This article examines the fortunes of one particular surgical innovation in the treatment of gallstones in the late 20th century; the percutaneous cholecystolithotomy (PCCL). This was an experimental procedure which was trialled and developed in the early days of minima...

This article explores the early years of the campaign for ‘ordinary’, not politically-aligned, prisoners’ rights in Ireland. It argues that this campaign has often been overshadowed by the activities of ‘political prisoners’, who only constituted a small minority of pr...

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While some historians have noted the absence of animals in medical history, few have made the animal the central object of their historical gaze. Twenty years ago W.F. Bynum urged medical historians to follow historians of science in paying attention to the role of non-...

The book club format has enabled expert and nonexpert exploration of infection and epidemiology as encountered in popular literature. This exploration reveals that fiction focusing on apocalyptic disease often uses the zombie as embodiment of infection, as well as an ex...

Birch bark tar is a manufactured product with a history of production and use that reaches back to the Palaeolithic. Its sticky, water resistant and biocidal properties mean that it has a wide range of applications, for example, as a multipurpose adhesive, sealant and i...

This study is concerned with the development of the profession of almoner (renamed medical social worker in the 1960s) in Scotland in the period from the outbreak of the Second World War until the mid-1970s. In addition to primary and secondary documentary sources, it i...

This paper presents some of my research into the historical medical collection acquired by and on behalf of the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Solomon Wellcome (1853-1936). Specific aims of the paper are to consider how historico-geographical factors and the agency of obj...

The essay is an empirical case study of famed British scientist Francis Crick. Viewing him as a ‘cross-worlds influencer’ who was moreover dedicated to a cause, I have tried to understand how these two characteristics influenced the trajectory of his long career and how...

The field of palaeomicrobiology is dramatically expanding thanks to recent advances in high-throughput biomolecular sequencing, which allows unprecedented access to the evolutionary history and ecology of human-associated and environmental microbes. Recently, human dent...