# Medicine, Health and Society Research

**Source**: https://www.brookes.ac.uk/research/units/hss/groups/medicine-health-and-society-research
**Parent**: https://www.brookes.ac.uk/engage-and-innovate/consultancy

Contact:

[vquirke@brookes.ac.uk](mailto:vquirke@brookes.ac.uk)

[+44 (0)1865 483706](tel:+44 (0)1865 483706)

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Showing all research info

About us

Research impact

Membership

Projects

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[About us](#research-about)
[Research impact](#research-impact)
[Membership](#research-team)
[Projects](#research-projects)

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## About us

Our work reflects the recent shift in emphasis from the history of medicine to a more interdisciplinary focus, involving research in Social Sciences and Life Sciences as well as within History, Philosophy, and Culture.

We are interested in medical experimentation, biomedical research and forensic medicine, public health and hygiene, welfare and governance, mental health and healing, as well as eugenics and biopolitics up to the present day. We also study ideas about race, sexuality, and gender in Europe, Britain and America.

### Part of

- [School of Education, Humanities and Languages](https://www.brookes.ac.uk/ehl "School of Education, Humanities and Languages")

### Related courses

- [History (BA (Hons))](https://www.brookes.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/history)

## Research impact

Our researchers have a wide geographical and chronological spread of expertise: from child welfare and epidemics in early modern England and Renaissance Italy to disease and illness in contemporary culture; from traditional healing to modern pharmaceuticals (including interactions between western and indigenous medicine in South Africa); from public health in 19th-century Britain to experiments in Nazi Germany; from western psychiatry to psychiatry in colonial and postcolonial Asia. Our outreach and public engagement activities ensure that our findings are disseminated widely.

Recent projects include a study of subjects’ narratives of medical experimentation between the 1940s and 2001, funded by a five year Wellcome Trust Programme Grant,  **Disputed Bodies**, launched in January 2012, and completed in 2017.

## Membership

Staff members

- Staff

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### Staff

| Name | Role | Email |
| --- | --- | --- |
| [Dr Tom Crook](https://www.brookes.ac.uk/profiles/staff/tom-crook) | Associate Professor and Programme Director for History | [tcrook@brookes.ac.uk](mailto:tcrook@brookes.ac.uk) |
| [Professor Glen O'Hara](https://www.brookes.ac.uk/profiles/staff/glen-o-hara) | Professor of Modern and Contemporary History | [glen.ohara@brookes.ac.uk](mailto:glen.ohara@brookes.ac.uk) |
| [Dr Michal Palacz](https://www.brookes.ac.uk/profiles/staff/michal-palacz) | Post Doctoral Research Assistant | [mpalacz@brookes.ac.uk](mailto:mpalacz@brookes.ac.uk) |
| [Dr Jane Stevens Crawshaw](https://www.brookes.ac.uk/profiles/staff/jane-stevens-crawshaw) | Interim Co-Head of School of Education, Humanities and Languages | [jane.stevens-crawshaw@brookes.ac.uk](mailto:jane.stevens-crawshaw@brookes.ac.uk) |
| [Professor Marius Turda](https://www.brookes.ac.uk/profiles/staff/marius-turda) | Professor in 20th Century Central and Eastern European Biomedicine | [mturda@brookes.ac.uk](mailto:mturda@brookes.ac.uk) |
| [Professor Katherine Watson](https://www.brookes.ac.uk/profiles/staff/katherine-watson) | Professor of Criminal Justice History | [kwatson@brookes.ac.uk](mailto:kwatson@brookes.ac.uk) |

## Projects

Completed projects

- Completed projects

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### Completed projects

| Project title and description | Investigator(s) | Funder(s) | Dates |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **[Irish Poor Law Project](https://static.brookes.ac.uk/hss/Irish-Poor-Law-Project/maps/index.htm)** | [Professor Virginia Crossman](https://www.brookes.ac.uk/profiles/external/virginia-crossman) | [ESRC](https://esrc.ukri.org/ "Economic and Social Research Council") | From: January 2007  Until: March 2010 |

**Image Credits**

1. Three perspectives of a head divided according to phrenological 'faculties', with key. (n.d.)
2. Edward Jenner vaccinating a boy, by E.E. Hillemacher (1884)
3. Lazaretto: An account of the principal lazarettos in Europe, by John Howard (1789)

(all from https://wellcomecollection.org/images)\

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