medical research Archives - British Society for the History of Medicine

Reconstructing an Early Modern Panacea

Lee Coppack — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 11:03:35 +0000

For nearly two millennia, Theriac—a panacea developed in antiquity—was produced and praised across Europe. By the 19th century, it was dismissed as quackery. Today it has been reconstructed and will soon be tested. Danuta Raj explains. In recent years, historical reconstruction has emerged as an innovative approach in research, bridging traditional historiography with hands-on practices […]

The post Reconstructing an Early Modern Panacea appeared first on British Society for the History of Medicine.

“The forgotten man of Africa”

Lee Coppack — Tue, 14 May 2024 08:26:54 +0000

Standing on the deck of the exploring vessel Pleiad in July 1854, Edinburgh trained doctor William Balfour Baikie was about to lead an expedition into the interior of Africa to test the validity of a cure for malaria, writes Wendell McConnaha. Baikie had been seconded to the mission sponsored by the merchant Macgregor Laird and […]

The post “The forgotten man of Africa” appeared first on British Society for the History of Medicine.

How a pregnancy test saved the lives of a family in Nazi times

Lee Coppack — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 09:43:23 +0000

Susanne Krejsa MacManus explains how pregnancy testing saved the life of a refugee woman biochemist and her family in the run-up to World War II. In the 1930s, the Institute of Animal Genetics at Edinburgh University was the only UK laboratory that ran pregnancy tests. Although the Aschheim-Zondek method invented in Berlin in the late […]

The post How a pregnancy test saved the lives of a family in Nazi times appeared first on British Society for the History of Medicine.

Control and the therapeutic trial: the influence of insulin

Lee Coppack — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 09:53:52 +0000

How do we decide whether a drug, or other treatment, actually works? Martin Edwards describes the rhetorical strategy adopted by the Medical Research Council to establish its authority. Patients’ variations in response to disease and treatment can render it fiendishly difficult to know whether a therapy is benefitting a particular individual. For centuries, the gold […]

The post Control and the therapeutic trial: the influence of insulin appeared first on British Society for the History of Medicine.

Jenner, Fewster and Jesty

Edward Wawrzynczak — Tue, 29 May 2018 23:26:28 +0000

On the 14th May 1796 Edward Jenner carried out the first stage of his now famous vaccination experiment and inoculated a young boy named James Phipps with cowpox. To this day Jenner’s name is associated with the discovery of vaccination as a concept, and the worldwide eradication of smallpox. However, there were others who helped […]

The post Jenner, Fewster and Jesty appeared first on British Society for the History of Medicine.

Finding the “missing link”

Edward Wawrzynczak — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 11:51:31 +0000

Historians will be familiar with the challenges of researching an archive: sifting through a pile of dusty records, drawing a blank in a confusing catalogue, or scoring hundreds of hits searching an electronic database. With the help of an archive expert, however, the rewards outweigh the effort required. When preparing for my presentation on English […]

The post Finding the “missing link” appeared first on British Society for the History of Medicine.