History of medicine and health special interest group

Exploring the history of medicine and health
Coloured engraving of Edward Jenner vaccinating his child against smallpox.
Coloured engraving of Edward Jenner vaccinating his child against smallpox. Wellcome Library, London (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (International)
The aim of the History of Medicine and Health Special Interest Group (SIG) is to bring together university academics and students and to forge links with other interested parties both within the University and externally. Hosted by the Faculty of Health , the group seeks to promote interdisciplinary and cross-faculty research collaborations, holding online seminars each semester with invited speakers and to enable researchers to showcase their work.
The history of medicine and health is a broad topic, from antiquity to the present day, enabling us to be both imaginative and inclusive. If you are interested in ancient Greek medicine, the origins of nursing, the work of Marie Curie, the role of the ship’s barber surgeon or the health beliefs and practices of historical societies, we invite you to join us.
If you wish to contact the group, please email Dr Julie Tomlinson

Seminars

We will be initially holding online seminars to showcase research in the history of health and medicine by invited guest speakers. Details will be posted here.
If you are interested in giving a talk, please contact Dr Julie Tomlinson

Upcoming seminars

Ancient Egyptian dental health and dentistry

Wednesday February 5 2025 13:00–14:00 (via Zoom; link to follow)
Dr Roger Forshaw is an honorary lecturer in Biomedical Egyptology at the University of Manchester. Roger is a formal dental surgeon who subsequently studied Egyptology and biomedical Egyptology before teaching and researching in these fields. His talk will focus on what we know about Ancient Egyptian dental health status, dentistry and healing practices through the use of dental and medical knowledge in combination with contemporary scientific and archaeological investigations.
Roger Forshaw
 

The Ancientbiotics Project

May 2025 (Zoom; link to follow)
Dr Erin Connelly, Assistant Professor, University of Warwick will discuss her work on the Ancientbiotics Project. This research used interdisciplinary approaches to examine the construction of medieval infection remedies and the knowledge transmission processes behind them. An aim of this research was to identify the potential for clinically useful natural products, inspired by the medicinal ingredient combinations of historical and traditional sources. This collaborative work between the sciences and humanities across an international team has produced several interesting results.
Erin Connelly
 

The four humours in ancient medicine

Further information on this seminar will follow soon.
16th century German illustration of the four humours
 

Past seminars

Healers and midwives accused of witchcraft (1563–1736)

16 October 2024, 13:00–14:00
Professor Nicola Ring discussed her research relating to Scottish healers and midwives accused of witchcraft 400 years ago, and what it tells us about the development of nursing and nursing today.
Illustration of a witch
 

Funding opportunities and bursaries

There are a number of available funding opportunities and bursaries. We have listed some of them here.
If you know of any further opportunities that we should be listing here, please contact Dr Julie Tomlinson
 

Networking and showcasing work

Have you published work in the history of medicine and health that you would like to share? Are you looking for new research collaborators?
If so, we would like to hear from you. We are particularly interested to hear from anyone who has an interest in the social history of medicine and would be interested to give a talk on this. Please contact Dr Julie Tomlinson

Explore further research

An innovative cross-disciplinary research project involving a team of historians, medievalists, biologists and laboratory scientiists who have uncovered the secrets of ancient remedies, using medieval texts. Their results found evidence of antistaphylococcal activity (including Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)) in ancient remedies that may have the potential for treatment of including diabetic leg ulcers.
 

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