History of Medicine Lectures

Every year Historical Collections hosts a public lecture series sponsored in part by the Section on the History of Medicine and Public Health. Events are free and open to the public, and lectures begin at 6:00 p.m., with refreshments available at 5:30 p.m. Advance registration for section events is requested but not required.

For further information about medical history programs at NYAM, please call Historical Collections at 212-822-7313 or email history@nyam.org

2012-2013 PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES 

As part of our ongoing public lecture series in the history of medicine, this year the Historical Collections and the Section on the History of Medicine and Public health are presenting a wide variety of lectures, including a special four lecture miniseries, A World Not Quite Fatal: New Views on the History of Environmental Health.

The history of environmental health is largely a story of frustratingly mixed success.  Consider scenes from not that long ago:  city streets awash in unimaginable filth beneath skies dark with a choking brew of toxic fumes; rivers brought to the brink of sterility by run-off from farms, factories and mines; workers and children killed through the manufacture and use of toxic consumer products.  Historians of environmental health have explored how in most developed nations such scenes of gross dereliction of stewardship gave way to cleaner air and water, regulations and market constraints that encourage responsibility and a healthier, longr-lived population.  But they also show how, over the same years, focus shifted from acute, clear-cut dangers to concerns with chronic insult in these seemingly cleaner environments: low-level toxicants; conditions that give rise to asthma; or the synergistic impacts of the growing number of new chemicals in the built environment.  Their concerns echo Rachel Carson's observation that we should not settle for "a world which is just not quite fatal."

This miniseries presents five scholars whose research spans the pst century to tell much of this history in its full complexity.  Physician-historian Carla Keirns will share her research on the history of asthma; Jessica Martucci will explore pesticide contamination in breast milk; Gregg Mitman will discusst he interplay of science and business in the state in Firestone-sponsored research in Liberia; and public health historians David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz will discuss their new book on childhood lead poisoning and the ethics of research on children.

UPCOMING EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE SERIES