LMITransactions&Report2014-15

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LMI Transactions and Report 2014 - 2015 Minutes of the Second Ordinary Meeting Held on Tuesday 18th November 2014 Joint Meeting with Liverpool Medical History Society The Tenth Annual History of Medicine Medical Students’ Prize Evening Back (left to right): Dr Nick Beeching, Mr Max McCormick, Dr Stephen Kenny, and Dr Christopher Evans Middle (left to right): Shane D’Souza, Alexander Boone, Professor Sally Sheard, Dr Susan Evans and Dr Peter Dangerfield Front (left to right): Kitty Worthing, Siân Elsby and Sophie Gealy-Evans Kitty Worthing - Winner ‘Crazy to be sane - whatever happened to RD Laing?’ R D Laing was a well-known figure in the 1960s both in the medical community and amongst sections of the wider public. He became an important, and for a while, influential figure in redefining and treating mental illness - in particular Schizophrenia. However his ideas and influence were apparently short-lived. Given criticisms of the style of psychiatric diagnosis currently employed, this presentation examines different historical constructions of mental illness and how it is treated. Opposition to psychiatry has taken many forms, all of which could not be covered by this presentation. Therefore I have chosen to focus on outlining the ideas of RD Laing and the 'antipsychiatry movement' and to consider the contribution that he, and they, made to the understanding and treatment of mental illness. Firstly I will reflect upon the attitudes and treatments prevalent in the 1950s and ‘60s and the critique of these made by Laing and others. I will then examine some of the possible reasons for the backlash against Laing and his ideas before finally looking at the extent to which Laing's ideas are in fact an influence on modern day attitudes to defining and treating mental illness - an influence which it argues can be seen in, for example, the 'user movement' and in the popularity of 'self-help' groups. I will conclude that although much of Laing's work lacked scientific validity, his contribution to making 'madness' comprehensible and encouraging people to consider mental illness from an empathic and humanistic point of view is of great value to contemporary medical practice and wider society. It also highlights that there is a lack of historical analysis concerning the antipsychiatry movement; especially in regards to its demise. Shane D'Souza - Second Place ‘Gertrude Elion and Her Drug Discoveries’ Gertrude Elion made significant discoveries of drugs in the treatment of leukaemia, herpes and antirejection drugs for kidney transplants. Her hard work, commitment and attitude led to revolutionary 20
LMI Transactions and Report 2014 - 2015 developments in the medical world, for which she was awarded the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Not only did Gertrude Elion work on drugs to fight HIV and malaria, she remains an inspirational figure and a role model of a woman who persevered in science at a time when there was unfair discrimination towards women in science. During the presentation, I discuss the knowledge and ideas presented before Gertrude’s discoveries, and how her discoveries have since changed the ideologies in drug treatment since up to the modern day. I consider previous ideologies of male dominance in science and how Gertrude Elion acted as a distinguishing example as someone who has broken these barriers. The presentation discusses her background, career struggles, women in STEM; science pre-1954 (specifics regarding knowledge on Malaria/Leukaemia/Antirejection medicines); science post-1954 (the above topics and how Elion’s contribution has affected modern day medicine); the way forward in Medicine. Alexander Boone - Third Place ‘The Exile of Paracelsus’ ‘The art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician. Therefore the physician must start from nature, with an open mind’ – Paracelsus. In 1526, Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, otherwise known as ‘Paracelsus’, was appointed Professor of Medicine at the University of Basel, Switzerland. In 1538 he was exiled from Basel and died just three years later in Austria. Paracelsus is commonly regarded as one of the most influential medical scientists of the Renaissance era. His methods revolutionised medicine in early modern Europe. Paracelsus rejected the ancient texts from key authorities such as Galen and Celsus and insisted upon using observations of nature to guide his own medical practice. He specifically rejected Galen’s claim that health and disease were controlled by the ‘four humours’. Paracelsus encouraged the study of nature and pioneered an experimental approach. He also believed in the existence of gnomes, spirits and fairies. Public burning of books by Ibn Sina and Galen, inviting non-academics and lay-people to his lectures and rejecting much of university-taught medicine gained Paracelsus much notoriety. His actions ultimately led to his exile. Paracelsus argued that the body operated as a chemical system subject to internal and external influences. This premise led Paracelsus to introduce chemical substances into medicine. Mercury, for example, was used for the treatment of Syphilis. Paracelsus is therefore often termed the ‘Father of Toxicology’. I propose to discuss the modern day relevance of Paracelsus and also Paracelsian theory in terms of its medical, philosophical, socio-political and religious connotations. I hope to convey the pugnacious temperament of the man and define exactly how he defied medicine in his day! Siân Elsby - Runner-Up ‘Medical Ethics and the Third Reich’ The atrocities perpetrated during World War II are well documented. The Nazi eugenics movement persecuted ‘sub-human’ non-Aryans: labelled as 'genetically unfit', these people were rounded into concentration camps and routinely sterilized, used as subjects in human experimentation, and killed. The scale was unprecedented: after war broke out in September 1939, so-called 'mercy deaths' became commonplace at mental hospitals - between January 1940 and September 1942, some 70,723 mental patients were gassed. The total number of Jews murdered during the war is estimated to be between 5.5 and 6 million. Much of this torture was given pseudo-scientific justification and perpetrated by willing medical professionals. When war ended in 1945, one of the Allies' priorities was bringing war criminals to justice. Between December 1946 and August 1947, a trial was held in Nuremberg - commonly called 'The Doctors' Trial', the defendants included twenty medical doctors and three Nazi officials accused of human experimentation and mass murder under the guise of euthanasia. A defence offered by many was that no ethical guidelines governing human experimentation existed at the time - so no laws were breached. The Nuremberg Trials gave rise to the Nuremberg Code in 1947 - it was 'a catalogue of ten principles which would protect the rights of experimental subjects and other vulnerable groups in the future’. This led to the Declaration of Geneva in 1948, which shaped the Declaration of Helsinki in 1964 - a set of 21
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