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This thesis represents the first full length study of the life and works of Dr George Cheyne (1672-1743). The introduction reviews earlier studies. The biographical content provides a substantial amount of new information derived from neglected printed sources and unrecorded archive material. An interdisciplinary approach is taken in an attempt to illustrate the close, if complex, connection between Cheyne's biography and the development of his medico-religious ideas. Particular attention is given to the role of Cheyne's engagement with Christian mysticism in shaping his promotion of notions of sensibility amongst the Georgian <i>literati</i>. There are ten chapters. Chapters one and two trace Cheyne's origins in Aberdeenshire, and his emergence at Edinburgh in 1700 as the controversial champion of the iatro-mathematical medical theories of Dr Archibald Pitcairne. An account of Cheyne's early years in England examines his mathematical collaboration with John Craige, and his failure to impress Newton with the publication of <i>The Philosophical Principles of Natural Religion</i> (1705). Chapter three examines Cheyne's crucial breakdown in 1704-6 and his rejection of 'Natural Religion' in favour of sentimental, pietism. It provides a detailed account of the unorthodox pietist sects (many with close links to the Continent), with whom Cheyne became associated. Chapter four analyses Cheyne's millenarianism: whilst the Camisard Prophets focused his interest on the relationship between nervous illness and spiritual illumination, his quietist-mysticism was a recoil from such 'Enthusiasm'. Chapter five argues that the enlarged <i>Philosophical Principles of Religion: Natural and Reveal'd</i> (1715), was a widely used academic textbook, despite the unorthodox 'mystical' colouring it gained when Cheyne attempted to reconcile a Newtonian theodicy with Behmenism.

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This thesis traces the therapeutic application of occupation from its role in moral treatment in psychiatry in the nineteenth century to its use in sanatoria and curative workshops in the early twentieth century. It outlines of the profession in North America and the influence of pragmatism, the arts and crafts movement, the mental hygiene movement and scientific management on the early development of occupational therapy. The main part of the thesis records the stages of professionalisation in Scotland from the appointment of the first instructress in occupational therapy in 1922 to the passing of the Professions Supplementary to Medicine Act in 1960. This record is set within its immediate medical context and highlights how occupational therapy has adapted in relation to developments in medical science. It also shows how occupational therapy has been affected by the wider social context, particularly the impact of the two world wars and the types of institutions in which therapeutic occupation developed. The thesis focuses on the male medical patrons and the all-female pioneer occupational therapists who predominantly came from upper middle class and middle class families, many with connections with prominent physicians. The humanistic philosophy of the medical patrons is explored and it is demonstrated that historically a holistic approach to patient care was not incompatible with a search for the scientific understanding of the mechanisms of treatment. Similarly, it is shown that the medical patrons were supportive of professional autonomy for occupational therapy. The changing nature of the therapeutic media used by occupational therapists is explored and the early reliance on the arts and crafts explained in relation to scientific and humanistic rationales. Finally, the findings of the thesis are summarised and discussed in relation to a synopsis of professional practice from 1960 to 2000.

Anatomy was crucial for the formation of modern cultural concepts of the body during the early modern period. In a process from the Renaissance to the turn of the nineteenth century, cosmological concepts of the body were secularized and gradually replaced by notions of the body as an object of modern medicine and science. This thesis argues that the visual representation of the anatomical body played a key role in this transformation. Until the end of the seventeenth century the iconography of anatomy legitimized the dissection of the body and portrayed the anatomist as an honourable, dignified and decent scholar. However, during the Enlightenment the moralizing visual language was gradually replaced by neo-classical aesthetics and art theory. Now technical skills and detailed knowledge became the defining features of the anatomist and the representations of the anatomical body. This thesis uses a wide range of visual sources and analyzes them in the longue durée. The material includes illustrations from anatomical textbooks and their frontispieces, anatomical treatises and portraits of anatomists. These sources are discussed in their wider iconographic context as well as in relation to early modern concepts of the body and anatomical research. The first chapter discusses the general framework for the visual representation of the anatomical body, practice and authority, while the second chapter looks into how the visual representation of anatomy shaped the identity of the anatomist as the legitimate authority of the body. The other three chapters are case studies which use the examples of the rete mirabile, the lymphatic system and the unborn to analyze the different functions of anatomical images and how they were used to deal with uncertainty, establish new anatomical knowledge and reflected changing cultural meanings of the body.

Saxons, and utilises all available sources of evidence, whether documentary, archaeological or medical, in an attempt to gain a comprehensive view of the medical aspects of society. The medical knowledge of the Anglo-Saxons was derived mainly from late Classical medicine, and the transmission of Classical sources into Anglo-Saxon medical texts is considered briefly. The resulting medical theories are an uneasy fusion of Classical doctrines such as the four humours, and pagan Teutonic ideas such as the worm and elfshot as carriers of disease. These theories are discussed at some length in a separate chapter. The herbs and other ingredients used in remedies are analysed, and the relatively small group of herbs which forms the nucleus of the pharmacopeia is isolated and examined in detail. Other chapters consider social aspects of medicine, such as the growth and status of the medical profession, the treatment of those within the community who suffered from mental illness, and the reactions of society to the recurrent epidemics, famines and other disasters which afflicted them. The final two chapters consider the scientific evidence, which is mainly derived from palaeopathology, and attempt to relate it to other sources of information, Palaeopathological reports on skeletal-groups from various Anglo-Saxon sites have provided basic information such as sex, height, age at death and so on, and evidence for any disease which affects bone structure such as leprosy, tuberculosis, gout or osteoarthritis. But they record beside more subtle changes reflecting diet, occupation, social conditions and general way of life. Palaeopathology can thus be used to complement the documentary and archaeological evidence while adding new information as' well, and so helps to place Anglo-Saxon medicine within its social context.

