Episodes

June 10, 2020

Ep.29 - Matthew Smith - Food allergy before “allergy”

How were bizarre reactions to food described before the coining of the term ‘allergy’ in 1906? Dr Matthew Smith explains.
June 10, 2020

Ep.28 - Samuel Cohn - ‘The great influenza’ of 1918-20: A plague of compassion

Explores popular reactions to the ‘great influenza’ of 1918-20, primarily in relation to other epidemics of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
June 10, 2020

Ep.27 - James Kennaway - The Piano Plague: The Medical Campaign Against Female Musical Education

For much of the 19th-C there was serious medical discussion about the dangers of excessive music in girls’ education. This examines theories relating to this medical panic and consider motivations behind it.
June 10, 2020

Ep.26 - Mark Harrison - Medical Innovation in the British Empire: The Edinburgh Connection

Medical Innovation in the British Empire: The Edinburgh Connection, by Professor Mark Harrison.
June 10, 2020

Ep.25 - Simon Chaplin - The Heroic Anatomist: 18thc Dissection and the Stoic Ideal

The Heroic Anatomist: 18th Century Dissection and the Stoic Ideal, by Simon Chaplin.
June 10, 2020

Ep.23 - Abigail Woods - Animals And Their Pathologists In London, 1846 - 1900

Reveal the place and purpose of animals within human pathological anatomy during the later 19th century.
June 10, 2020

Ep.24 - David Purdie - What Killed Burns And What Did Not?

"What Killed Burns and What Did Not?" by Professor Emeritus David Purdie.
June 10, 2020

Ep.21 - Mark Jackson - The Age of Stress: Myth or Reality?

Traces the history of stress in the twentieth century, exploring scientific theories, clinical formulations and personal experiences of stress and stress-related diseases.
June 10, 2020

Ep.22 - Helen MacDonald - After Burke And Hare: Procuring Corpses To Dissect In Scotland

After the 1832 Anatomy Act a distinctive pattern of corpse procurement was creatively forged in Scotland - Dr Helen MacDonald explains.
June 10, 2020

Ep.20 - Alan Emery - Doctor-Patient Relationship in Art (From Ancient Greece to the Present Day)

Doctor-Patient Relationship in Art (From Ancient Greece to the Present Day) by Prof Alan Emery.
June 10, 2020

Ep.19 - Iain Chalmers - The Evolution Of Controlled Trials

The Evolution of Controlled Trials Before the Middle of the Twentieth Century, by Sir Iain Chalmers.
June 10, 2020

Ep.17 - Catherine Jones - Benjamin Rush, the Yellow Fever, and the Rise of Physician Autobiography

Dr Catherine Jones examines the links between Benjamin Rush’s autobiography ‘Travels through Life’ and his protracted feud with William Cobbett.
June 10, 2020

Ep.18 - Anne Hardy - Epidemiology and the Science of Detection, 1890-1960

Prof Anne Hardy discusses how forensic and investigative techniques were used to study epidemics in the 19th and 20th centuries.
June 10, 2020

Ep.16 - Lisa Rosner - Crime Scene Edinburgh: Forensic Science In The Era Of Burke And Hare

Prof. Lisa Rosner takes a CSI-style approach to discuss the notorious murders carried out by Burke and Hare, who supplied bodies for dissection at Edinburgh's medical school.
June 10, 2020

Ep.15 - James Kennaway - Fashionable Stomach Complaints and the Mind in Georgian Britain

Examines the development of thinking on the mind-stomach nexus, and how such thinking was incorporated into critiques of modern Britain.
June 10, 2020

Ep.14 - Catherine Cox - Irish Migration, Institutionalisation and Mental Illness in 19thC England

Explores the migratory patterns of Irish patients into and through the Lancashire asylum system in the later 19th century.
June 10, 2020

Ep.13 - Edgar Jones - How Ideas about Psychiatric Trauma Evolved in the Two World Wars

Explores how healthcare professionals in the UK interpreted psychosomatic disorders such as shell shock, battle exhaustion and traumatic neurasthenia, in the context of psychiatric research and the new forms of warfare.
June 10, 2020

Ep.12 - Timothy Peters - George III And The Porphyria Myth Diagnostic Implications For James VI

George III and the Porphyria Myth: Diagnostic Implications for James VI, by Prof Timothy Peters.
June 10, 2020

Ep.10 - Gayle Davis - The Female Malady: The Relationship Between Madness, Psychiatry And Gender

Explores the relationship between madness, psychiatry and gender over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, using the Royal Edinburgh Asylum as a case study.
June 10, 2020

Ep.11 - Allan Beveridge - Voices Of The Mad: Patients’ Letters From The Royal Edinburgh Asylum

Drawing on over a thousand patient letters, this examines the lives of inmates at the Royal Edinburgh Asylum when the renowned psychiatrist Thomas Clouston was Superintendent.
June 10, 2020

Ep.9 - Pamela Gilbert - Victorian Skin

Prof. Gilbert discusses Charles Bell, Charles Darwin and Cesare Lombroso’s discussions of blushing and the emotions.
June 10, 2020

Ep.7 - Joanna Bourke - Pain and the Politics of Sympathy

Pain and the Politics of Sympathy, 1789 to the Present, by Prof. Joanna Bourke.
June 10, 2020

Ep.8 - Thomas Rütten - Thomas Mann’s Fictional Characters and Their Quest for the Patient Narrative

Explores the interface between medicine and literature in Thomas Mann's work and assesses the latter’s relevance for a medical historiography that takes the individuality of the patient seriously.
June 10, 2020

Ep.5 - Michael Crumplin - The Bloody Fields Of Waterloo

Explores the various stages of the Battle of Waterloo (1815), highlighting particular medical issues of the campaign.