Santorio Santorio
De Statica Medicina
(1664)
Santorio Santorio was a Venetian physician. His greatest achievement was the discovery of insensible water loss. He did this by living for days at a time on a balance. His weight, everything he ate and drank, and all bodily waste leaving him, was carefully weighed.
Through this, he discovered that for every eight pounds of food he ate, his body only excreted three pounds. He concluded that there was imperceptible perspiration through the skin which could not otherwise be accounted for, even by sweating. Santorio said there was abundant water in exhaled air, which he demonstrated by breathing on a cold mirror.
Throughout the 1700s researchers continued to build their own weighing chairs across Europe to further the research started by Santorio.
At the height of his fame Eugen Sandow was celebrated across the world for his strength and a supposedly perfect physique. He was an early example of a global celebrity – he developed the Sandow ‘brand’
Aberdonians Elizabeth and Alexander Blackwell eloped to London in 1726. Alexander started a printing business which failed and he was sent to a debtor's prison. Elizabeth was a talented artist and she began work on a herbal based on the plants in the Chelsea Physic Garden. The final work consisted of 500 illustrations of medicinal plants. All the illustrations were drawn, engraved, and coloured by Elizabeth herself with a text provided by Alexander. The herbal was so successful that Alexander’s debts were cleared freeing him from prison. He went to Sweden where he worked as an agricultural expert before becoming involved in a plot to alter the Swedish succession. He was arrested, condemned for high treason and executed in 1747.
#botany
The contents of a typical nineteenth century Edinburgh medicine chest
The Ripley Scroll is an alchemical manuscript that uses verses and pictures to describe the making of the Philosophers’ Stone and the Elixir of Life. The verses come mainly from the Compound of Alchemie, an allegorical poem written by George Ripley, a canon of Bridlington in 1471.
Jessica Harrison
Handheld (2009)
These furniture models appear to be made of fleshy, real, human skin. They are actually created by Edinburgh-based artist Jessica Harrison by making casts of the palms and backs of her hands.
Jessica studied sculpture at Edinburgh College of Art in 2000, before completing a practice-led PhD in sculpture in 2013 funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. In these sculptures, which Jessica has acknowledged can seem ‘monstrous’, the addition of teeth and real hair blur the boundary between what is the body and what is not.
The use of interior objects – a lamp, a cabinet, an armchair – contrast with the role of skin as an exterior, boundary, object. Jessica describes the sculptures as studies in the nature of skin, representing ‘a move away from the idea of skin as boundary between inside and outside’.
This pill box belonged to Edinburgh doctor James Young Simpson who is known for the discovery of the anaesthetic powers of chloroform. Simpson was Professor of Midwifery at the University of Edinburgh and, seeing the distress of his female patients during labour, was determined to find a solution. In the lid of the box you can see Simpson’s address – 52 Queen Street. At his home there he, and his two assistants, self-experimented with a range of chemicals to determine their anaesthetic properties before administering chloroform, passing out, and then waking up a few hours later – realizing that they had found the solution they were looking for.
Homeopathy.mp4
In 1851 the College produced Resolutions making it clear that we would not admit a homeopathist, or those who associated with homeopathists, to membership of the College, and would bar anyone who defected to that camp. From then on self-proclaimed homeopathists were barred. We do however have homeopathic medicine chests in our collections – including this one which is from the Homeopathic Hospital in Liverpool.
Jenner.mp4
Edward Jenner was the first doctor to test the long-held belief that anyone who has had cowpox was resistant to smallpox. In this work, first published in 1798, he described 23 cases of vaccination against smallpox.
Jenner had been a student of the celebrated Scottish surgeon John Hunter and the two became great friends. They corresponded and exchanged ideas on a variety of topics, including the hibernation, migration and nesting habits of the cuckoo. In their correspondence on hedgehogs, Hunter famously wrote: “but why think, why not try the experiment”.
Medicine chest.mp4
This medicine chest belonged to past president of the College Stuart Threipland. It was used to treat patients during the 1745 Jacobite Rising and Threipland acted as the physician-in-chief to Bonnie Prince Charlie throughout his campaign, including at the Battle of Culloden. It is believed, although not certain, that the chest was given to Threipland by the Prince himself. It contains 147 different medicines including mercury, turpentine and opium.
College from the Sky
Missing the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh ?
This footage shows the College from the sky at our beautiful home on Queen Street
Tuberculosis Treatment at Edinburgh's Southfield Sanatorium
In this short video Dr Christopher Clayson and Dr David Boyd discuss the history of the treatment of tuberculosis at Edinburgh’s Southfield Sanatorium.
Travelling Inside the Body, Part 3 by Helen King
Investigating the little things, or little people, inside our bodies.
In this short talk Professor Helen King examines historical understandings of the body, using metaphors of war, of factories, and of houses. These ideas of workmen, of soldiers and of domestic architecture helped to explain the body and its workings.
Professor King worked at the OU from 2011 to 2017 and is now a Visiting Professor within Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick.
Andrew Duncan and the Royal Edinburgh Hospital
When one of Scotland's greatest Enlightenment poets, Robert Fergusson, died in Edinburgh's Bedlam this began a chain reaction which led to the establishment of Edinburgh's first public mental hospital.
In this short talk Professor David Purdie discusses the eminent eighteenth century physician and President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh Andrew Duncan and his role in the foundation of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital.
