The politics of scientific medicine in Manchester, circa 1900-1960

• Main Author: Valier, H. K.
• Published: University of Manchester 2002
• Subjects: 616.009
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.508334

The close of the nineteenth century saw British universities and hospitals drawn into ever closer association. The sciences of physiology, anatomy and pathology -- traditionally taught by clinicians in proprietary schools or on the wards -- were coming under the jurisdiction of the increasingly secure university departments. Universities also began to exert control over the management and organisation of teaching- and other hospitals. So began in earnest the era of `academic medicine' -- an era coincidental with, but bearing no simple relationship to the new era of scientific and laboratory medicine (which began with the advances in public health bacteriology during the late nineteenth century and continued with the applied chemical and physiological research of the early twentieth). In this dissertation, I look at various projects in academic medicine at the Manchester Medical School and its associated teaching hospital, the Manchester Royal Infirmary. From these case studies, I draw some general conclusions about the institutional development of academic and scientific medicine within a wider political economy. The projects in academic and scientific medicine in Manchester were plural and diverse, ranging from early twentieth century attempts by the University to gain influence over what was taught in the Infirmary and by whom, to the establishment of professorial clinical units for full-time research in the post-W.W. II period. Nonetheless, the story of these developments reveals much continuity of vision and effort, as well as the expected elements of discontinuity and change. I draw upon both continuous and discontinuous components to sketch out some tentative models characterising the types of career and varieties of laboratory facilities associated with projects in academic and scientific medicine.