Physicians' Gallery

Between the French Revolution and WWI, Europe and America witnessed a golden age of medical image-making. The first generation of mass-market anatomical and pathological textbooks and atlases offered crisp, detailed colour illustrations of the human body in health and sickness, but they also embodied – literally – a revolution in ideas about life, disease and death. Drawing on the images collected in his award-winning book – a collaboration between the Wellcome Library and Thames & Hudson – Richard Barnett explores a corpus of art that is beautiful and morbid, singular and sublime.

Speaker: Dr Richard Barnett (Independent Scholar).

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The 1800s saw a series of scandals concerning individuals being locked away in lunatic asylums – the victims of unscrupulous persons who wanted to be rid of a ‘difficult’ family member, spouse or friend. But who were the victims of this trade? And to what extent was it carried on? Why was it a problem for the wealthy and less so for the poor? Was a male head of household simply able to ‘put away’ an unwanted wife or disobedient daughter? Sarah Wise examines a number of disputed lunacy cases, ranging from the 1820s to the 1890s - including the unsavoury incident that Sir Alexander Morison himself became embroiled in.

Speaker: Sarah Wise, Independent Scholar

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Dr Burney uses the notorious case of the serial murderer John Christie (1953) to explore the contours of English homicide investigation at mid-century and detail the broader ‘forensic culture’ within which the case unfolded.

Crucial to the Christie story is the way that forensic pathology and forensic science operated in a relationship of mutual dependence, and how this reflected an effort on the part of participants to forge a new culture of ‘team-driven’ forensic investigation as a self-conscious corrective to a prior model based on individual ‘virtuosity’.

In particular, the Christie case enables an examination of the ways that English murder investigation was shaped by new approaches to the crime scene and by developments in lab-based analysis of crime scene objects which reconfigured the relationship between bodies, spaces, and traces.

Speaker: Dr Ian Burney (University of Manchester)

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Since the early modern period, artists and anatomists have worked towards perfection; the perfection of anatomical models in three dimensions. But how did they achieve the sophisticated results that survive to this day?

Whilst early models in wax were celebrated for their lifelike appearance, such models were fragile and did not allow for the hands-on interaction increasingly called for by medical educators.

The nineteenth century saw a solution to this problem, with the development of a type of papier-mâché by the French doctor Louis Thomas Jérôme Auzoux. Around 1820, Auzoux began to develop life-sized human models using a paper-based mixture. The models were sufficiently robust to be taken apart and reassembled; they were produced in series using moulds, and exported globally.

This talk explores two aspects of gendering in the production and deployment of, not only the Auzoux models, but other contemporaneous artificial anatomies also.

Speaker: Dr Anna Maerker (King’s College London)

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In 1914, abdominal wounds were managed expectantly, without surgical intervention, and the majority of patients died. By 1915, early operative treatment was introduced by pioneering surgeons to try to combat the heavy loss of life. It was realised that early deaths, within a few hours of wounding, were caused by haemorrhage, while later deaths were caused by sepsis.

Early surgical intervention was of paramount importance in improving the prognosis of these wounds. Thus, during the 3rd Battle of Ypres in 1917, three casualty clearing stations were positioned within 5 miles of the front line, with well qualified surgeons to perform the surgery and dedicated nurses to care for the wounded. This talk explores their experiences.

Speaker: Mr Tom Scotland (University of Aberdeen; NHS Grampian)

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“For by the word Nose, throughout all this long chapter of noses, and in every other part of my work, where the word Nose occurs,- - I declare, by that word I mean a Nose, and nothing more, or less.” No reader of Laurence Sterne’s wildly-popular novel Tristram Shandy (1759-67) could be in doubt that sometimes a nose is not just a nose.

In this lecture, Dr Noelle Gallagher explores the weird and wonderful cultural life of deformed noses in eighteenth-century British literature and art. Considering popular engravings and well-known literary works, Gallagher explores how the deformed nose came to function as a powerful symbol for fears about immigration, class instability and even the degeneration of the species.

Speaker: Dr Noelle Gallagher, Senior Lecturer in 18th Century British Literature, University of Manchester

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The plague was one of early modern Europe’s most deadly and feared diseases. At the forefront of developing public health campaigns in the face of epidemics, from the 14th century onwards, were the doctors who advised on the prevention and treatment of the disease.

This talk considers continuity and change in the attitudes and advice given by doctors between 1500 and 1700. In particular, it sets theories, as reflected in written texts, alongside the information we have about the realities of treatment. In the context of the latter, attention is paid to the material culture of public health for the plague, including occupational clothing and the iconic plague doctor costume.

Speaker: Dr Jane Stevens Crawshaw (Oxford Brookes University)

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Tracey Jolliffe discusses the science of syphilis in the 21st century. She explores the use of antibiotics to treat this disease and the health problems it can cause. From fatality rates to laboratory diagnosis, Jolliffe uncovers the current picture of syphilis in Scotland.

Speaker: Tracey Jolliffe (Biomedical scientist, NHS)

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The De humani corporis fabrica of Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) is the most famous of all books on anatomy. Its artistic brilliance and its insistence on human, not animal, dissection as the basis for understanding the body has ensured that the work has an honoured place in all major libraries.

Less attention has been paid to the revised 1555 edition, while the recent discovery of his annotations for a further unpublished edition, as well as the existence of further revisions to his revision of Gunther von Andernach’s Institutiones anatomicae, have thrown new light on the man and on his relationship with his Basle publisher, Oporinus.

This talk discusses Vesalius’ activities as reviser and corrector over his career as a Galenic anatomist.

Speaker: Prof Vivian Nutton (University College London)

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Lisa Smith researches gender, health and the household in early modern England and France. In this talk, she discusses the tumultuous relationships of the Newdigates and attempts to piece together a shadowy family scandal from the perspectives of father, daughter and son. She considers the significance of the family’s medical history – old age, ill health and mental illness – as the drama unfolded.

Speaker: Dr Lisa Smith (University of Essex)

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