Science Museum Group Journal Issue 11

In this Spring 2019 issue of the Journal, we present an eclectic mix of articles: from a discussion of the Crystal Palace dinosaur models as heritage artefacts to an assessment of a game designed to teach the history of medicine to nurses, and a study of the conservation of an eighteenth-century clock. You’ll also find a mini-collection of papers on the theme of wounds, in which you can enjoy some fairly gruesome descriptions of early modern facial surgery, a discussion of Ambroise Paré’s innovative treatment of gunshot wounds, and a study of the role of processions in healing societies fractured by plague. We’re very proud to include the winning entry from last year’s writing prize, Jules Skotnes-Brown’s From the White Man’s Grave to the White Man’s home?'. The judges were impressed by the way the author cleverly compares visitor accounts and curatorial intentions for the 1924/25 British Empire Exhibition, challenging our understanding of how the exhibition was actually experienced by audiences. Two further articles present research on the Science Museum Group’s own collection – Annie Thwaite’s study of ten significant amulets, and Julie Ackroyd’s search for the provenance of a beautiful seventeenth-century medical chest – and we conclude with an obituary of the influential and much-loved academic, Jeff Hughes.

Collection Details

Creator (organisation)

Science Museum Group

Language

English

Related collection

Science Museum Group Journal

Licence

CC BY 4.0

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7

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The provenance and context of the Giustiniani Medicine Chest
(2019-05-01)
Ackroyd, Julie
In autumn 2019 the Science Museum will open its new Medicine Gallery, which is an opportunity to redisplay and reinterpret items from the collection. One object selected as a centrepiece for the new space is the Giustiniani Medicine Chest, which dates from the mid-sixteenth century. This object came into the Science Museum Collection in 1946 having originally been bought in Italy in 1924 by an agent of Sir Henry Wellcome for his medical collection. This article assesses its provenance and history.
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Wounded: ‘A small Scar will be much discerned’: treating facial wounds in early modern Britain
(2019-05-01)
Cock, Emily
This article examines the treatment of facial wounds in early modern Britain through a close study of the casebook of St Bartholomew’s Hospital surgeon Joseph Binns (d. 1664). It explores surgeons’ and related practitioners’ special attention to the care and infliction of facial wounds and scarring in their practice, including impairments to facial movement and expression, the use of specific suturing techniques and the reduced use of stitches, and the development of agglutinative medicaments. The face was recognised as a site of immense vulnerability and exposure, requiring particular care, and this vulnerability was mirrored in the capacity for facial scarring to detrimentally advertise a practitioner’s skill. This essay reads Binns’ unpublished notes against the cases and theoretical ideals set out in published texts from surgeons such as the Scottish Alexander Read, the East India Company surgeon John Woodall, and the London surgeon and physician Daniel Turner. I argue that both the textbooks and Binns’ practice demonstrate awareness of the special role of the face in the early modern period, and that this guided the medical approach to disfiguring injuries and conditions.
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From the White Man’s Grave to the White Man’s Home? Experiencing ‘Tropical Africa’ at the 1924–25 British Empire Exhibition
(2019-05-01)
Skotnes-Brown, Jules
The 1924–25 British Empire Exhibition was the largest colonial exposition in British history. Twenty-seven million people explored its 238-acre grounds, gazed at its displays, and marvelled at its architectural wonders. While exhibits ranged from a series of so-called 'native villages', to a spectacle of tropical medicine, the official intent was consistent – to promote the development of a more self-sufficient Empire. The exploitation of 'underdeveloped' African Crown Colonies was considered important in securing this vision. Eschewing the image of 'Diseased Africa', curators sought to encourage temporary settlement and investment by suggesting that medicine had transformed tropical Africa into a land of infinite wealth for the intrepid capitalist. In contrast to many analyses of World’s Fairs, which have focused on catalogues and official materials at the expense of visitor’s narratives, I uncover the tensions between curatorial intention and visitors' experiences. Through an analysis of divergent responses from science communicators and lay-publics, I argue that the curators' vision of 'Brightest Africa' was sometimes received, sometimes contested, misinterpreted, or lost in translation. This was because the fair was more than a series of exhibits: it was a miniature city, populated by living displayed peoples, which prompted concerns about disease, sanitation, and racial comingling. While catalogues and captions to the displays sought to pacify the White Man’s Grave, the curators misjudged the effect of the sensorial experience of the exhibition, which often suggested the opposite. Its sights, smells, and sensations conformed to a stereotype of tropical Africa as a deadly place, rather than a 'white man’s home'.
