To celebrate the International Year of Light, a new exhibition at the Florence Nightingale Museum will look at the contentious history of light therapy.

 The Kiss of Light: Nursing and Light Therapy in 20^th-century Britain opens on Florence’s birthday on May 12^th 2015 and centres on the healing powers of light – and its risks. Funded by the Wellcome Trust and co-organised with University of Warwick medical historians Tania Woloshyn and Hilary Marland, the exhibition showcases a remarkable photographic record of nurses and their vulnerable patients being exposed to both natural and artificial light. Light therapy was especially used for children to combat tuberculosis and rickets in clinics and sanatoria and even in the home by mothers eager to protect their child by exposing them to rays from trendy portable ultra-violet lamps. We may have very different ideas now towards light safety but the health and protection of our children remains an issue today.

Website: www.florence-nightingale.co.uk

The Early Women Biochemists web page is now available for perusal:

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/chm/research_teaching/research/early_women_biochem 

Please be advised that some elements of the pages are still under construction and will be available in the near future.

Our thanks to Dr Stephen Soanes, Professor Robert Freedman and Professor Hilary Marland for all their efforts and continued support. Our thanks also to the Biochemical Society and Warwick CHM's Wellcome Strategic Award for their kind contributions.

Convened by Professor Robert Freedman (Life Sciences), Dr Stephen Soanes (Warwick CHM), Professor Hilary Marland (Warwick CHM)

The Early Women Biochemists Exhibition casts a spotlight on the careers of the initial wave of female scientific researchers. Amongst the themes at the heart of Early Women Biochemists are: education, class and funding opportunities; professional networks and mentorship; the gendered experience of marriage and scientific collaboration; and the extent of equality of opportunity before 1939.

It focuses particularly on four prominent biochemists – Harriette Chick, Ida Smedley, Muriel Wheldale and Marjory Stephenson. These women were amongst the very first to obtain scholarships, professional memberships and university appointments. Their lives reflect women’s entry into the hitherto male-dominated laboratory.

Amongst the key sites in the stories of these women are King Edward VI High School for Girls, Birmingham; Cambridge University; and the Lister Institute in London. Each of these locations offered particularly open access to women researchers from the 1880- 1900s – this display finds out why.

Funding for the project came primarily through the Biochemical Society and we thank them for their kind contribution, with additional support through the University of Warwick’s Centre for the History of Medicine (funded by the Wellcome Trust). A website is currently under development and it is anticipated this will be made live in late May http://www.warwick.ac.uk/go/womenbiochem – so please do watch this space!

The exhibition was first shown as part of the Biochemical Society’s Centenary Celebration at the Royal Society, 15-16 December 2011. It is now available for display and is being shown at Warwick, first at the School of Life Sciences (14-17 May 2012) and then at the Modern Records Centre (28 May -1 Jun 2012).

We do hope you are able to visit this fascinating exhibition.