History Commons^™

Don't Breathe: An Analysis Of The Factors Of The Victorian River Thames' Restoration, Lucie N. Jain

Young Historians Conference

In the summer of 1858, the River Thames of London was polluted beyond recognition, producing an intolerable smell that reached all corners of the city and inspired a surge of rhetoric commenting on the state of the once adored river. Prior to the nineteenth century, the Thames was the jewel of London and the main source of the city’s prosperity. However, industrialism took a toll on the river’s beauty and health, and the once pristine waterway was quickly spoiled in the space of mere decades. Tracing back to nineteenth century London, this paper aims to explore the causes of the …

Bad Blood: Hemophilia And It’S Detriment To The Russian Imperial Family, Tessia A. Hoffman

Young Historians Conference

Monarchies have often defined the flow of history. Their decisions and ideas affect whole countries, which can lead to a crisis if the ruler is unable to lead effectively. A lack of leadership can bring about war, famine, political instability, and political unrest, all of which occurred in Russia during the 19th and 20th centuries. The poor decision-making of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra brought about civic unrest that eventually led to their downfall. In addition to the unstable country, the Imperial family was also struggling with the state of their only heir, who had inherited the genetic disorder …

The United States' Relationship With The Insanity Defense Before And After United States V. Hinckley, Natalie R. Peterman

Young Historians Conference

The United States legal system has had a fluctuating relationship with the insanity defense for decades, and the trial of United States v. Hinckley was a critical milestone for this development. Before John Hinckley, Jr. attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and the jury of his trial found him not guilty, American society generally supported the insanity defense, but both the public and the government were outraged after Hinckley’s verdict. This outrage and the subsequent political backlash against the insanity defense were motivated by progress in the area of mental illness treatment in the United States. In the …

Liberté, Égalité, Santé: The Evolution Of Medicine In Revolution-Era France, Jasmine Yu

Young Historians Conference

Modern practice of medicine is reliably grounded in thorough observation and experimental study before application in a clinical setting. Yet before the universality of verifiable scientific justification, theoretical—and generally fallacious—models for the workings of the human body predominated, including the philosophy of the four elemental humors introduced by Hippocrates and Galen. In France, the decline of humorism’s supremacy did not occur until the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the same time period during which the long-standing convention of absolute monarchy was violently eradicated by the French Revolution. How, if at all, was the ending of humoral remedies like bloodletting …

An Analysis Of The Evolution Of Medicine In Nineteenth Century England Via The Development Of The Anatomical Model Per Human Dissection, Isabelle C. Freeman

Young Historians Conference

An Analysis of the Evolution of Medicine in Nineteenth Century England via The Development of the Anatomical Model per Human Dissection

The development of the human anatomical model was, through a modern lens, an incredibly inhumane process. In England, during the nineteenth century, the bodies of many common folk and criminals were used as cadavers without their consent; either sold, stolen, and/or killed. Though many medical advancements were made, such as the development of more invasive surgeries; there was a huge moral cost. The purpose of this paper is to create a timeline regarding the evolution of the human anatomical …

Depiction And Function Of Madness In Elizabethan And Jacobean Literature, Yeiji Seo

Young Historians Conference

Since the ancient times of Israel, Greece, and Rome, people with mental illnesses have been regarded as different from others in society. This paper aims to analyze the motives of authors of medical and dramatic texts of Elizabethan and Jacobean literature in regards to mental illness by specifically observing William Shakespeare’s King Lear and Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy. This paper also considers the views of other scholars of the field to compose a complete insight on Shakespeare and Burton’s goals in depicting mental illness and finally advocates further research and understanding to positively contribute towards disability reform today.

