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Five Questions for… Karen Rushton

September 15, 2016September 15, 2016 / mendtjones / Leave a comment

Karen Rushton is currently completing a number of Wellcome Trust-funded medical archiving and curating projects based at the John Rylands Library. In the latest instalment of our regular series introducing MedHumLab members, she tells us about the nature of the medical collections at JRL, their potential for interdisciplinary and creative engagement, and her interest in medical history (and reading a good book accompanied by cake).

You are Wellcome Medical Archivist/Curator at the John Rylands Library. Can you tell us a bit more about the archives and the kind of material you are working with?

The medical collections at the JRL are quite broad, ranging from early modern manuscripts to the research papers of prominent mid-20th-century physicians and surgeons. Most of my work focuses on cataloguing as yet uncatalogued collections and increasing general awareness of their research potential amongst an academic audience as well as the general public.

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MMM/15/2/1/1 – introductory page from the midwifery lectures of Thomas Young (c.1725/6-1783) given in Edinburgh in 1779

I’ve recently completed one cataloguing project relating to a collection of medical manuscripts, which mainly consists of 18th- and 19th-century lecture notes as well as case books, memoirs and pharmacopoeia, most of which originally formed part of the Manchester Medical Society‘s library. There was a heavy emphasis on midwifery and obstetrics in this collection, but the full range of subjects relevant to medical education at the time is covered by the manuscripts, and it’s also important to look beyond the simple content of the manuscripts and consider the former owners of some of these items and what this can tells us about such things as medical networks in 19th-century Manchester.

Just now I’m starting work on a new project funded by the Wellcome Trust, which has as its main focus the cataloguing of several thousand neurosurgery case files reflecting the work of 20th-century neurosurgeon Geoffrey Jefferson, and also a large number of pieces of medical art predominantly created by Dorothy Davison, which have come to us from the Manchester Medical Museum. The neurosurgery files complement a number of other collections held elsewhere in the country and demonstrate the role Manchester physicians/surgeons played in the development of neurosurgery as a specialism, and some of the medical art corresponds to specific cases in the Jefferson files.

Dorothy Davison – some of the medical artwork forming part of the next cataloguing project

Example of medical artwork by Dorothy Davison, forming part of Karen’s new cataloguing project

How did your interest in medical history develop?

My first job working with archives was at the Highland Archives in Inverness, where I worked with a full range of local history records, but I was particularly drawn to the records of the Highland Health Board, which represented some of the early hospitals in the area as well as records of the pioneering Highlands and Islands Medical Service, so I suppose that’s where my interest really began. Since then I’ve worked on collections relating to treatment of tuberculosis in children in Northumberland, before coming to Manchester to get stuck into the area’s rich medical history.

I was very interested in your recent blog post about the potential of medical archives for creative interpretation. Do you see an opportunity for using the medical collections for creative engagement, perhaps involving students, writers and/or visual artists?

Definitely! I think medical history is quite unique in its ability to engage with such a wide variety of people, given that it ultimately deals with something that everyone can relate to in some way, with people and health at its centre. So many medical archive collections are incredibly one-sided though, with fantastic detail about the science and the medical practice but often very little about the actual patient experience and the wider context of the treatment. This is why I think medical archives not only lend themselves well to more creative interpretation, but it is in itself a very important avenue to be explored.

FCC/1/1-3 – Joseph Lister’s signature taken from one of three letters sent by him to Manchester chemist Frederick Crace-Calvert, 1867-1871

FCC/1/1-3 – Joseph Lister’s signature taken from one of three letters sent by him to Manchester chemist Frederick Crace-Calvert, 1867-1871

How would you describe the concept of ‘medical humanities’ in the context of the medical archives at John Rylands Library more generally?

I think the primary and secondary resources held across the library’s collections act as an ideal starting point for interdisciplinary work with so many different research routes presenting themselves from a single collection, or even a single item; they can act as a unifying aspect for such work.

And finally, how do you relax and unwind away from the archives and collections?

I spend a lot of my free time visiting friends around the country as well as exploring Manchester’s many pubs/cafes. I also love a good book… more so accompanied by a bit of cake.

Register now: Bodies, Technologies, Objects

September 2, 2016September 2, 2016 / mendtjones / Leave a comment
Binaural stethoscopes, with two rubber tubes, substituted monaural ones in the early 1900s

Binaural stethoscope, Museum of Medicine and Health, Manchester

There is still time to register for our event at The Whitworth next Tuesday, 6 September, 10am-4.30pm. The workshop looks at the role objects play for those involved with Medical Humanities – in a museum context, in medical and art practice, in teaching, learning and engagement.

The workshop is FREE (and lunch and coffee/tea breaks are included for all participants), but please register here.

See here for a more detailed event announcement.

