Mark Carey, “Inventing Caribbean Climates: How Science, Medicine and Tourism Changed Tropical Weather from Deadly to Healthy,” Osiris 26, no. 1 (2011): 129-141. In this piece, Carey traces changing European and North American perceptions of Caribbean climates from 1750-1950. He argues that these understandings were not shaped only by the climactic science; rather, they were constructed around … More Inventing Caribbean Climates
Questions: Douglas claims that the book is “a late blow struck in the battle which anthropology in the 1940s and 1950s was fighting against racism.” What characterized this “battle,” and was it within or without the field itself? Why this time period? Are all anthropologists social constructionists, or have we just been reading a lot … More Purity and Danger
George Weisz, “Water Cures and Science: The french Academy of Medicine and Mineral Waters in the Nineteenth Century,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 64, no. 3 (1990): 393-416. In this piece, Weisz discusses institutional and individual attempts in nineteenth century France to place mineral waters and the therapies that involved them on a biomedical, … More Water Cures and Science
Christopher Hamlin, “Chemistry, Medicine, and the Legitimization of English Spas, 1740-1840,” Medical History, Supplement No. 10 (1990): 67-81. Hamlin, much like he does in A Science of Impurity, discusses the role of chemistry in the legitimization of health spas. He argues that their domination of the conversation was not due to any sort of revolution … More Chemistry, Medicine, and the Legitimization of English Spas, 1740-1840
Hannah Barker, “Medical advertising and trust in late Georgian England,” Urban History 36, no. 3 (2009): 379-398. Baker brings sociological theories of trust to bear on the proliferation of medical advertisements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in four English towns. Using a statistical approach, she evaluates what sorts of rhetorical strategies were … More Medical advertising and trust in late Georgian England
Noel G. Coley, “Physicians, Chemists and the Analysis of Mineral Waters: ‘The Most Difficult Part of Chemistry,’” Medical History, Supplement no. 10 (1990): 56-66. Coley approaches the historical practice of analyzing mineral waters as someone interested in the development and refinement of analytical chemistry techniques. This isn’t particularly useful for my research, but her work does provide … More “The Most Difficult Part of Chemistry”
M. D. Eddy, “‘An adept in medicine’: the Reverend Dr William Laing, nervous complaints and the commodification of spa water,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 39 (2008): 1-13. Dr. Laing (1742-1812) wrote two works on a town with mineral waters — Peterhead, Scotland — and used his knowledge of medical … More “An adept in medicine”
Robert E. Kohler, From medical chemistry to biochemistry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). “European ideals and American realities, 1870-1900” Many early American chemists trained in Germany, and as a result, “American biochemical institutions between 1875 and 1900 strongly resembled German institutions.” (95)
Overall impression: If you’re looking for an example of intersectionality — the idea that gender, race, and class are categories that create and reinforce on another — this book is an excellent example of a history where those issues are addressed without losing any of their complexity. I really get what people are saying about … More Imperial Leather
Transactions of the State Medical Society of Arkansas (Little Rock: Press Printing Company, 1887). Annual Address of the President, James A. Dibrell, Sr. (Van Buren) “What amazing wonders have not modern scientific investigations accomplished? What a grand display of dazzling brilliants have not been dug up hitherto dark, unfathomed recesses of nature, where Science sat gloomy … More Transactions of the Twelfth Session of the AR State Medical Society (1887)
Quillets and Quackery 