The Pivotal Role That Race Plays In Medical Research: The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, Kristin X. Wong

Young Historians Conference

This research attempts to answer the question, "To what extent was race or racial bias a factor in the conception and execution of the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male?" The goal is to reevaluate the degree to which the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (TSS) was driven by the racial bias in the face of modern counter-narratives. This has been done by examining events such as the Oslo Study and the Rosenwald Demonstration Project, organizations such as the Public Health Service and Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and primary and secondary sources including interviews, a collection of …

Galen: The Philosophical Physician, Chloe Sellers

Young Historians Conference

Analyzing the works of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, this paper reveals the specific influences each of the three had upon Galen’s medical practice, asserting that the influence of philosophy was ultimately responsible for distinguishing Galen from his contemporaries. Drawing from various primary sources, including Plato’s “The Apology,” Timaeus and The Republic, as well as Aristotle’s Physics, and comparing them to Galen’s works, “The Art of Medicine” and “A Method of Medicine to Glaucon,” numerous similarities are revealed between the works of Galen and those of the philosophical trio. By evaluating these many connections among the works, as well as using …

Tainted Benevolence: Sources Of Funding For The Liverpool School Of Tropical Medicine From 1898-1915, Lucy Cummins

Young Historians Conference

The final two decades of the nineteenth century saw a race among European powers to secure vast tracts of land in Africa for colonization and exploitation. However, the empires of the West soon found that effective occupation of this new continent would not end with a physical takeover. In order to benefit politically and financially from their new territories, colonial governments would have to confront a series of unforeseen challenges, one of the largest of which was the prevalence of so-called "tropical" diseases. Few doctors in Europe had any experience with or understanding of conditions from sleeping sickness to Guinea …

Clickbait Science: A Review Of Rhetorical Patterns Within The Royal Society, Bryan T. Le

Young Historians Conference

King Charles II of England gave birth to the Royal Society and the right for it to publish without interference in the seventeenth century. Out of this society came forth Philosophical Transactions, the first ever science journal. The journal, however, was not strictly bound to science. Articles within the journal exhibit a variety of unusual bits of information ranging from making water colors to constructing a bee-house. This paper shows that the Royal Society included articles that weren’t science but human interest to gather a following for themselves.

The Escalation Of Human Sterilization In The 1900s, Rebecca S. Lumbantobing

Young Historians Conference

The sterilizations of over 200,000 Americans is an often forgotten part of Western science’s not so distant past. Sterilization was proposed as a eugenic solution to combat societal issues attributed to genetics, such as criminality, pauperism, and feeblemindedness. Sterilization laws began to be implemented in several American states. However, it was not until the 1920s, that eugenics advocates E.S. Gosney and Paul Popenoe created the Human Betterment Foundation to introduce the complex conjecture of eugenics to the layman. Drawing upon the original publications by the HBF, Sterilization for Human Benefit and “Human Sterilization Today”, and contemporary reviews, this paper explores …

The Rise And Fall Of Human Dissection In Hellenistic Alexandria, Ellie H. Barany

Young Historians Conference

Classical and Hellenistic Greece were known to be a hub of scientific research. However, the potential for scientific discovery was limited by dominating religious beliefs. Advancements in the study of human anatomy were inhibited by religious taboos that prevented the practice of human dissection. These taboos took hold of Greek society, with a consequence of exile to anyone who violated them. The exception however, is in Hellenistic Alexandria under the rule of the Ptolemaic Kings, Soter and Philadelphus. This paper examines the factors under which the Greek scientist Herophilus was allowed to practice systematic human dissection, as well as the …

The Divine Viscera: Medicine And Religion In The Islamic Golden Age, Isabella A. Pua

Young Historians Conference

Islamic medicine is largely ignored in Western tradition, but in an era when Western European medical practice relied more on mysticism than science and had lost the advances made by Classical Greece, the Islamic Empire entered a golden age of scientific thought. The impetus for the Golden Age medicine that developed can be partially attributed to the Islamic religion itself. This paper explores the role of Islam as both a unifying force and a set of broad cultural values in creating that atmosphere that allowed for the study of medicine, within the context of the scientific-religious duality that characterized discovery …

What’S Your Temperament: The Humoral Theory’S Influence On Medicine In Ancient Greece, Riley Sebers

Young Historians Conference

Prior to the birth of Hippocrates of Cos in 460 BCE, medicine in ancient Greece revolved around the gods and magic. During Hippocrates lifetime, he remastered an old practice called the humoral theory: an idea stating that every individual person has a unique balance of substances called humors in their body. The balance of these humors is what keeps a man healthy, and if a specific amount is disturbed, sickness sets in. This theory allowed physicians in ancient Greece to move away from dominantly using magic to treat illness and start using the humoral theory instead.

