Saving Missionary Skins Saves Patients’ Lives

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-55
Author(s):  
Michelle Renshaw
Keyword(s):  
Patient Outcomes ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
Medical Missions ◽  
Legal Environment ◽  
Medical Work ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Dangerous Place ◽  
Medical Missionary ◽  
Administrative Strategies

When the first American medical missionary to China established the first western-style hospital in Guangzhou in 1834 the political and legal environment was hostile to foreigners and to missionaries in particular but, in some respects, it was conducive to safe medical practice. Given that the early nineteenth-century hospital in the West was a very dangerous place it was important to limit risk in the hospital if the evangelical mission was to survive. An analysis of Peter Parker’s (1804–1888) reports and case studies reveals not only his superior skill and patient outcomes but also the medical and administrative strategies he employed to minimize risk. The study places Parker’s medical work in a comparative frame; moving away from a mission-centric focus to draw China medical missions into a larger narrative of the history of modern medicine.

We Called Her Peddamma: Caste, Gender, and Missionary Medicine in Guntur: 1880–1930

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-84
Author(s):  
Ashok Kumar Mocherla
Keyword(s):  
History Of Medicine ◽  
Andhra Pradesh ◽  
South India ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Medical Work ◽  
Gender Perceptions ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Medical Missionary

The medical work carried out by Dr. Anna Sarah Kugler in the town of Guntur (1880–1930), which was a part of the Telugu speaking region of the erstwhile Madras Presidency, as a foreign medical missionary associated with the mission field of the then General Synod of the Lutheran Church in America, constitutes a significant phase in the history of medicine and gender in South India. Despite bringing about visible changes in gender perceptions of medical professions, strangely, she or her work finds no mention in the social science literature on history of medicine in modern South India in general and coastal Andhra Pradesh in particular. This paper explores the nature and patterns of definitive changes that gender roles and patriarchal structures among the Telugus residing in coastal Andhra Pradesh have undergone after coming under the influence of a mission hospital in Guntur established by Dr. Anna Sarah Kugler. By doing so, it also brings out an analysis on how this medical institution transformed the firmly-held traditional perceptions and stereotypes on the sources of illness, disease, and treatments, and in turn laid the foundation for modern medicine to establish itself in South India.

‘The Heavy Artillery of the Missionary Army’: The Domestic Importance of the Nineteenth-Century Medical Missionary

1982 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 287-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. F. Walls
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Medical Profession ◽  
Medical Missions ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Missionary Movement ◽  
The First World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One ◽  
Medical Missionary

The history of medical missions is an epiphenomenon of the history of the medical profession. On the one hand they can be seen as a late growth in the missionary movement, and throughout the nineteenth century they required explanation and apology; on the other, they can be seen as present from the movement’s earliest days. After all, when William Carey sailed for India in 1793 his only colleague was a medical man; and a ‘surgeon’ was specifically included amongst the first party sent by the London Missionary Society to the Pacific in 1796. Indeed, generations of missionaries carried out a form of pillbox ministry, gravely administering draughts, lancing excrescences and proceeding by trial and error (‘We soon discovered the unfitness of calomel for African fevers’, observed the Rev. Hope Waddell of Calabar, ‘by its prostrating effect upon ourselves’), Some, like David Livingstone, studied medicine as part of their missionary training, without thereby becoming any special sort of missionary, or one whit less the minister of the Gospel that the ordinary missionary was assumed to be. The difference between this and the developed medical missions which were all but universal by the First World War was created less by developments in missionary thought than by developments in the medical profession.

scholarly journals ‘The Days of Brilliancy are Past’: Skill, Styles and the Changing Rules of Surgical Performance, ca. 1820–1920

2015 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Schlich
Keyword(s):  
Modern Medicine ◽  
German Language ◽  
Surgical Skill ◽  
University Hospitals ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Surgical Performance ◽  
Cultural Expectations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Over Time

