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Anxiety and compassion: emotions and the surgical encounter in early 19th-century Britain
The next seminar in the 2017–18 History of Pre-Modern Medicine seminar series takes place on Tuesday 7 November. Speaker: Dr Michael Brown (University of Roehampton), ‘Anxiety and compassion: emotions and the surgical encounter in early 19th-century Britain’ The historical study of the… Continue reading
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History of Pre-Modern Medicine seminar series, 2017–18
The History of Pre-Modern Medicine seminar series returns this autumn. The 2017–18 series – organised by a group of historians of medicine based at London universities and hosted by the Wellcome Library – will commence with four seminars in the… Continue reading
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Wound man Part 2: afterlives
The remarkable manuscript image of the wound man did not die with the medieval medical world that created it, finding a rich afterlife in the Renaissance and beyond. With the adoption of new print technologies in the second half of… Continue reading
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Wound man Part 1: origins
The ‘wound man’ is an enigmatic and troubling figure from the world of medieval and early modern medical manuscripts. Staring impassively out of the page, he bears a multitude of graphic wounds. His skin is covered in bleeding… Continue reading
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Hands, holes and hashtags: Wellcome MS. 550
The first manuscript that I ever encountered face-to-face was Wellcome MS. 550. This volume, mainly in medieval Latin, dates from the early 15th century, and is a compendium of different medical and surgical writings. As my research involves the plague,… Continue reading
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A Parisian surgical dynasty and their books
Why do we often sign and date our books when we acquire them? It is not surely for fear that we will lose them and thus to ensure their safe return. Rather, it is to mark their place in our… Continue reading
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Wounds from the Battle of Waterloo
A “damned near-run thing” said the Duke of Wellington on his victory over Napoleon at Waterloo on 18 June 1815. The Battle of Waterloo was the the bloody finale of the French Emperor’s 100-day reign. While Napoleon was exiled to… Continue reading
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Film of the month: Abdominal hysterectomy for pyosalpinx
This is a fragment of a longer film (the original length was 502 feet which is about 6 minutes) depicting the surgical removal of the uterus (a hysterectomy) in close-up. Pysosalpinx relates to the fallopian tube being blocked by pus.… Continue reading
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The British Transplantation Society papers (1972-2007)
The recently catalogued papers (SA/BTS) of the British Transplantation Society (BTS) document changing attitudes towards organ and tissue transplantation, in the medical community and more broadly, over a 35-year span. The papers provide an insight into the rapid medical advances… Continue reading
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‘Everard Home: Hero or Villain?’
Dr Simon Chaplin, Head of the Wellcome Library, will be giving a lecture about the surgeon Everard Home at the Hunterian Museum in London on Tuesday 14th May at 13.00. “Who was the real Everard Home (1756-1832)? Was he a brilliant… Continue reading