Virginia Berridge

Health and medicine

THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE The social history of medicine, like most social history, is primarily a development of the last two decades, and arose out of the same congruence of interests which have transformed economic and labour history into social history in that period. The older tradition of the history of medicine, which it has by no means displaced, saw the discipline as essentially inward-looking. This was a doctor-oriented version of medicine, justifying medical history as an illumination of the internal history of the profession or of the discovery or development of technical medical procedures. It assumed a Whig framework of progress towards ever-superior forms of knowledge or organisation, culminating in the state of medical practice at the present day. It therefore had a strongly biographical emphasis; the lives of the ‘great men’ of medicine filled the shelves of the medical history sections. The scientific basis of medical practice was seen as a series of discoveries and of contributions or advances towards present understanding; the analysis of medical institutions was in terms of celebratory histories concentrating on internal milestones of development. ‘The need for a knowledge of the origin and growth of ones profession is surely self-evident’, said Sir Douglas Guthrie in his Presidential address to the History of Medicine section of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1957, ‘it is obvious that history supplies an essential basis for medicine. It gives us ideals to follow, inspirations for our work and hope for the future.’The ‘graph of medical progress’ could, he considered, be depicted as ‘an ever-mounting curve’.

Binge drinking: an exploration of a confused concept

Binge drinking is a matter of current social, media and political concern, and the focus of much policy activity in the UK. Binge drinking is associated with causing a wide range of harm to individuals (e.g. accidents), and the wider community (e.g. crime and disorder). Within the current discourse, binge drinking is seen primarily as a youth issue. Binge drinking is sometimes portrayed as a recent phenomenon, but we know from history that heavy drinking has been endemic in British society over many centuries. Using a contemporary history perspective, this paper explores the concept of binge drinking. It considers the definitions in use, recent shifts in meaning and also the way in which different definitions of binge drinking impact on perceptions of the extent and nature of binge drinking. The paper concludes with some thoughts and questions about the usefulness of the concept of binge drinking as it currently used, and areas for further research.

Research and policy: What determines the relationship?

Abstract The relationship between research and policy is a matter of much current interest to policy makers in health. This paper uses historical approaches and case studies to examine the nature of the interrelationship. Drug policy (the evaluation of methadone maintenance in the 1970s and of needle exchange in the 1980s) and alcohol policy (the changing fortunes of the Ledermann hypothesis relating total alcohol consumption to population based harm) provide examples of how the relationship operates. Research can provide the legitimation for particular policy alliances; the role of medical civil servants and medical experts in the UK has historically played a crucial gatekeeping’ role.

Binge Drinking: A Confused Concept and its Contemporary History

Binge drinking is a matter of current social, political and media concern. It has a long-term, but also a recent, history. This paper discusses the contemporary history of the concept of binge drinking. In recent years there have been significant changes in how binge drinking is defined and conceptualised. Going on a ‘binge’ used to mean an extended period (days) of heavy drinking, while now it generally refers to a single drinking session leading to intoxication. We argue that the definitional change is related to the shifts in the focus of alcohol policy and alcohol science, in particular in the last two decades, and also in the role of the dominant interest groups. The paper is a case study in the relationship between science and policy. We explore key themes, raise questions and point to a possible agenda for future research.

Aids, the media and health policy

AIDS, so one policy analyst has argued, may be the ’first media disease’’. But Aids is by no means the first disease to have a strong media component in its construction and presentation. Historically, disease has long been mediated by its presentation in the press. Cholera, for example, was a key disease in terms of press attention’. Other diseases killed more widely, but few attracted such a range of coverage from religious periodicals, medical journals, radical newspapers, magazines on household management, the educational and temperance press and literary and scientific papers. The sheer amount of press and periodical focus on the disease helped to stimulate a general sense of fear and dread, much, so as it has been argued, as Aids media presentation did in the 1980s. More recently, the media presentation of the post-World War I ’flu epidemic, or the polio epidemic in the 1950s, has been significant in helping to structure public responses’’ I

History matters? History's role in health policy making.

“History matters—pass it on” was the slogan of a campaign launched in England in the summer of 2006 to raise public awareness of the huge contribution that history, heritage and the built environment make to our qualify of life. A resume commented, It unites the whole heritage sector, led by the National Trust, English Heritage, the Historic Houses Association and the Heritage Lottery Fund, and events will be held over the next six months at hundreds of historic locations across England and Wales. Supporters include David Starkey, Tristram Hunt, Simon Thurley, Stephen Fry, Bill Bryson, Shami Chakrabarti, Tony Benn and Boris Johnson.

Health & Society in Britain Since 1939

1. Introduction: historiographical contexts. Writing about the war and the post-war period 2. Health and the Second World War 3. Health policy, health and society, 1948-74 4. Health policy, health and society, 1974-90s Conclusion Further reading.

History of addictions

This glossary arises out of research interests in the 19th and 20th century in the history of drugs, including the contemporary history of drug policy. It is necessarily brief, and British and American focused; it is also concentrated on narcotic drugs rather than alcohol and tobacco. However, the comments take on board the recent discussions of convergence across the substances, and also the spread of the concept of addiction to tobacco in recent years. The bibliography is also limited to specific interests.

THE POLICY RESPONSE TO THE SMOKING AND LUNG CANCER CONNECTION IN THE 1950s AND 1960s

A key current concern is how scientific knowledge may inform policy in relation to major environmental and health concerns. There are distinct schools of analysis about this relationship between science and policy. They stress rational relationships; denial and delay; or the role of networks. History is important in modifying such perspectives: smoking policy in the 1950s and 1960s is the case study here. The initial response in the 1950s to the link between smoking and lung cancer was in part conditioned by the role of the tobacco industry and the financial importance of tobacco: the British tobacco industry had closer relationships with government than the American one, and did not rely on public relations. Public health interests worked with the industry. But politicians were concerned also about the fluidity of the epidemiological evidence; the dangers of stirring up further pressure over air pollution; the financial and ideological implications of health education and its location; and the electoral dangers of intervening in a popular mass habit. In the 1960s the British and American medical reports stimulated the growth of a public health ‘policy community’. The initial political considerations began to weaken and these years marked the beginning of a new style of public health.

Punishment or treatment? Inebriety, drink, and drugs, 1860–2004

On Sept 19, 1885, a special train ran from Euston station in London to Rickmansworth, then a country town. It carried a mixed party of doctors, clergymen, temperance abstainers, and prohibitionists, many of whom were members of the British Society for the Study of Inebriety. They were attending a reception at the Dalrymple Home, a licensed inebriates retreat run by the Homes for Inebriates Association. The guest of honour was Dr Joseph Parrish, president of the American Association for the Study and Cure of Inebriety, founded in 1870. A resolution was passed that day congratulating Parrish and his group “on the steadily increasing recognition of the diseased condition of the confirmed drunkard, and on the generous provision for the treatment of the poorest of this class in America at the public expense”. The purpose of the day’s enthusiastic outing resulted