The volumes in this series contain transcripts of the Witness Seminars at which significant figures in twentieth-century medicine are invited to discuss specific discoveries or events in recent medical history. All papers and records collected during the organization of the meetings and editing of the transcripts are deposited in Archives and Manuscripts, Wellcome Library, London, in collection GC/253.

Recent Submissions

  • Palliative Medicine in the UK c.1970-2010 

    Overy C; Tansey EM (2013)
    Palliative medicine and the modern hospice movement developed in the UK from the late 1960s onwards. St Christopher’s Hospice, Sydenham, founded by Dame Cicely Saunders, opened in 1967 as the first modern hospice which ...
  • Population-based Research in South Wales: The MRC Pneumoconiosis Research Unit and the MRC Epidemiology Unit 

    Ness, AR; Reynolds, LA; Tansey, EM (Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 2002)
    Population-based research in south Wales was initially to investigate occupational lung disease in miners. Archie Cochrane, the renowned epidemiologist, and his clinical and environmental studies group at the Pneumoconiosis ...
  • British Contributions to Medical Research and Education in Africa after the Second World War 

    Reynolds, LA; Tansey, EM (Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 2001)
    Differences in health services, research and medical education between British East and West Africa over the period to 1980, including the effects of the transition to independent states, were discussed by witnesses with ...
  • History of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children , C 1980-2000 

    Overy, C; Reynolds, LA; Tansey, EM (Queen Mary, University of London, 2012-05)
    The Avon Longitudinal Survey of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) arose from a proposal in the mid-1980s to design a cohort study in Europe which concentrated on the health of children. The UK-side of this was developed in the ...
  • Early Heart Transplant Surgery in the UK 

    Tansey, EM; Reynolds, LA (Wellcome Trust, 1999)
    Some of the key players in the early heart transplant operations in the UK gathered to consider the events of 1968, when the first transplants took place and their immediate and long-term implications. Not only were surgical ...
  • History of the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles 

    Overy, C; Reynolds, LA; Tansey, EM (Queen Mary, University of London, 2011-10-01)
    A National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (NATSAL) was proposed in the mid-1980s. This was to provide data to help predict and prevent the transmission and spread of HIV, in response to the critical need for ...
  • WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control 

    REYNOLDS, LA; TANSEY, EM (Queen Mary, University of London, 2012-05-28)
    The World Health Organization (WHO)’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) is the first global convention on public health. Comprehensive tobacco control had been the subject of 20 resolutions – consensus statements ...
  • Clinical Genetics in Britain: Origins and development 

    Harper, PS; Reynolds, LA; Tansey, EM (Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 2010-06-26)
    Clinical genetics has become a major medical specialty in Britain since its beginnings with Lionel Penrose’s work on mental handicap and phenylketonuria (PKU) and John Fraser Robert’s first genetic clinic in 1946. Subsequent ...
  • The Medicalization of Cannabis 

    Crowther, SM; Reynolds, LA; Tansey, EM (Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, 2010-06-21)
    Cannabis has been considered as both an illicit drug and a medicine throughout its history. Introduced to the UK as a medicine in the nineteenth century, its medical utility was limited and it was not until tetrahydrocannabinol ...
  • The Development of Sports Medicine in Twentieth-century Britain 

    Reynolds, LA; Tansey, EM (Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 2009-05)
    Sports medicine has grown in importance and visibility in recent years, yet as a discipline it struggled to gain broad recognition within the medical profession from c.1952 until specialty status was granted in 2005. It ...
  • Clinical Research in Britain 1950-1980 

    Reynolds, LA; Tansey, EM (Wellcome Trust, 2000)
    What is clinical research? The growth of clinical research in the UK since the Second World War is examined, including the 1953 Cohen Report and the subsequent creation of the Medical Research Council’s Clinical Research ...
  • Post Penicillin Antibiotics: From acceptance to resistance? 

    Tansey, EM; Reynolds, LA (Wellcome Trust, 2000)
    The introduction of penicillin during the Second World War led to a revolution in both drug development and therapeutics. Several important themes emerged during the course of the meeting – the discovery of the antimicrobial ...
  • Intestinal Absorption 

    Christie, DA; Tansey, EM (Wellcome Trust, 2000)
    A record of a meeting chaired by Lord Turnberg that brought together those from laboratory research and medical practice to discuss some of the key aspects of intestinal absorption, including work on basic physiological ...
  • Looking at the Unborn: Historical aspects of obstetric ultrasound 

    Tansey, EM; Christie, DA (Wellcome Trust, 2000)
    The obstetric ultrasound scanner had its major origins in a programme of research undertaken in Glasgow in the 1950s and 1960s, under the leadership of the obstetrician, Professor Ian Donald. Donald’s work was characterized ...
  • History of Dialysis in the UK: c.1950-1980 

    Crowther, SM; Reynolds, LA; Tansey, EM (Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 2009-12)
    Dialysis, the first technological substitution for organ function, is significant not only for the numbers of patients who have benefited. It contributed to the emergence of the field of medical ethics and the development ...
  • History of Cervical Cancer and the Role of the Human Papillomavirus, 1960-2000 

    Reynolds, LA; Tansey, EM (Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 2009-12)
    The history, largely untold, of the development of cervical cytology, of effective screening and its ultimate success in reducing cervical cancer incidence and mortality, and the viral cause of cervical cancer, took place ...
  • Origins of Neonatal Intensive Care 

    Christie, DA; Tansey, EM (Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 2000)
    Chaired by Professor Robert Boyd, this seminar reviewed the development and changes in care of the newborn in the UK over the past 50 years. Advances in techniques were described, such as mechanical ventilation, total ...
  • Childhood asthma and beyond 

    Reynolds, LA; Tansey, EM (Wellcome Trust, 2001)
    Consists of the edited transcripts of Witness Seminars organized by the History of Twentieth Century Medicine Group and held at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine.
  • Maternal Care 

    Christie, DA; Tansey, EM (Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 2001)
    In June 2000 a distinguished group of obstetricians, midwives, general practitioners, and medical statisticians came together to discuss maternal care. Chaired by Professor James Drife from Leeds, discussion ranged over ...

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