This thesis examines the background, establishment and early history of two homoeopathic hospitals in different national settings: the London Homoeopathic Hospital (founded 1849) and the Instituto Homeopático y Hospital de San José (founded 1878) in the Spanish capital Madrid. Both institutions are among the last survivors of their kind to this day and were chosen for their availability of sources that make it possible to fit this thesis into the existing historiography of hospitals, where “alternative” 19th Century medical institutions are seldom considered, as well as into that of homoeopathy in general, wherein both hospitals and Spain have hitherto been paid only scant attention by historians of medicine. The first two chapters examine the two disparate attempts to establish a homoeopathic hospital, against opposition and lacking active support from government authorities. The two timelines stretch from the founders’ first outlined plans to the opening of the first wards, the institutions’ organization and their progress up to the 1890s. Biographical details of the two principal characters behind these projects, Dr Frederick Quin and Dr José Nuñez Pernía respectively, help to understand their own conversion to and interest in the new and controversial practice that was homoeopathy. A study of the two hospitals’ activities follows, using analysis of contemporary periodicals, surviving archival material and institutional statistical returns to understand the extent to which these hospitals were perceived as successful by their supporters, both in attracting and caring for patients. A picture also emerges about who the early patients and practitioners of these two institutions were, what pathologies were seen in the wards and how successful the practitioners understood the homoeopathic treatment to be. Homoeopathic hospitals also played a role beyond patient care, such as providing loci for the training of new practitioners or acting as major nodes within national and international homoeopathic networks. The fourth chapter examines some of these extra-clinical functions and how far these hospitals buttressed the struggle for a solid basis of legitimacy for homoeopathy within contemporary clinical medicine.

This MD thesis explores the relationship between air and public health from early civilisations to the present day. Through examination of the changing relationships the thesis aims to identify, and critically explore, contemporary problems in public health theory and practice. This is a thesis primarily in the history of medicine or, more specifically, the history of public health. The thesis adopts an accepted five-stage framework for historical research. Within the framework, the thesis utilises two further, well established aspects of historical enquiry. First, it addresses the research questions by using historical case studies. Secondly, the historical research incorporates inter-disciplinary components, in particular the inclusion of ethics. The first case study initially explores air and health in ancient civilisations, especially within Greek medicine and philosophy, and then examines connections and relationships with ideas about air and health in mid-nineteenth century Britain. The second case study traces the changing relationship between air and public health from the mid-nineteenth century until about 1970, through examining developments in smoke pollution policy and scientific understanding of the effects of smoke on health. The third case study covers a period of three decades up to the present day. A piece of air pollution epidemiological research called quantitative risk assessment (QRA) is used as a vehicle through which to investigate philosophical, ethical and policy considerations in contemporary public health theory and practice. The fourth case study explores the approach to dealing with climate change. The approach is used as an instrument to probe utilitarianism as the moral foundation of public health, to explore other ethical frameworks, and to examine the relevance for environmental work within public health. Conclusions from each case study are drawn, and analysis of the links between the four case studies provides recommendations for public health theory and practice.

How does bodily matter become alive? Is the mind reducible to the brain? These questions became crucial in the emergent discipline of life science at the turn of the nineteenth century, when the term 'biology' was coined. The new scientific theories that arose at this time directly impinged on contemporary religious beliefs concerning the soul as the principle of immortality, and the mind as the divinely endowed basis for human morality. Through an interdisciplinary study of three episodes, all of which originated in 1816, this thesis examines the interface between science and religion with regard to souls, minds, and the living body, in the half-century before Darwin's Origin of Species. The first episode focuses on a series of controversies (1816-1822) surrounding William Lawrence, a professor at the Royal College of Surgeons. He postulated that life could emerge from matter, and that matter could generate thought and sensation. The express materialism in these views engendered strong scientific and religious opposition. This study argues that the scientific opposition to Lawrence's views was motivated largely by a desire to defend the institutional and professional standing of the surgeons rather than by a commitment to oppose Lawrence's materialism. In examining the religious opposition to Lawrence, this thesis concludes that ultimately it was a concern for a secure institutional basis for morality rather than a wish to defend the doctrine of the soul per se that was at stake. The second episode revolves around George Combe, the influential author of The Constitution of Man (1828). He was decried as an atheist because his phrenological science allegedly reduced the mind to the physical brain. This thesis offers a new interpretation of Combe's science as the means through which he framed a natural religion with a code of morality based on natural law. It was a religion that sought to recast the role of a more materialistic conception of the mind as the vehicle for morality, and to displace the reliance on an immortal soul and a future state for the enforcement of morals. The third episode centres on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818). Through studying the novel as the fable of its sub-title, The Modern Prometheus, I conclude that the power of Mary Shelley's moral vision lies in its inescapable warning that an absolute denial of the spiritual aspects of life is inimical to our humanity. Without being explicitly religious, Frankenstein encapsulates a new kind of secular humanist spirituality that denies outright materialism. In summary, this thesis argues that the interface between religion and biology, concerning the nature of the living body and the mind, despite initial appearances, were not primarily over the issues of materialism. The three episodes studied illustrate a spectrum of attitudes towards scientific materialism, and it is found that ultimately, it was the necessity for a secure basis of morality that shaped the responses.