Category Archives: Victorian Medicine

This is my final project for the Victorian Medicine half of the course, a presentation about Dr. Bruce’s electrical apparatus in the science museum. Dr. Bruce’s Apparatus Medical Electricity Presentation It’s hosted on prezi, a cool nonlinear presentation platform.

The social purity movement that sprang up in the late nineteenth century crusaded against many vices in society. One of their primary concerns was male chastity. In the lecture on Tuesday, we saw an image of a male chastity device … Continue reading →

In class on Wednesday, we discussed the Victorian conception of nervousness; that is, a condition of malaise caused by weakness of the nerves. In the days before psychology, most Victorian doctors attributed mental problems to physiological ones. Women were believed … Continue reading →

When Pasteur and Lister introduced germ theory and antisepsis to the world, their colleagues were skeptical. Scientists found it difficult to believe that microscopic living organisms caused disease. Surgeons didn’t want to hear that they were killing their patients with … Continue reading →

On Tuesday, we visited an old operating theatre near London Bridge. There we saw what surgery was like for the typical patient in the nineteenth century. You would be held down by large burly men and told to bite on … Continue reading →

On Tuesday, we discussed John Hunter and the revival of anatomical dissection in the Victorian period. Hunter is a contradictory figure: he was an influential researcher and educator, whose hands-on approach to anatomy allowed surgeons to actually learn how to … Continue reading →