UPDATE: Bodies, Technologies, Objects

August 22, 2016August 22, 2016 / mendtjones / Leave a comment

Bodies, Technologies, Objects

A Medical Humanities Laboratory workshop at the University of Manchester

Tuesday, 6 September 2016, Whitworth Art Gallery
10:30 am – 4:30 pm

Hand sanitizer dispensers, medicine bottles, surgical knives, bionic eyes: from the mundane and simple to the rarified and high-tech, objects mediate and condition our encounters with medicine, health and illness. How, this workshop asks, can those working in medical humanities engage productively with objects to gain insights into medical care and health experience? What can objects show or tell us that texts do not?

This workshop brings together scholars, artists, and museum professionals to address these questions. In three themed sessions combining presentation and discussion, we intend to explore the analytical, creative, and pedagogical possibilities that a focus on objects offers us.

Binaural stethoscopes, with two rubber tubes, substituted monaural ones in the early 1900s

Binaural stethoscope, Museum of Medicine and Health, Manchester

PROGRAMME

10:00 am – 10:30 am: Coffee and registration

10:30 am – 10:45 am: Welcome

10:45 am – 11:30 am: Session One:
Patients and the medical museum

We begin with Dr Sam Alberti (Keeper of Science & Technology, National Museums Scotland), who discusses how curators are interrogating what medical collections can tell us about the lives and experiences of those treated and other users of medical technologies.

11:30 am – 11:45 am: Coffee break

11:45 am – 1:15 pm: Session Two:
Artists encounter and engage medical objects and technologies

This session features two artists discussing their recent work:

Geoffrey Harrison (London) has been Artist in Residence at Barts Pathology Museum, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and recently completed a Leverhulme residency at The Royal Veterinary College. His anatomically-inspired artwork owes something to his childhood as the son of medical illustrators, but also incorporates an interest in aesthetics, theoretical bodily processes and anatomies that appear broken, but are somehow remade, whole.

Painter Lucy Burscough (Manchester) is currently working with Ocular Bionica (@OcularBionica). This project, a collaboration with Manchester Vision Regeneration Lab and the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, explores the cutting edge sight technologies that hint at a future of biomedical bionics and the hacking of humanity.

1:15 pm – 2:15 pm: Lunch

2:15 pm – 3:45 pm: Session Three:
Teaching with, through and about medical objects

Dr Kostas Arvanitis (ICP, Manchester) and Stephanie Seville (Museum of Medicine and Health, Manchester) discuss how museology students have worked with objects and staff from the University’s collections. This project, which included pop-up exhibitions, intended to develop practical skills while testing theoretical understanding.

Medical historian Dr Harriet Palfreyman (CHSTM, Manchester) discusses her work with the Time Travelling Operating Theatre, an engagement project using historical re-enactment and medical simulation to create conversations amongst clinicians, historians, and the public about the past, present, and future of surgery.

3:45 pm – 4:30 pm: Collective closing discussion

The event is FREE (lunch and tea breaks included).

All welcome, but please register here.

For more information, contact Marion Endt-Jones at marion.endt[at]manchester.ac.uk.

The Medicine Cabinet: A Cross-Faculty Student and Public Engagement Project

August 4, 2016August 5, 2016 / mendtjones / Leave a comment

During the academic year 2015-16, staff and students from the Faculties of Life Sciences (now Biology, Medicine and Health) and Humanities have collaborated with the Museum of Medicine and Health (MMH), the University of Manchester Historian and Heritage Manager and Chetham’s Library to develop a series of public engagement activities that aimed to engage different audiences with the MMH’s collection of medical objects.

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AGMS student putting objects on display for The Medicine Cabinet, Chetham’s Library, 12 December 2015

The project, which was led by Dr Kostas Arvanitis (School of Arts, Languages and Cultures), Dr Carsten Timmermann (CHSTM) and Stephanie Seville (Heritage Assistant, MMH), and funded by the Faculty of Humanities and the Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund, included

  • a one-day pop-up exhibition in Chetham’s Library, which attracted c. 200 visitors (The Medicine Cabinet: Unlocking Manchester’s Medical History, 12 December 2015)
  • a family activity at Manchester Histories Festival (11 June 2016),
  • a social media campaign on twitter, facebook and instagram (May-July 2016), and
  • a series of four videos, which show MA Art Gallery and Museum Studies students introducing MMH objects they researched for the exhibition.

The videos below, which feature objects as varied as a powder folder, a bronzed wax resin cast of a facial reconstruction of Philip II of Macedon, a nest of three Royal Worcester white crucibles and a McEvedy rectal speculum (proctoscope), provide a fascinating insight into the project and the MMH’s collection:

Learn more about the project here and here.

Click here for more photos of the exhibition at Chetham’s Library.

