Old Are You, Boy?' An Autobiographical History of Working as a Sexual Health Adviser in 1980s Britain.","authors":"David Evans","doi":"10.1093/shm/hkaf003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkaf003","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This is an autobiographical history of working as a sexual health adviser in the mid-1980s, a time of significant change in UK sexual health services. There are very few first-hand accounts of health advising in the literature. Autobiography is an increasingly accepted method that uses the historian's personal experience to understand the past. My work as a health adviser comprised two distinct elements. First, I saw patients with gonorrhoea, syphilis or non-specific urethritis in the clinic, and encouraged them to inform their sexual contacts, sought information on their contacts in case they did not attend, and provided a health education intervention. If the patient defaulted, or if the contacts did not attend, I sought them in the community. The second role involved providing counselling for those undertaking testing for HIV. My account provides unique testimony of lived experience in, and reflections on key issues concerning, 1980s UK sexual health services.</p>","PeriodicalId":21922,"journal":{"name":"Social History of Medicine","volume":"38 3","pages":"576-593"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12511522/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145281153","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Constructing Success: The World Bank, Onchocerciasis Control, and What Lies Beneath Triumphalist Global Health Narratives.","authors":"Janelle Winters","doi":"10.1093/shm/hkae064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkae064","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Using a historical case study of the World Bank and World Health Organization (WHO)'s Onchocerciasis Control Programme (OCP, 1972-2002), I explore how success is conceptualised in global health and why it matters for policy and priority-setting. First, I summarise the 'dominant' OCP success narrative that has emerged since the 1980s, which is based on public health, socio-economic and humanitarian justifications for the programme's effectiveness. Next, I analyse how socio-economic metrics linking the programme's disease control to increased labour productivity and agricultural land availability evolved in the 1980-90s. This alternative analysis of the OCP demonstrates how metrics, particularly when divorced from their assumptions and political context, are pliable and constructible. I argue that the OCP's success was <i>actively constructed</i> by the World Bank and that moving beyond triumphalist, programme-level 'lessons-learned' approaches within global health requires disruption of the epistemic, institutional and discursive power that 'lies beneath' success narratives.</p>","PeriodicalId":21922,"journal":{"name":"Social History of Medicine","volume":"38 3","pages":"547-575"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12511519/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145281217","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"'None Regardless of Reputation Will Be Received': Midwifery and Commercial Bodywork in Urban Scotland <i>c</i>. 1780-<i>c</i>. 1840.","authors":"Eliska Bujokova","doi":"10.1093/shm/hkaf002","DOIUrl":"10.1093/shm/hkaf002","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article presents two case studies of Scottish midwives, Mrs Laidlaw from Edinburgh and Mrs Alexander from Aberdeen who used newspaper advertising to promote their establishments. Primarily providing for women wishing to conceal their pregnancies and find alternative provisions for their children, the two providers marketed the discreet nature of their practice. Together their stories contradict the dominant strands of historiography on early nineteenth-century midwifery focussed either on its increasingly professionalised and masculinised nature or its rootedness in community practice, largely resistant to commodification. Instead, this article centres on female care and bodyworkers who found opportunities for entrepreneurship in the commercialised care sector. Through focussing on the services offered and their clandestine nature, it elucidates the experiences of lying-in of unmarried mothers of means. Highlighting the midwives' ability to adapt to the socio-cultural fabric of motherhood, it contributes to the histories of female entrepreneurship and its many forms within the care sector.</p>","PeriodicalId":21922,"journal":{"name":"Social History of Medicine","volume":"38 3","pages":"525-546"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12511521/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145281212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Epizelus (Hdt 6.117): A Medical History Critique and Reappraisal.","authors":"James C Ford","doi":"10.1093/shm/hkaf006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkaf006","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Most commentators have argued that the 'curious' tale of Epizelus is the first historical example of anxiety-related combat trauma. While the capacity to experience combat-related trauma is universal across human societies, focussing on whether Epizelus can be diagnosed with a specific contemporary traumatic condition is presentist and misguided. Instead of engaging in disputes about diagnosis, historians are better placed providing a close reading and dissection of the source material informed by historical and cultural historiography, raising new questions and offering a synthesis and analysis that can then be used responsibly by medical scholars. By doing so, the Epizelus episode can be recontextualised as an epiphany of a god: a story with deep meaning for the Athenians by the time that Herodotus was writing in the late fifth-century BC.</p>","PeriodicalId":21922,"journal":{"name":"Social History of Medicine","volume":"38 3","pages":"513-524"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12511524/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145281129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"'We All of Us Make Mistakes': Medical Negligence in Interwar General Practice.","authors":"Anne Hanley","doi":"10.1093/shm/hkae097","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkae097","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In August 1920, Dr Lysander Maybury began a course of weekly injections into the longitudinal sinus of newborn Leslie Shewry. Although Maybury told Leslie's parents that he would be giving their son injections, he did not tell them that he had diagnosed congenital syphilis. The precise nature of Leslie's treatment was also unknown to his parents until many years later when they brought a case for damages against Maybury. They alleged that he had wrongly diagnosed and unnecessarily and improperly treated their son, leaving him permanently disabled. Furthermore, they alleged that he lacked the necessary skills and training to perform such delicate injections and that he was negligent in persisting with treatment when he knew that Leslie suffered convulsions after each injection. Shewry v. Maybury is a microhistory in which the intimate disruptions wrought by one man reveal a great deal about the nature and consequences of medical negligence in interwar Britain.</p>","PeriodicalId":21922,"journal":{"name":"Social History of Medicine","volume":"38 4","pages":"852-874"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2025-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12817982/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146019701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}