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Wounded: Healing communal wounds: processions and plague in sixteenth-century Mantua
(2019-05-01)
Leonard, Marie-Louise
In 1576 a plague epidemic inflicted physical and psychological wounds on the community of Mantua. This article examines the role of processions in healing those wounds and discusses the programme of processions organised by the city’s health office in conjunction with religious groups including Mantua’s confraternities. Processions were staged at various points during the epidemic for different purposes: to celebrate dates on the religious calendar, such as the feast of Corpus Domini, and to reintegrate those cured at the plague hospital to the city. Participation was not limited to those in the processional body; for instance, people quarantined in their homes could watch the event, hear the prayers, and join in by singing. Therefore, processions provided a link between the sick and the healthy and illustrate the collective experience of illness and healing in early modern society. Furthermore, processions with returning convalescents in Mantua illustrate complex attitudes towards the sick poor and their role in healing the city.
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Mind-Boggling Medical History: creating a medical history game for nurses
(2019-05-01)
Chaney, Sarah
;
Frampton, Sally
This article examines the development of the resource Mind-Boggling Medical History, a card game developed to introduce medical and healthcare history to new and non-traditional audiences for the subject. We explore the methods we used to develop and improve the game, which was reliant on stakeholder participation. We then focus on the impact of Mind-Boggling Medical History on nurses, who have constituted one of the game’s key audiences, and explore its role in supporting nurses’ critical engagement with changing knowledge and concepts of evidence. We also evaluate the limitations in our own approach to collaboration with nurses. Through this, we elucidate the relative lack of engagement, historically speaking, there has been between humanities scholars and nurses. We conclude by pointing to ways in which resources like Mind-Boggling Medical History can open up the academic medical humanities to audiences that the discipline rarely caters to.
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Wounded: ‘They had no fever…’ Ambroise Paré (1510–1590) and his method of gunshot wounds management
(2019-05-01)
Berger, Elena
;
Glyantsev, Sergey
By the fifteenth century firearms had spread all over Europe, but surgeons had no idea how to cure gunshot wounds. It was generally accepted that high mortality from gunshot wounds could be explained by some kind of ‘gunshot poison’ entering the body with the bullet, but information and practical advice on managing gunshot wounds varied enormously across Europe. There were no appropriate instructions for such a new kind of wound in the ancient medical tradition and more recent ideas were unevenly distributed. Although known in Germany, Hieronymus Brunschwig’s Buch der Wund Artzney (1497) seems to have been unfamiliar in France and instead French surgeons focused on Giovanni da Vigo’s La Practique et chirurgie (1542), which was translated into several languages. Ambroise Paré also followed da Vigo, but in the battlefield he had to revise the generally accepted method of gunshot wound treatment. In response to his experiences he proposed a new version of wound care where cauterisation was replaced with a ligature of the vessels and the use of a healing balm dressing. In his treatise Des Playes faicts par haquebutes et autres bastons à feu (1545) he described the main stages of healing and the principles of wound care he finally adopted. As Paré fell out of fashion, the idea of ‘gunshot poison’ was rejected by the medical authorities, but the technique of cauterising gunshot wounds, abandoned by Paré, was still practised. Opponents of Paré argued that only a few people were cured by him and that those who were, were not seriously injured. It is of course impossible to know how many soldiers were cured with the help of Paré’s method but it nevertheless served as a basis for a new surgical paradigm. Perhaps most importantly, Paré’s method centred on the wish to reduce pain in the treatment process – an idea that was entirely new and ahead of its time.
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A history of amulets in ten objects
(2019-05-01)
Thwaite, Annie
What are amulets? How are they situated in the larger narrative of European healing? Varied and complex objects, amulets present both challenges and opportunities for historians and museums alike. Yet an examination of these often-overlooked items within a medical context can provide significant information about cure and protection over different times and geographies. This article analyses ten amulets from the Science Museum collections, and asks what we can learn from exploring these objects’ material features and varying functions. It argues for a re-consideration of amulets from their categorisation by nineteenth- and twentieth-century collectors and classification by modern museums, to their recognition as a significant part of the history of healing.
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Science Museum Group Journal Issue 11

Science Museum Group Journal Issue 11

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