British Society for the History of Medicine
Advance News from Societies

This page will contain advance news from affiliated societies. It will not be comprehensive as many societies have their own web pages with links from our Affiliated Societies page. In some cases the advance notices will be replaced by items in the BSHM Newsletter.

Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London

Rose prize for research into the history of general practice

The Rose Prize is offered biennially by the Society in association with the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP). See RCGP awards page and in particular their announcement of the Rose Prize (pdf file). The Award is open to all who are, or who have been, involved in primary healthcare but are not professional historians. The work must have been specifically written for the Rose Prize and co-authored entries will be considered. Work should focus on general practice within the UK. Entries should be 4000-6000 words. Deadline for submission is 7th January 2009.

British Society for History of Paediatrics and Child Health

Autumn 2008 meeting in London, 12th/13th September

Meeting at The Courtauld Institute, Somerset House, Strand, London on Friday 12th and Saturday 13th September 2008

The meeting will run from lunchtime on Friday until lunchtime on Saturday, with four sessions, comprising a total of sixteen papers, including the William Cadogan Lecture. There will be a Conference Dinner at the Athenaeum Club on the Friday night, and on Saturday afternoon an optional tour of the Courtauld Art Gallery or a visit to the Great Ormond Street Hospital Museum.

The meeting is open to all who are interested in the history of paediatrics and child health, including paediatricians, historians, students and others. Please submit abstracts of papers for consideration for presentation (250 words, including title of paper, name and address of author, preferably by email by 1st July 2008) to the Hon Secretary, Lawrence Weaver (lweaver@clinmed.gla.ac.uk), from whom further details of meeting and registration form can also be obtained.

The Cadogan Lecture results from the Wiiliam Cadogan Prize, a £250 prize for an original essay of up to 3000 words, on any aspect of the history of paediatrics and child health, in any period of time or place. The prize has been established in memory of Dr William Cadogan of Bristol (1711 - 1797) an eminent pioneer of child health care and father of infant care in Britain.

President: Emeritus Professor Dan Young. Hon Treasurer: Dr Judith Darmady.
Those who wish to join the BSCPCH or learn more about it, should contact its honorary secretary, Professor Lawrence Weaver at lweaver@clinmed.gla.ac.uk

Royal Society of Medicine, History of Medicine Section

Meetings (except summer outing) are at the Society's premises at 1 Wimpole Street, London W1G 0AE. For booking procedure see Section events page

01/10/08 'The Heroic Anatomist - Dissection and the Stoic Ideal'. Simon Chaplin
05/11/08 '"Good God Women!" Suffreagettes and the Endell Street Military Hospital' Jennian Geddes
03/12/08 'Greatness in Medicine' John Burnham
04/02/09 Norah Schuster Prize Essays - selected papers submitted by students at medical schools, see RSM Awards page
04/03/09 'Pathology in London Streets: Cases in James Parkinson's Essay on the Shaking Palsy (1817)' Professor Brian Hurwitz
01/04/09 Afternoon symposium on medicine and the humanities - Stephen Golding, Aileen Adams, Anne Hargreaves and one other
06/05/09 'The New Vesalians' Presidential Address and AGM (Title may change)
28/05/09 Joint Symposium [Sleep Section]
18/06/09 Summer Outing to Cambridge

West Sussex History of Medicine Society

All meeting will start at 1000hrs on Saturday mornings at the Chichester Medical Education Centre, of St Richards Hospital, Chichester. £5 per session including coffee. Staff and students free. Certificates of attendance for Continuing Professional Development will be provided Further details from Prof John Richardson 01243-780786, via e-mail at RichardsonDrJ@aol.com

