Insights Lectures at Thackray Museum of Medicine

Thackray Museum of Medicine is announcing the return of their popular ‘Insights’ lectures. The annual series of talks will be held at the Museum this coming October, inviting a range of guest academics to talk about the development of medicine from various historical perspectives.

Lectures will explore into the weird and wonderful world of medicine and healthcare, looking into the social and scientific influences behind its development. A handful of academics invited to speak at the Thackray Museum this year includes Dr. Kersten Hall, Prof. Sanjoy Battacharya, Dr. Stella Butler and Dr Jonny Geber.

Please find details on each event below.

‘Insights’ Lectures – Speakers and Talks

7th OCTOBER: POISONS AND CURES

Dr Kersten Hall and Dr Elizabeth Hunter

Dr Kersten Hall charts the story of insulin, including a transformation from what one doctor at the time described as simply ‘15cc of thick brown muck’ into what is now Wall Street gold. Meanwhile, Dr Elizabeth Hunter explores the dangerous path that was navigated in early modern medicine between cure-all remedies and lethal poisons.

4TH NOVEMBER: FORGETTING FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

Dr Stella Butler and Dr Laura Sellers

Dr Stella Butler explores the synergies between Nightingale’s pleas to hospital governors over a century ago and the scientific advice presented in 2020 about air movement in reducing the spread of infection.Dr Laura Sellers argues how new, imposing medical institutions of the era were doomed to failure from the off, quickly becoming places for experimentation and research.

13TH JANUARY: A SHARED STRUGGLE – EXPERIMENTATION, KNOWLEDGE AND EMPIRE

Professor Manuel Barcia Paz and Dr Alexia Moncrieff

Professor Manuel Barcia scrutinises the exchanges and debates had among medical practitioners of the time, and how through practices including experimenting with human bodies, these ultimately led to new ways of controlling and dominating entire populations.

Dr Alexia Moncrieff,  a Lecturer in Modern Global History at the University of Leeds, explores stories of disability and migration in the British Empire in the aftermath of the First World War.

3RD FEBRUARY: THE POLITICS OF PANDEMICS

Professor Sanjoy Battacharya and Dr Hannah Elizabeth

Drawing on decades of research on the WHO’s smallpox eradication programmes, and the implementation across South Asia, Sanjoy explores the deep divisions and historical misrepresentation that can be found in this area of study. He discusses the harmful and long-term impact of such an exclusionary practice, and questions can this complicated history act as an inclusive compass for the future?

Dr Hannah Elizabeth explores the emergence of collaborative activism amongst HIV-affected doctors, social workers, and mothers, that spanned professional, political and personal boundaries. Through these deeply personal stories, they demonstrate how others can learn from the quiet and small-scale activism that shaped Edinburgh’s response to the AIDS crisis.

2ND MARCH: CLIMATE CHANGE, A HEALTH EMERGENCY

Dr Virginia Murray and Martin Schweiger

It has taken over 2,000 years to develop our current understanding of climate change, yet there has been too slow a recognition of the health consequences that are only set to increase. Martin Schweiger tells the evolving story of climate change, what has been done already and the steps still to be taken.

Professor Virgina Murray then discusses the impact of climate change to air quality, including growing air and transport hazards seen the world over. Through UN Landmark agreements including the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, she explains how governments plan and action their strategies for health and disaster risk management in this rapidly changing field.

6TH APRIL: RAISING THE DEAD

Dr Shirley Curtis- Summers and Prof. Keith Manchester

Dr Curtis-Summers’ will draw on bioarchaeological research and multidisciplinary evidence to reveal what we can learn about the lives, and deaths of people from Scotland’s past. But, as Prof. Keith Manchester explores, these studies do not tell us the story of the individual’s journey with the disease – the pain they felt, the psychological trauma and the other effects on their daily life.

4TH MAY: FEAST AND FAMINE

Dr Jonny Geber and Dr Iona McCleeryDr Jonny Geber tells the stories of misunderstood communities during the Irish Famine, and charts how bioarchaeology has helped to shed light on their lives from their perspective, to uncover the truth about their history. Meanwhile, Dr Iona McCleery considers the combined impact of colonialism, the slave trade, and climate change on health and nutrition in West Africa from the 17th Century onwards.