Exploring Wellcome Collection: Medicine, Society and the Making of Modern Europe to 1800

What did it mean to be ill in the past?  How was illness understood and how were patients treated?  Drawing on the rich holdings both in the Library and Wellcome Collection, this short course looks for answers to these questions.

Operated in conjunction with our colleagues at Birkbeck College, the course will think about the ways in which sickness and health were understood in the past within the context of broader historical questions.

Based at Wellcome Collection, this module surveys the social and cultural history of medicine in Europe, focusing on the emergence of medicine as knowledge and practice. We will think about the ways in which sickness and health were understood in the past within the context of broader historical changes. We will also try to understand how concepts of body and mind, disease and gender have changed over time and have shaped medicine, and we will analyse the changing relationship between doctors and patients.

Topics explored include the relationship between doctors and patients, the origins of ‘Western medicine’ in the Classical period and how concepts of body and mind, disease and gender altered over time.

More details on the course – including information on applying – can be found on the Birkbeck website.

Image: ‘Wound man’ from MS.290