Physicians' Gallery

During the last 100 years, the treatment of diabetes mellitus in Britain underwent radical transformation. One of the most striking features of twentieth-century diabetes care was the increasing amount of self-management of the disease. In this talk, Dr Martin Moore explores how medical thought, patient experience and everyday practice of self-management were also influenced by broader structures in British politics, culture, and society.

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Andreas Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica (1543) is a landmark publication in the history of medicine, well known for its illustrations. Yet, the actual function of these illustrations within Vesalius own project of classical anatomy has not always been appreciated.

In this talk, Dr Sachiko Kusukawa examines the different - and often ingenious - ways in which Vesalius used anatomical images in his book.

Speaker: Dr Sachiko Kusukawa (University of Cambridge)

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After WWII, British doctors and politicians thought that they could import the perfect solution for dental illness: drinking water fluoridation. But the campaigns they faced brought together the libertarian Right, the socialist Left, advocates of ‘real foods’ and the nascent Green movement. Anti-fluoridisers campaigned for ‘freedom’ against an interfering government, amid medical scandals such as the Thalidomide tragedy. This talk uses the controversy to explore the historical relationship between the body, civil rights, consumerism, the citizenry and the medical profession.

Speaker: Professor Glen O'Hara (Oxford Brookes University)

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In the 1600s Peter Sartorius, a citizen and surgeon of Strasbourg, compared syphilis to ‘an angry dog’, which viciously threatened communities. These talks investigate the past, and present, of this notorious sexually transmitted disease. From stereotypes and scaremongering to laboratories and diagnostics.

Mona O’Brien explores how Europeans came to understand syphilis and some of the measures that they enacted in an attempt to control it during the period from the first pandemic outbreak (c.1495) until the 17th century.

Speaker: Dr Mona O’Brien (University of Glasgow)

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In this talk Dr Allan Beveridge discusses the nineteenth centry Scottish pioneer of psychiatric medicine Sir Alexander Morison and the collection of illustrations of asylum patients which he commissioned.

Speaker: Dr Allan Beveridge (History and Humanities Editor of the Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh)

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The place of the public within public health is a critical issue for contemporary public health in Britain. Whether it involves appealing to individuals to stop smoking, or asking patients what they think of health services, the ‘public’ is constantly constructed and reconstructed within public health policy and practice.

This talk seeks to set these concerns in historical context, aiming to explore and explain the changing place of the public within public health in post-war Britain.

Speaker: Dr Alex Mold (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine)

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William Orpen (1878-1931) produced numerous pictures of doctors and artists. Orpen suggests that in medical diagnostics, as in the production and evaluation of artworks, specialised visual skills are required.

In his painting A Mere Fracture (1901), which depicts a doctor examining a leg for a fracture, Orpen showed the close observation of surface detail and the knowledge of anatomy that he believed was required of artists. At the same time, in this painting and others like it, the artist included visual illusions and distorted mirror reflections, which cast doubt over the reliability of vision.

Speaker: Dr Keren Hammerschlag (Georgetown University)

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The military success of a fighting force depends in large part on the availability of fit, healthy troops, but the austere conditions of war often conspire to allow disease to flourish, and in every armed conflict up to very recent times, disease has claimed more victims than has battle injury. Beverly Bergman, a former military consultant public health physician who is now researching veterans’ health at the University of Glasgow, explores in this talk how the development of an understanding of the principles of public health in wartime during the late nineteenth century helped to protect troops exposed to the challenging conditions of the First World War.

Speaker: Dr Beverly Bergman (University of Glasgow)

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In Scotland’s enlightenment a bride stabs her husband on their wedding night; a nobleman kills his brother; a veteran kills his devoted wife – who then pleads mercy for him on her deathbed. Over centuries the law has recognised that those with mental disorders may not be held accountable for their actions – but even if acquitted they may not necessarily go free. This talk considers the origins of Scotland’s ‘insanity’ law and what ancient themes are still relevant today.

Speaker: John Crichton, Chair of RCPsych in Scotland

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During the last 100 years, the treatment of diabetes mellitus in Britain underwent radical transformation. One of the most striking features of twentieth-century diabetes care was the increasing amount of self-management of the disease. In this talk Dr Mark Strachan discusses the latest, cutting-edge research currently being undertaken in Edinburgh.

Speaker: Dr Mark Strachan (Consultant Physician in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Acute Medicine at the Western General Hospital)

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