Professor Mark Jackson
Research Interests
CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS
1. The history of stress
2. The history of allergy and asthma in the twentieth century
3. Social history of mental deficiency/learning difficulties, 19th-20th century
4. Legal medicine and infanticide, esp.17th and 18th centuries
5. The role of medical humanities in medical education
My personal research centres on five discrete areas in the history of medicine:
1. The history of stress, in particular the work of Hans Selye (1907 - 1982) on the biology of stress and disease.
2. The history of allergic diseases, such as asthma, hay fever and eczema, in the twentieth century. This project, which has already produced a monograph (in press), an edited volume, and several papers, aims to explore the proliferation of allergies in the modern world, a phenonemon previously uncharted by historians. It is based on extensive archival research in Britain, Geneva (the WHO archives and library), and north America, and is generating both scholarly and media interest at an international level.
3. The history of infanticide. This research focuses largely on the social, political and medico-legal dimensions of child murder in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but has also included commentaries on recent cases. In addition to generating several academic books and articles, this project has been the focus of media interest, including a recent recording for BBC Radio 4's documentary series The Long View.
4. Mental deficiency, criminality, and special education in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. This project focuses on the socio-political determinants of the emergence of segregatory policies for, and medical models of, people with disabilities. It has afforded constructive opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration with British and American scholars and for engagement with disability support groups and patient advocates.
5. Medical humanities in medical education. This on-going project examines the role of medical history in the modern medical curriculum. It has produced collaboration with staff at the PMS, a series of international workshops, and the creation of a national network of researchers dedicated to promoting the critical evaluation of modern medical training. In addition, as Director of the Centre for Medical History, I am currently developing the Centre's research strengths and interests in the history of the environment and health. Supported by two Wellcome Trust Strategic Awards, the Centre is promoting closer collaboration between environmental and medical historians through seminar series (such as `Wastelands', starting in October 2004), international conferences (`Health, heredity and the modern home, March 2005), and novel research projects.
Research Supervision
I currently supervise doctoral students researching the history of maladjustment, the history of infanticide, the history of psychiatry and mental illness, the history of venereal disease, the history of West Country Quakers, and the history of alternative medicine.
I would be happy to consider supervising projects in any of the following areas:
1. History of environment and health.
2. History of pollution.
3. Civilization and disease.
4. History of chronic respiratory diseases, such as asthma, bronchitis, emphysema.
5. History of psychiatry and mental deficiency.
6. History of infanticide.
7. History of stress.
Research Students
1. Cath Quinn, full-time PhD, `The history of puerperal insanity', full-time PhD, start date 1999, completed 2004, funded by ESRC studentship.
2. Sarah Hayes, Wellcome Trust funded PhD on the medicalisation of maladjustment, completed 2009.
3. Ali Haggett, Wellcome Trust funded PhD on women's health and the domestic environment, completed 2008.
4. Graham Chester, AHRB funded PhD, `Infanticide in Dorset in the nineteenth-century'.
5. Pamela Richardson, part-time PhD, `Quaker Businesses and the West Country, 1848-1948', completed 2007.
6. Barbara Douglas, part-time PhD, self-funded, `The history of Digby asylum', completed 2008.
7. Richard Hankins, full-time PhD, `Immunity to parasites: a history of professional interaction in twentieth-century biomedical sciences', completed September 1998.
8. Maddy Morgan full-time PhD, 'William Acton and the history of venereal disease' start date 2003.
9. Leah Songhurst full-time PhD, 'The medicalisation of happiness: St John's Wort' start date 2006.
10. Dr John Ford full-time MD, 'John Gorham', completed 2009.
11. Matthew Smith full-time PhD, 'The history of the Feingold Diet' (Wellcome Trust funded), completed 2009.
