Global Health in Historical Perspective: The Uses of History Roberta
Bivins
 Wellcome
Lecturer
in
the
History
of
Medicine
 Cardiff
University
 20
February
2007
 Prepared
as
part
of
an
educaAon
project
of
the

 Global
Health
EducaAon
ConsorAum

 and
collaboraAng
partners Learning objectives 1.  Discover
the
pre‐history
of
‘global
health’
 2.  Develop
strategies
for
using
history
as
a
global
health
 ‘laboratory’
 –  Via
comparing
historical
&
contemporary
responses
 to
global
health
problems
 –  Via
assessing
the
efficacy,
the
successes,
and
the
 failures
of
different
health
intervenAons
and
 strategies
 Page 22 ‘Global health’ in the west: everything old is new again Page 33 Contemporary
concerns
with
global
health
o7en
 stress
the
novelty
of
the
processes
involved.
But
in
 fact
there
are
few
differences
in
kind
between
our
 ‘Global health’ in the west: ‘globalized’
world,
and
the
global
world
inhabited
by
 our
predecessors
since
at
least
the
18th
century.
 everything old is new again Page 44 ‘Global health’ in the west: everything old is new again (Cont) •  Think
about
it:

 Are
 ‐immigraAon,

 ‐travel,
 ‐global
trade,
 ‐global
 communicaAons,
 ‐war,
 ‐famine,
 ‐or
infecAous
diseases

 new
phenomena?
 See Notes Page 55 ‘Global health’ in the West: Key events I Left image: Adhémar de Monteil (Adhémar du Puy) charging the Saracens, brandishing the Sainte Lance d'Antioche. Medieval illumination from Wikicommons Right Image: ‘The Apothecary’ from De Materia Medica des Dioskurides, The York Project See Notes Page 6 ‘Global health’ in the West: Key events I •  Crusades
‐‐
[c.1095
‐
c.1291]
Europeans
and
Arabs
alike
gained
first
hand
 knowledge
of
other
medical
systems
and
therapies,
and
were
exposed
to
 new
diseases
 
“The
Frankish
governor
of
Munaytra,
in
the
Lebanese
mountains,
wrote
to
 my
uncle
the
sultan…
asking
him
to
send
a
physician
to
treat
several
urgent
 cases.
My
uncle
selected
one
of
our
Chris@an
doctors…
He
was
gone
for
just
 a
few
days,
then
returned
home.
…We
besieged
him
with
ques@ons…”



































 

 
 
 
 
 











Emir
Usamah
c
1140 See Notes Page 77 ‘Global health’ in the West: Key events I •  Renaissance
‐‐
[c14th‐16th
century]
the
‘rebirth’
 in
Europe
of
classical
medicine
and
natural
sciences,
 enabled
by
the
mass
cross‐cultural
exchange
of
texts
 and
prac@ces
preserved,
refined,
corrected
and
 expanded
by
the
Islamic
world.

 See Notes Page 88 ‘Global health’ in the West: Key events II See Notes Page 99 ‘Global health’ in the West: Key events II •  Age
of
exploraIon:
from
the
‘Columbian
exchange’,
to
 the
establishment
of
European
trading
posts
and
then
 se‘lements
in
India,
China
and
Africa,
to
the
‘Triangle
 Trade’
‐‐
this
was
the
era
in
which
the
seeds
of
today’s
 single
global
epidemiological
environment
were
 planted.
 Page 1100