Episodes

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Something Borrowed, Something Blue: The Strange History of Aristotle's Masterpiece, by Prof. Mary Fissell.

Combines history of science, food and culture and applies these to Anglo-German relations and perceptions by examining how between 1850-1914 the German sausage was used as a metaphor for the German nation.

"Poems on Plagues: Thomas Sprat and the Later History of the Plague of Athens", examines responses to Thucydides’ narrative of the plague of Athens.

Charts the history of forensic anthropology in the UK and illustrate its constant links back to so many aspects of applied anatomy.

The Annotated Medical and Physical Observations of Sir John Pringle, by Dr Stephen Craig.

Introduction to the Casenotes podcast.