History of Biomedicine: Germ Theory to Digital Health - 2025

This course explores the history of modern biomedicine over the last 150 years. Its intention however, is not simply to provide a chronology of technological advances. Rather, it will show how historical analysis can open up new ways of thinking about the relationship between medicine and society. We saw during the recent pandemic that medical matters are seldom, if ever, only about developments in the laboratory. The clinician, the nurse, the pharmacist, the vaccine-manufacturer, the politician, the policeman and even the odd religious figure, not to mention the patient and her family, are all crucial to the way medical events play out in society. Each of these characters and their mutual relationships are structured by history. It is these historically evolving relationships that this course will explore. Additionally, a sub-theme of the course would also be to look at the role of technology in mediating the relationship between health and society. It will do this using a small set of case studies around key moments in modern medical history such as the development of Germ Theory, Randomized Clinical Trials, Transplants, Genetic Screening, MRIs, Telemedicine and Digital Health.