News at the Centre for the History of Medicine
Protecting Health and the Catholic Family: Catholic Women’s League and Preventive Medicine Clinics for Mothers and Infants in Belgium (1945–1975)
We’re delighted to share that Juliette, a former MA student to the Centre for the History of Medicine, has recently published an article in Social History of Medicine. The article, which she began writing during her time at Warwick and presented to colleagues at CHM, marks a significant achievement in her research journey.
Juliette will be continuing her work in Paris from November as part of a two-year Marie Curie Fellowship. We’re proud to have supported her during her time at Warwick and wish her all the best in this exciting next chapter!
Summary
This article examines a twofold specificity in circumstances that were brought about by the intervention of the Catholic Women’s League in the Belgian mother and infant welfare system between 1945 and 1975: the importance of religion and the central role of women volunteers in state-funded medical-social facilities. For the Women’s League, the infant clinics were a means of defending Catholic positions on the family and birth control on the ground, and of asserting its legitimacy to intervene in child protection policies. After 1945, the women who volunteered in the clinics took on apostolic missions, but also contributed to the medicalisation of children’s education. Protected by the Women’s League, they occupied rather unusual positions of authority. This article explores how the League succeeded in maintaining the presence of volunteers by creating new social services and missions when the medical and religious missions of clinics were changing in the early 1960s.
Traumatised Minds: Neurosis and Hysteria in Soviet Medicine and Culture, 1971-1953
The call for papers is out for Dr Anna Toropova's Cultures of Trauma Workshop, 8-9 May 2025. More information and to apply here.
She is also recruiting for a Research Fellow for a 2-year fixed term contract, starting 1 September 2025. Apply here
Find out more about the Traumatised Minds: Neurosis and Hysteria in Soviet Medicine and Culture, 1971-1953 research project here.
Anniversary fever? History and the culture of NHS celebration
Congratulations to Roberta Bivins and Mathew Thomson who have had their article about NHS anniversaries published in Modern British History.
This was drawn from reflections from The Cultural History of the NHS research project.
Abstract
Delivered a day after Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) reached its 75th year since its opening on the Appointed Day of 5 July 1948, the Pimlott Lecture for 2023 explored the culture of NHS anniversary-making. What can the marking of these anniversaries tell us about changing attitudes towards the service, and indeed, the British state? Here, examining evidence from the media, government archives, and Mass Observation, we argue that NHS anniversaries have long functioned as points of reflection but that their role as moments of national celebration and even communion has come to the fore only recently and culminated in the apparent ‘anniversary fever’ of 2018. We will explore the reasons behind the growing public fervour, what it can tell us, and the lessons offered by our work on this (still) best-loved of British institutions for historians working on highly politicized objects in ‘fevered’ times.