Join us as we celebrate a decade of the Bynum Lecture at the RSM. To mark its tenth anniversary, the Bynum Lecture returns with a special event featuring two leading historians of medicine. Both speakers have recently published acclaimed books offering fresh perspectives on medicine in carceral settings, reflecting the wide-ranging interests of Professor W.F. Bynum, whose legacy continues to inspire historical scholarship.
Professor Hilary Marland, University of Warwick (Emerita)
Drawing from her Wellcome Trust-funded research and the co-authored book Disorder Contained (Cambridge University Press, 2022), Professor Marland examines the impact of imprisonment on mental health in 19th-century England and Ireland. Her talk will explore prison diets, women's health, the roles and challenges of prison medical officers, and how a transnational lens reveals both continuity and change. The work has garnered praise for its use of diverse sources from institutional archives to personal memoirs. It has been brought to life through public engagement at venues like the Tate Modern and prison-based theatre collaborations.
Professor Dan Healey, University of Oxford (Emeritus)
Professor Healey explores the paradoxical medical system within Stalin’s Gulag, drawing on his groundbreaking book The Gulag Doctors (Yale University Press, 2024). Despite the brutal conditions of the camps, the Gulag’s Sanitary Department employed over 10,000 medical workers. Through the lives of these doctors and nurses, Healey sheds light on the care they managed to deliver, establishing hospitals, refeeding prisoners, treating diseases, and even conducting research, although faced with extreme repression, shortages, and isolation.
By attending this meeting, you will:
This meeting aims to enable the audience to gain a greater understanding of the transnational history of prison medicine through presentations by experts in the field of the latest historical research, featuring new interpretations based on a wide variety of sources, and some sources (in Russia) that are no longer accessible.
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Chair: Professor Marguerite Dupree, President 2025 - 2026, History of Medicine Society, Royal Society of Medicine
Professor Hilary Marland, Professor Emeritus, University of Warwick
Professor Dan Healey, Emeritus Professor of Modern Russian and Soviet History, University of Oxford
Pre-registered members and guests only
Chair: Professor Marguerite Dupree, President 2025 - 2026, History of Medicine Society, Royal Society of Medicine
Royal Society of Medicine, 1 Wimpole St, Marylebone, London, W1G 0AE, United Kingdom
Registration for this event will close at 1:00 am on Friday, 9 January 2026. Late registrations will not be accepted.
The agenda is subject to change at any time
If the event is recorded, we are only able to share presentations that we have received permission to share. There is no guarantee that all sessions will be available after the event, this is at the presenter’s and RSM’s discretion.
All views expressed at this event are of the speakers themselves and not of the Royal Society of Medicine, nor the speaker's organisations.
This event will be recorded and stored by the Royal Society of Medicine and may be distributed in future on various internet channels.
