In Sickness and In Health: Medicine and Disease in the Past

Module title	In Sickness and In Health: Medicine and Disease in the Past
Module code	HASM027
Academic year	2025/6
Credits	30
Module staff	Dr Chris Sandal-Wilson (Convenor)

Duration: Term	1	2	3
Duration: Weeks	10

Number students taking module (anticipated)	12

Module description

Are sickness and health universal human conditions, unchanging across time and space – or are they shaped in more or less important ways by historical context? This module invites you to critically reflect on the study of medicine and disease in the past, introducing you to the thriving fields of the history of medicine and the medical humanities. Through seminar discussions focused on case studies drawn from across geographies, chronologies, and disciplines, you will explore how disease categories, treatment regimens, and illness narratives have been variously constructed in the past – and consider what the value of this historical perspective might be in informing medical practice, policy, and education today.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module is designed to enhance your understanding of the main themes and approaches in the interdisciplinary study of the medical humanities with a focus on past societies. It will enable you to think critically about key methods and techniques used by humanities and social science researchers to analyse and interpret issues of health, medicine and disease in their historical and cultural contexts. It will give you the skills necessary to review and to produce critical writing assessing key themes, approaches and methods across the medical humanities.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

1. Understand and evaluate the main themes and approaches in the study of health and disease in the past
2. Possess detailed knowledge of the key historiographical and theoretical debates informing the study of health and disease in the past
3. Assess critically the role of primary sources in informing the study of health and disease in the past

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

4. Demonstrate the ability to analyse and synthesise different types of historical material and evidence
5. Demonstrate a critical understanding of key historical concepts and debates, and recognise the differences between different approaches and source types
6. Develop practical research skills in the primary and secondary evidence

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

7. Demonstrate capacity for independent critical research, study and thought, including developing the ability to construct and defend a sustained argument, both in written form and orally, using primary and secondary materials
8. Work as an individual and with a tutor and peers in an independent, constructive and responsive way
9. Apply key bibliographical skills to independent study

Syllabus plan

This will be a team-taught module and the syllabus will vary on a year-by-year basis according to the composition of the module team and student choice. Seminars will offer students the opportunity to explore a range of topics and approaches to the study of health in the past. These might potentially include:

• Introduction to the medical humanities

• Pandemics: past and present

• Reproduction and society

• Gender, sexuality, science

• Self-fashioning the body

• Disability studies and disability histories

• Care across time and culture

• Human, animal, and environmental health

• The politics of international health

• Medicine, colonialism, and decolonisation

• Psychiatry and mental health

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
20	280	0

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled learning and teaching	20	Seminars (10 x 2 hours)
Guided independent study	100	Preparation for seminars including core readings, source work, and other activities on weekly basis;
Guided independent study	180	Research, planning, and writing for the formative and summative assessments for the module

Formative assessment

Form of assessment	Size of the assessment (eg length / duration)	ILOs assessed	Feedback method
Plan or abstract/statement of aims	750 words maximum	1-9	Oral and written

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Coursework	Written exams	Practical exams
100	0	0

Details of summative assessment

Form of assessment	% of credit	Size of the assessment (eg length / duration)	ILOs assessed	Feedback method
Review exercise	30	1500 words	1-9	Oral and written
Essay	70	4000 words	1-9	Oral and written

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Original form of assessment	Form of re-assessment	ILOs re-assessed	Timescale for re-assessment
Review exercise	Review exercise	1-9	Referral/Deferral period
Essay	Essay	1-9	Referral/Deferral period

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 50%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of referral will be capped at 50%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Basic reading:

Victoria Bates, Alan Bleakley and Sam Goodman, eds Medicine, Health and the Arts: Approaches to the Medical Humanities (Routledge, 2014).
Josie Gill, Catriona McKenzie, and Emma Lightfoot, eds Writing Remains: New Intersections of Archaeology, Literature and Science (Bloomsbury, 2021).
Nick Hopwood, Rebecca Flemming, and Lauren Kassell, eds Reproduction: Antiquity to the Present Day (Cambridge University Press, 2016).
Mark Jackson, ed. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Medicine (Oxford University Press, 2011).
Michael Rembis, Catherine Kudlick, and Kim E. Nielsen, eds The Oxford Handbook of Disability History (Oxford University Press, 2018).
Julia Shaw and Naomi Sykes, ‘New directions in the archaeology of medicine: deep-time approaches to human-animal-environmental care’, World Archaeology 50, 3 (2018), pp.365-83.
Sarah Toulalan and Kate Fisher, eds Bodies, Sex, and Desire from the Renaissance to the Present (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
Dora Vargha, Polio across the Iron Curtain: Hungary’s Cold War with an Epidemic (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
Anne Whitehead and Angela Woods, eds The Edinburgh Companion to the Critical Medical Humanities (Edinburgh University Press, 2016).
Alun Withey, Technology, Self-Fashioning, and Politeness in Eighteenth-Century Britain: Refined Bodies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE –

Key words search

Medical humanities; history; archaeology; classics and ancient history; health; disability; care; the body; sexuality; mental health

Credit value	30
Module ECTS	15
Module pre-requisites	None
Module co-requisites	None
NQF level (module)	7
Available as distance learning?	No
Origin date	10/04/2025
Last revision date	10/04/2025