This paper examines how, over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the appreciation of skill in surgery shifted in characteristic ways. Skill is a problematic category in surgery. Its evaluation is embedded into wider cultural expectations and evaluations, which changed over time. The paper examines the discussions about surgical skill in a variety of contexts: the highly competitive environment of celebrity practitioners in the amphitheatres of early nineteenth-century Britain; the science-oriented, technocratic German-language university hospitals later in the century; and the elitist surgeons of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century United States with their concerns about distancing themselves from commercialism and cheap showmanship. For analysing the interaction of surgical practices with their various contexts the paper makes use of the concept of ‘performance’ and examines how the rules of surgical performance varied according to the prevailing technical, social, and moral conditions. Over the course of the century, surgical performance looked more and more recognisably modern, increasingly following the ideals of replicability, universality and standardisation. The changing ideals of surgical skill are a crucial element of the complex history of the emergence of modern surgery, but also an illuminating example of the history of skill in modern medicine.

Christian Ministry of Healing on its Way to the Year 2000: An Archaeology of Medical Missions

1995 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-307
Author(s):  
Gerard Jansen
Keyword(s):  
Medical Missions ◽  
Medical Mission ◽  
New Era ◽  
Missionary Movement ◽  
History Of ◽  
Medical Missionary ◽  
Year 2000 ◽  
New Millennium

Taking stock of the values and experiences accumulated in the history of medical mission is essential before entering a new millennium. This article offers a terse account of the development of the medical missionary movement viewed from the point of indigenization. In this end phrase of the classic medical mission, the new concept of mission in six continents has not yet been thought through for the new era of the Christian ministry of healing. An archaeology of medical missions has to be attempted in order to determine which values are worthy for transportation to a new millennium.

A history of some fruit models in wax and other materials: scientific teaching aids and courtly table decorations

2003 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-JüRgen Lechtreck
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fruit Trees ◽  
Visual Aids ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Teaching Aids ◽  
Scientific Teaching ◽  
Glass Marble ◽  
History Of ◽  
By Products ◽  
Wax Models

Two early nineteenth century texts treating the production and use of wax models of fruit reveal the history of these objects in the context of courtly decoration. Both sources emphasise the models' decorative qualities and their suitability for display, properties which were not simply by-products of the realism that the use of wax allowed. Thus, such models were not regarded merely as visual aids for educational purposes. The artists who created them sought to entice collectors of art and natural history objects, as well as teachers and scientists. Wax models of fruits are known to have been collected and displayed as early as the seventeenth century, although only one such collection is extant. Before the early nineteenth century models of fruits made from wax or other materials (glass, marble, faience) were considered worthy of display because contemporaries attached great importance to mastery of the cultivation and grafting of fruit trees. This skill could only be demonstrated by actually showing the fruits themselves. Therefore, wax models made before the early nineteenth century may also be regarded as attempts to preserve natural products beyond the point of decay.

Krupp

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold James
Keyword(s):  
Family Business ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Steel Mill ◽  
Socially Responsible ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Modern Germany ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Small Steel

The history of Krupp is the history of modern Germany. No company symbolized the best and worst of that history more than the famous steel and arms maker. This book tells the story of the Krupp family and its industrial empire between the early nineteenth century and the present, and analyzes its transition from a family business to one owned by a nonprofit foundation. Krupp founded a small steel mill in 1811, which established the basis for one of the largest and most important companies in the world by the end of the century. Famously loyal to its highly paid workers, it rejected an exclusive focus on profit, but the company also played a central role in the armament of Nazi Germany and the firm's head was convicted as a war criminal at Nuremberg. Yet after the war Krupp managed to rebuild itself and become a symbol of Germany once again—this time open, economically successful, and socially responsible. This book presents a balanced account, showing that the owners felt ambivalent about the company's military connection even while becoming more and more entangled in Germany's aggressive politics during the imperial era and the Third Reich. By placing the story of Krupp and its owners in a wide context, this book also provides new insights into the political, social, and economic history of modern Germany.

