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Happy Birthday John Snow
We couldn’t let today pass without acknowledging the bicentenary of the birth of Dr John Snow, whose pioneering work on the 1854 outbreak of cholera in London became a model for the epidemiological study of disease. Indeed, the definition of… Continue reading
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Let’s talk about the weather…
Patient: What do you think of a warmer climate for me doctor? Doctor: Good heavens Sir, That’s just what I am trying to save you from! Climate and health have been connected since the days of humoural medicine and probably… Continue reading
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Motherhood and apple pie
Some great graphic novels and comics have come into the library recently on the themes of pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood. Kate Brown’s graphic novel Fish+Chocolate provides three short stories around the theme of motherhood. The third of these, Matryoshka is the… Continue reading
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Stories of illness: biographies, pathographies and narratives
Back in June 2011 I attended a seminar on the role of biography in the history of psychology and psychiatry. This interesting and informative day raised a lot of questions about the relationship between biography and history. Modern academic historians… Continue reading
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Science Reading
The results of the Wellcome Trust’s inaugural Science Writing Prize are due to be announced on October 12th. In the run up to this, you may have come across the series of blog posts on our sister site at the… Continue reading
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Graphic Medicine
I’m not a great aficionado of comics or graphic novels. I know who Alan Moore and Stan Lee are; various (male) friends and family have raised my awareness of Marvel and DC Comics; I’ve read the odd issue of Swamp… Continue reading
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Do the English really have bad teeth?
While looking for interesting items from our collections to show a visiting group of dental professionals, I came across these examples of dentists’ advertising cards in our Ephemera Collection. All dating from around the early 1900s, they demonstrate an intriguing… Continue reading
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Norman Levitt: science warrior
Norman Levitt, Professor of Mathematics at Rutgers University died on 24th October 2009. He was probably best known for championing the role of science in society. With fellow scientist Paul Gross, he wrote Higher Superstition, in which he challenged the… Continue reading