History of Medicine Society visit to Oxford

Join the Royal Society of Medicine’s History of Medicine Section for a weekend visit to Oxford, exploring the city’s distinctive role within global and local medical history. The weekend will examine not only Oxford’s role in shaping medical knowledge and practice, but also the research approaches in medical history, supported by literature, oral history, commemoration and conservation. The overall, overarching theme of the weekend will be 'Oxford Medical History: Global and Local' and encourages participants to gain a new perspective on current issues like antibiotics, vaccines and mental health.

Friday agenda

Following your arrival on Friday evening, the night will begin with the following talk and tours:

• History of the Rhodes Trust, led by the current interim warden and CEO of the Trust.
• Tour of Herbert Baker's original arts and crafts building
• Detailed walkthrough of the major renovations of Rhodes House in 2023, led by the Director of Estates and Project Manager for the renovations.

The first day allows participants to dine, network and get settled in Rhodes House, the home of the Rhodes Trust, that has provided scholarships since 1903 and brought students from all over the world to study at Oxford including Australian pathologist, Howard Florey before the other weekend activities ahead. 

Saturday agenda

The day will begin with three morning talks in Rhodes House led by three expert speakers:

• Professor Catherine Green will discuss the development of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine against Covid-19 and will provide an inside account of the vaccines development based on her recent book - 'Vaxxers: the Inside Story of the Oxford AstraZeneca Vaccine and the Race Against the Virus.' 
• Professor Sally Shuttleworth's presentation - 'Sleep Research and Sleeplessness in the Nineteenth Century' - will utilise past and recent scientific research together with English literature, offering an important source of insight into a new topic in the history of medicine. 
• John Hall, Jane Freebody and Jonathan Leach from the Warneford 200 Project will provide an introduction to the Oxford Health Histories project in their talk- 'Oxford Health Histories and the Warneford Hospital Bicentenary.' The project uses oral histories from patients and staff from the Warneford mental hospital to talk about the local history of mental health provision, with an emphasis on the Warneford Hospital as part of its bicentenary celebrations.  

In the afternoon, there will be a comprehensive tour and talk discussing other major Oxford global contributions and their local context and focusing on the history of the University of Oxford’s Dunn School of Pathology where Howard Florey and his team developed penicillin. The talk will also include an account of the school’s approach to its centenary celebration in 2027. 

• Dinner and tour at Exeter College, the fourth oldest Oxford college. 

Sunday agenda

Before heading home on Sunday, the final day will include a:

• Radcliffe Infirmary building and site tour, led by Ian Baxter, Chair of the Friends of the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, to explore how this hospital site, where penicillin was first tested on human patients, has been transformed, yet its history commemorated.
• The morning will end with a screening of the BBC Horizon documentary 'The Mould, the Myth and the Microbe' at the on-site cinema in the new Schwarzman Humanities Centre.

The aim of this weekend is to enable participants to gain a greater understanding of selected aspects of the global and local history of medicine in Oxford and recent approaches to the history of medicine and its commemoration, through presentations and tours by experts, which feature the latest historical research, new interpretations and approaches. 

Accommodation

Participants are responsible for arranging and funding their own travel and accommodation. Rooms are reserved at Rhodes House that are available from 3:00pm on Friday 11 September. Contact Rhodes House directly to book for single or double occupancy by calling 01865 535806.  This visit also coincides with Oxford Open Doors (www.oxfordpreservation.org.uk) so you may wish to extend your trip and stay in the beautifully appointed rooms of the Arts and Crafts styled Rhodes House.

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