The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara Freidenfelds
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Maternal Education ◽  
Colonial America ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Unrealistic Expectation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy is a history of why Americans came to have the unrealistic expectation of perfect pregnancies and to mourn even very early miscarriages. The introduction explains that miscarriage is a common phenomenon and a natural part of healthy women’s childbearing: approximately 20 percent of confirmed pregnancies spontaneously miscarry, mostly in the first months of gestation. Eight topical chapters describe childbearing and pregnancy loss in colonial America; the rise of birth control from the late eighteenth century to the present; changes in parenting from the early nineteenth century to the present that increasingly focused attention on the emotional relationship between parent and child; the twentieth-century rise of prenatal care and maternal education about embryonic growth; the twentieth-century blossoming of a consumer culture that marketed baby items to pregnant women; the abortion debates from the mid-twentieth century to the present; the late twentieth-century introduction of obstetric ultrasound and its evolution into a pregnancy ritual of “meeting the baby” as early as eight weeks’ gestation; and the late twentieth-century introduction of home pregnancy testing and the identification of pregnancy as early as several days before a missed period. The conclusion offers suggestions for how women and their families, health-care providers, and the maternity care industry can better handle pregnancy and address miscarriage.

Dan Inman, The Making of English Theology: God and the Academy at Oxford (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014). ISBN: 9781451469264

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Zachhuber
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
University Of Oxford ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of The University ◽  
The University

This chapter reviews the book The Making of English Theology: God and the Academy at Oxford (2014). by Dan Inman. The book offers an account of a fascinating and little known episode in the history of the University of Oxford. It examines the history of Oxford’s Faculty of Theology from the early nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth. In particular, it revisits the various attempts to tinker with theology at Oxford during this period and considers the fierce resistance of conservatives. Inman argues that Oxford’s idiosyncratic development deserves to be taken more seriously than it often has been, at least by historians of theology.

Presbyterians and Ethics

2019 ◽  
pp. 525-537
Author(s):  
Mark Douglas
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Great Awakening ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Second Great Awakening ◽  
World War ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
History Of Ethics ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of

The history of ethics in the Presbyterian Church has been shaped by the theological commitments of Reformed theology, the church’s ecumenical and interreligious encounters, its interactions with the wider cultures in which it functions, and its global scope. Consequently, Presbyterian ethics have become increasingly diverse, culturally diffused, ecumenically directed, and frequently divisive. That said, its history can helpfully be divided into three lengthy periods. In the first (roughly from the church’s origins in 1559 to the Second Great Awakening in the early nineteenth century), theology, ethics, and politics are so interwound that distinguishing one from the others is difficult. In the second (roughly from the Second Great Awakening to the end of World War II), moral concerns emerge as forces that drive the church’s theology and polity. And in the third (for which proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 might be a heuristically helpful starting point), ethics increasingly functions in ways that are only loosely tethered to either Reformed theology or polity. The strength of the church’s social witness, the consistency of its global engagements, and the failings of its internecine strife are all evident during its five-hundred-year history.

The National and the Universal

2020 ◽  
pp. 368-386
Author(s):  
Sarah Collins
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Johann Gottfried Herder ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Respective Treatment ◽  
History Of

This chapter examines the continuities between the categories of the “national” and the “universal” in the nineteenth century. It construes these categories as interrelated efforts to create a “world” on various scales. The chapter explores the perceived role of music as a world-making medium within these discourses. It argues that the increased exposure to cultural difference and the interpretation of that cultural difference as distant in time and space shaped a conception of “humanity” in terms of a universal history of world cultures. The chapter reexamines those early nineteenth-century thinkers whose work became inextricably linked with the rise of exclusivist notions of nationalism in the late nineteenth century, such as Johann Gottfried Herder and John Stuart Mill. It draws from their respective treatment of music to recover their early commitment to universalizable principles and their view that the “world” is something that must be actively created rather than empirically observed.

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