Dr Isaac ‘Harry’ Gosset Collection

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Dr Isaac Henry Gosset sitting outside in front of weeping willow tree at spring around teatime by daughtr Janet

Future 20th century medical historians will lament that there is very little surviving United Kingdom archival material relating to the development of premature baby units and general paediatrics from the end of the Second World War to the mid 1960’s.

‘The Gosset Collection’ is an online repository of the life and work of Dr Isaac ‘Harry’ Gosset, consultant paediatrician Northampton General Hospital, illustrating exemplary general paediatric and premature baby care (1947-1965). Within it, you can take the healthcare journey of the newborn child or paediatric case of that time.

Established as part of a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Dr Gosset’s untimely death, the ‘Gosset Collection’  has complete premature baby and general paediatric care protocols, together with original film taken by Dr Gosset of the Premature Baby Unit as well as the General Paediatric Ward.

There is also a section on the development of the ‘Gosset icterometer, which Dr Gosset invented, developed and introduced into perinatal practice from the 1950’s and in use until the 1970’s. Made of Perspex the icterometer could rapidly and accurately identify neonatal jaundice, saving unnecessary blood tests and focusing attention on the sicker jaundiced newborn. The ‘Gosset Collection’ also contains the 1960 Lancet paper of a successful trial of the icterometer (through permission of Elsevier) an important landmark in neonatal medicine.  

Lastly, there is a short vodcast placing Dr Gosset’s pioneering work in premature baby care within the context of the early development of this sub speciality.

 http://www.northamptongeneral.nhs.uk/AboutUs/Ourhistory/Dr-Gosset/The-Dr-Isaac-Harry-Gosset-Collection.aspx

submitted by Dr Andrew Williams

Medicine, Art and Stamp Covers: Semmelweis and hand washing

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Stamp covers with their artwork can reflect events in the history of medicine. This Hungarian stamp cover was issued in 1965 to mark the 100th anniversary of the death of Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865) who discovered the association between childbed (puerperal) fever and mortality from the inadequate washing of the hands of the birth attendants. Semmelweis was a physician at the Vienna Lying-in hospital in Vienna. He concluded that infection was carried by medical students and doctors from the dissecting room where they had recently carried out dissections and post-mortem examinations. Following the introduction of hand washing with chlorinated water before examining obstetric patients, the mortality from childbed fever on the wards in the hospital fell significantly. Sadly, his colleagues did not immediately recognise or appreciate the importance of his discovery leading to his frustration and dismay.

The artwork on this stamp includes the bust of Semmelweis and shows him washing his hands before examining a female patient. There appears to be a sign on the wall above the pitcher which presumably relates to hand washing. It is also worth pointing out the incorrect spelling of his name although this is correct on the stamp.

It is perhaps interesting to note that the lesson with regard to hand washing needed to be relearnt a few years ago when there was concern about methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus in hospitals.

Dr Martyn Thomas May 2016

Master of Medical History of the Society of Apothecaries (MMHSA)

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The Society of Apothecaries is planning to offer to a limited number of applicants each year the opportunity to work towards a Research Masters, namely Master of Medical History of the Society of Apothecaries (MMHSA). There is much still to be considered but the submission would consist of a dissertation and presentation of the subject at a lecture.Continue reading→

Call for Papers – Medicine, Environment and Health in the Eastern Mediterranean World, 1400-1750

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Lazzaretto Vecchio (Brian Yen 2011)

3-4 April 2017, Christ’s College, Cambridge UK

Organised by Valentina Pugliano (University of Cambridge) and Nukhet Varlik (Rutgers-Newark University)
Sponsored by The Wellcome Trust; Christ’s College, Cambridge; and the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge.

This conference aims to offer, for the first time, a comprehensive picture of medicine, environment and health in the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East, ca. 1400-1750.

While a considerable body of scholarship exists on Islamic and Byzantine science and medicine and their influence on the medieval Latin West, the state of medical theory and practice in the following centuries has been comparatively neglected and often spoken of in terms of intellectual stagnation and decline. The conference aims to challenge this narrative and reveal the continued vitality of knowledge making and transfer across the eastern Mediterranean world. Taking as our focus the politically heterogeneous southern Europe and eastern Mediterranean, the Mamluk Kingdom, and the Ottoman Empire, we aim to reconstruct the healthscape of this region in the early modern period, exploring its medical unity and disunity and the human and environmental factors that played a part in it.

For further details regarding the conference and the Call for Papers    Click Here