Tag: health professionals

Nowadays spectacles are commonplace, but in the 19th century some commentators were alarmed by their proliferation. The author of the ‘Health, Beauty and the Toilet’ column, for example, asked “WHY do we see so many children wearing glasses now-a-days, when… Continue reading

In the early 20th century, the Chemist and Druggist included a weekly supplement. Alongside “Businesses Wanted” and “Premises to Let”, the C+D also published “Situations Open” and “Situations Wanted” with opportunities advertised and sought in both retail and wholesale pharmacy… Continue reading

To mark the end of a month long ‘festival of facial hair’ we give you Margaret Pelling’s salute to the barber. And thanks and farewell to Alun Withey – our wonderful guest editor for ‘Movember’. (For men only – as… Continue reading

Edith Morgan was a prominent figure in the field of mental health for over 40 years, both in the UK and internationally. Her personal papers, documenting her remarkable career, have just been catalogued and are available to view at the… Continue reading

On Ada Lovelace Day, pharmacy historian Briony Hudson discovers the pioneering role of women pharmacists in the women’s suffrage movement. In April 1913 Bernard Gill submitted an article for publication to the Pharmaceutical Journal that arrived in a charred envelope.… Continue reading

Professional bodies exist to raise the respectability of their members, but the Society of Trained Masseuses began as a direct response to accusations of scandal and even prostitution. In the summer of 1894 the British Medical Journal (BMJ) launched an alarmist… Continue reading

Why, Miss Smith, without your glasses you’re beautiful! (…. as Miss Smith removes her spectacles and shakes down her hair….) Be-spectacled librarians and archivists are only too well aware that the wearing of glasses carries all sorts of cultural baggage… Continue reading

The Wellcome Library acquired the papers of the World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT) in 2010. The collection has recently been catalogued in detail and is now available for consultation (SA/WFO). Occupational therapists are health and social care professionals trained… Continue reading

Here is a crisply expressed idea about medical history: In defining primary sources, context is important. A historian must strive to situate the topic in time and place. No medical subject—be it a person, a practice, an institution, a technology,… Continue reading