This week, we’re exploring the blood-filled art of James Gillray. We uncover the world of excretory medicine – from gentle emetics to breathing a vein. And we dig into the uncouth, evocative and…
This week, we’re exploring the oozing story of bloodletting ulcers. Bloodletting is often described as gory, weird or baffling – but the stories of patients who were overbled and scarred in the…
This week, we’re exploring the history of barber poles. Were these poles once wrapped in real bloody rags? Were there different coloured poles to show the different procedures that barbers carried…
This week, we’re examining The Midwives Book and how a female midwife in 1600s England talked, wrote and understood periods, wombs and menopause. Was flatulence a sign of pregnancy? Do periods cause…
Tracey Jolliffe discusses the science of syphilis in the 21st century. She explores the use of antibiotics to treat this disease and the health problems it can cause. From fatality rates to laboratory…
The De humani corporis fabrica of Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) is the most famous of all books on anatomy. Its artistic brilliance and its insistence on human, not animal, dissection as the basis for…
Lisa Smith researches gender, health and the household in early modern England and France. In this talk, she discusses the tumultuous relationships of the Newdigates and attempts to piece together a…
Think you’ve heard all there is to know about Burke and Hare, Edinburgh’s infamous body-snatchers? Janet Philp knows more. Join her as she explores the history around the tale of Burke and Hare, and…
Edinburgh has a strong history in prosthetics research and development. Over the past 40 years, National Museums Scotland has established a world class collection of prosthetics with examples from the…
Italy, though best known for the birth of the Renaissance, is also renowned for the precocious development of its public health policies in the 16th century. In this talk, Professor John Henderson…