Saturday 4th October 2008. Two lectures by Dr Henry Connor MB BChir MD FRCP

'19th Century Medical Politics and the origins of the Herefordshire Medical Association'
The Association originated out of the pressure for medical reform. Herefordshire's response to the Parliamentary Bills introduced by Sir James Graham in 1844-45 and the disgruntlement with the Royal Colleges which sought to maintain the status quo are discussed. The 1858 Medical Act was the immediate stimulus for the foundation of the Association. This leads on to a discussion of how the Herefordshire doctors tried to use the Act to prosecute unregistered practitioners and one clerical quack whose activities featured in the BMJ, Lancet etc and attacked by Spencer-Wells. Other issues involve banning of homeopaths from the Association, dissatisfaction with the General Medical Council, discontent with provident societies, the professional status of GPs compared with the Church, the Army and the Law, and some medico-legal cases, which led the founding of the Medical Defence Union. There are a lot of contemporary themes there.

'Mediaeval Uroscopy and its representation on Misericords'
This amusing talk is about uroscopy, which is diagnosis by examining the urine of patients, being portrayed on carvings on misericords which are the shelving projections on the underside of the hinged seats in choir stalls, serving when the seat is turned up to support someone standing. There are a number of misericords in West Sussex, including St Mary's Hospital in St Martin's Square in Chichester.

Saturday 18th October 2008

'The Dark Ages of Pharmacology' Dr Raymond Greenlees MB BChir DObstRCOG
Dr Raymond Greenlees retired in 1997 after 35 years in General Practice and while throwing away old note books he came across a personal formulary compiled while doing the Cambridge University Pharmacology course in 1956 and was amazed to find that it only contained twelve essential drugs. He reflects on how a GP would manage on these twelve essential drugs and it reminded him that nearly all the commonly prescribed drugs today are missing from the list. He reflects on changes in the practice of medicine in his professional lifetime.

'The First Vaccinator's Portrait' Patrick J Pead MSc MIBiol FIBMS
Patrick J Pead gives a partial follow-up of his previous talk in 2006 and is an example of a rather unusual approach to investigative research in history of medicine. It is an account of how he actually tracked down and located the "lost" portrait of Benjamin Jesty which had been missing for 120years, plus news of what has happened since it was found.

Saturday 1st November 2008

'The Indian Military Hospitals & the Royal Pavilion Brighton 1914-15' Louise Hume MA
This is the first of two military presentations in Remembrance Week. Louise Hume Tells the story of the special military hospitals for the casualties of the First Indian Corps who were treated in a number of hospitals in Brighton. The Royal Pavilion was chosen as one of them because it was thought that the oriental architecture would make the Indian casualties feel at home. There is a memorial on the Downs above Brighton to the Indians who died in the hospitals and who were cremated there. (Without the prompt arrival of the first Indian Corps, it is probable that the Germans would have broken line on the Western Front in 1914 and the whole course of WW1 would have been different.)

'First Day of the Somme - a Surgical Catastrophe' Professor Harold Ellis CBE MA DM MCh FRCS FACS FRCOG
Professor Harold Ellis, the internationally renowned surgeon and medical historian will tell the surgical story of the first day of the Battle of the Somme when the Army Medical Services had to deal with well over 40,000 casualties on one day.

Saturday 15th November2008. Two lectures by Professor Neil McIntyre

'Britain's First Medical Marriage - The Welsh Woman, the Scotsman and the Mysterious Elsie'
This is an intriguing story, a mystery even, of Britain's first medical marriage between Frances Morgan MD, the first woman to qualify in medicine in Europe, and Dr George Hoggan.

'Public Statues of Medical Doctors'
Professor McIntyre then goes on to tell us about his love of statues of famous doctors round the world and tells the stories and anecdotes about them.

Saturday 29th November 2008

'Louis Pasteur: A Scientist among Doctors' Dr Winston Leigh BA MB ChB MRCGP
Dr Winston Leigh talks to us annually about a famous character and their place in the history of medicine; this year it is Louis Pasteur, the inventor of pasteurization..

'Writ in Water - Identity and the Dentist - Dark ages to the present day' Mr RD Foden BDS LDS RCS DipFOdont RFP
This is a history of forensic dentistry by a leading expert in the field.

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Amended 8 Oct 2008