See also this short interview with Stephanie Seville, introducing her work with the MMH collections on the MedHumLab website.

Five Questions for… Stephanie Seville

July 19, 2016 / mendtjones / 1 Comment

Stephanie Seville is a part-time Heritage Assistant who looks after the collections of the Museum of Medicine and Health based in Stopford Building. She spends the rest of her working week as Art Curator at Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery.

Members of the public interacting with displays produced by Art Gallery and Museum Studies students at the Chetham’s Library exhibition, December 2015

Members of the public interacting with displays produced by Art Gallery and Museum Studies students at the  exhibition The Medicine Cabinet, Chetham’s Library, December 2015

To begin with, can you tell us a bit more about the Museum of Medicine and Health – its history, purpose and the kind of objects that form part of its collection?

The Museum of Medicine and Health is a collection of over 8,000 items of historic medical equipment, instruments and apparatus spanning over 300 years. The collection represents a significant educational and cultural asset for the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health at the University of Manchester.

The museum began as a collection of antique medical instruments that were kept in the office of George A.G. Mitchell, the Professor of Anatomy at the old Medical School on Coupland Street. The transfer of the Medical School to the new Stopford Building in 1972 was overseen by Dr F.B. Beswick, the Executive Dean, who decided that any equipment left, including Professor Mitchell’s collection, should be brought to the new building. These objects form the core collection, first catalogued and curated by Charlotte Beswick (the Executive Dean’s wife). This foundation collection proved to be of historic importance and included artefacts such as a Lister’s Carbolic Acid Spray for use in operating theatres (1870s); a rare endoscope (1865) designed by the Irish physician Francis Cruise; and a Laënnec stethoscope (1830s).

The collection has grown in size over the last four decades. Today, through access and engagement, the Museum of Medicine and Health’s purpose is to support the University community; to enable, enhance and widen research, teaching, student experience and public engagement; and to inspire and inform.

Teaching model of a brain taken along with a selection of objects from the collection to Manchester Town Hall for the Manchester Day Brain Box event, June 2016

Teaching model of a brain taken along with a selection of objects from the collection to Manchester Town Hall for the Manchester Day Brain Box event, June 2016

What does your role as a Heritage Assistant entail?

As part-time Heritage Assistant it is my role to help facilitate the work of those wishing to gain access to collections for research, teaching and learning, and to promote their importance and relevance to the city’s heritage through public events, including Manchester Histories Festival and Manchester Day. I work with students, staff, academics and artists to give access to and help interpret objects in the collections integral to research, projects and inspiration.

In addition to my role at the University of Manchester I am Art Curator at Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery. Both roles are very different but complement each other also. I am increasing my work with academics at Blackburn Museum, seeing the collections there as potential for further academic research.

The majority of the objects remain in storage due to a shortage of suitable display space in Stopford Building. Can you share some examples of how the collections are used for research, teaching and public engagement?

The collections are stored in the Stopford Building, and currently no permanent display space is allocated to the Museum of Medicine and Health. This encourages more creative thought about how the collection can be engaging for students, staff and the public. For example, over the last two years the museum has played a vital role in the teaching and learning of the students of the MA Art Gallery and Museum Studies in the Institute for Cultural Practices. This year, with additional Wellcome Trust funding, The Medicine Cabinet project allowed students to work directly with a large number of objects on loan from the collection. It resulted in a public exhibition at Chetham’s Library, a stand at the Manchester Histories Festival and a social media campaign.

Art Gallery and Museum Studies student setting up the one-day public exhibition The Medicine Cabinet, using the collections of the Museum of Medicine and Health at Chetham’s Library, December 2015. Over 200 people visited the exhibition during its one day at Chetham’s

Art Gallery and Museum Studies student setting up the one-day public exhibition The Medicine Cabinet, using the collections of the Museum of Medicine and Health, at Chetham’s Library, December 2015. Over 200 people visited the exhibition during its one day at Chetham’s

How do you see the interdisciplinary potential of the collection?

There is interdisciplinary potential in the collection that is waiting to be explored further. Through the Inspiring Futures event we run each winter term for secondary school children from local areas, we aim to promote the various disciplines, specialisms and experiences that make up the advancement of medicine and health. For example, we worked with scientists from the School of Materials, who demonstrated the material properties of bone through a fun and interactive event for the 14 year-olds attending.

Binaural stethoscopes, with two rubber tubes, substituted monaural ones in the early 1900s

Binaural stethoscopes, with two rubber tubes, substituted monaural ones in the early 1900s

And finally, which is your favourite object, or group of objects, in the collection?

I am aware that the collection reflects the change in the use of materials in medical practice, and I think an interesting change occurred in stethoscopes from being monaural to binaural through the development of the uses of rubber, allowing this technological advancement.

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