To What Extent Did British Advancements In Cryptanalysis During World War Ii Influence The Development Of Computer Technology?, Hayley A. Leblanc

Young Historians Conference

This investigation will focus on the advancements made in the field of computing by British codebreakers working on German ciphers during World War II (1939­1945). Along with examining the state of code­breaking technology before the war, it will discuss the nature of computing after the war up until the present to determine the impact of the war on computers. It will consider being electronic (rather than electromechanical) as the defining characteristic of modern computers. This investigation will not discuss the cryptanalysis effort by any other country during the war, nor will it consider cryptography ­related advancements after the war. However, …

Rationalism And The Understanding Of Irrationality, Sophie Hamilton

Young Historians Conference

The Scientific Revolution is an era heavily scrutinized by historians and history teachers alike; the works of Francis Bacon, Andreas Vesalius, and Isaac Newton are included in nearly every textbook and course covering the Enlightenment era. But many people don’t realize that the scientific discoveries of the Enlightenment were not limited to mathematics, astronomy, and anatomy; a revolution in psychiatry was also occurring.

"Rationalism and the Understanding of Irrationality" explores how the rationalist movement in the Enlightenment, which emphasized the use of reason and individualism, enabled leaders in the mental health industry to raise living standards and redefine treatment for …

Copernicus’ Role In The Scientific Revolution: Philosophical Merits And Influence On Later Scientists, Jonathan Huston

Young Historians Conference

Nicolaus Copernicus' publication of De Revolutionibus Orbium Coesltium marks the beginning of a revolution in the field of astronomy and physics. Within 150 years, a heliocentric system became almost universally accepted in the scientific community. Copernicus’ model was significant not because it of its scientific merit, but because of its ideological appeal to scientists during the 16th through 18th century. This paper explores the philosophical foundations of Copernicus' model, and examines his influence in later work of four significant astronomers and physicists, Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton.

Griswold V. Connecticut: A Study Of Resistance To Sexual Revolution In Connecticut, 1961, Natalie Pearson

Young Historians Conference

In 1965, the last remaining anticontraceptive law in the United States was made unconstitutional in Griswold v. Connecticut. Despite widespread acceptance of the use of contraceptives, Connecticut legislatures put up incredible resistance to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and subsequent demand that the statute--outlawing individual use of contraceptives--be removed. This paper asserts Connecticut's foundation as a haven for Protestant values as the reason for this determined resistance to the acceptance of contraceptives.

On The Sacred Disease: The Historical Significance Of Hippocratic Humanism, Rationality And Scientific Procedure, Leah Haykin

Young Historians Conference

Although many of the Hippocratic Corpus' anatomical, physiological and pathological doctrines have since been superseded, the premise of On the Sacred Disease - that disease is of a physical origin - stimulated the rise of rational, secular, and systematic medicine over magico-religious healing and the recognition of medicine as a true techne, or science. Before the time of Hippocrates, 'pre-scientific' Western medicine was predominantly magico-religious or characterized by magic-based appeals to supernatural beings. In On the Sacred Disease, however, Hippocrates attributes disease to both internal and external factors. Further holding that prognosis should be based on thorough examination, Hippocrates required …

The Anatomical Renaissance, Chloe Zimmerman

Young Historians Conference

The mystical element of the human cadaver has long determined how people interact with it. Ancient cultures often feared the wrath of a higher power arising from an investigation into the sanctity of the human corpse, a fear that for the most part stemmed from religious traditions. Despite the taboos associated with this practice, the dawn of the Italian Renaissance saw a gradual shift in this traditional perspective that allowed for scholars, particularly those in Northern Italy, to explore the subject of anatomy with greater freedom. This paper explores the factors that contributed to the proliferation of anatomical dissection throughout …