Search

A ferroelectric liquid-crystal spatial light modulator with an active silicon backplane is used to implement reconfigurable reflective phase holograms. Optical results are presented for an optimized computer-generated Fourier hologram.

Historical text archives constitute a rich and diverse source of information, which is becoming increasingly readily accessible, due to large-scale digitisation efforts. However, it can be difficult for researchers to explore and search such large volumes of data in an efficient manner. Text mining (TM) methods can help, through their ability to recognise various types of semantic information automatically, e.g., instances of concepts (places, medical conditions, drugs, etc.), synonyms/variant forms of concepts, and relationships holding between concepts (which drugs are used to treat which medical conditions, etc.). TM analysis allows search systems to incorporate functionality such as automatic suggestions of synonyms of user-entered query terms, exploration of different concepts mentioned within search results or isolation of documents in which concepts are related in specific ways. However, applying TM methods to historical text can be challenging, according to differences and evolutions in vocabulary, terminology, language structure and style, compared to more modern text. In this article, we present our efforts to overcome the various challenges faced in the semantic analysis of published historical medical text dating back to the mid 19th century. Firstly, we used evidence from diverse historical medical documents from different periods to develop new resources that provide accounts of the multiple, evolving ways in which concepts, their variants and relationships amongst them may be expressed. These resources were employed to support the development of a modular processing pipeline of TM tools for the robust detection of semantic information in historical medical documents with varying characteristics. We applied the pipeline to two large-scale medical document archives covering wide temporal ranges as the basis for the development of a publicly accessible semantically-oriented search system. The novel resources are available for research purposes, while the processing pipeline and its modules may be used and configured within the Argo TM platform.

This article highlights a neglected feature of Joseph Lister's work, namely how, in addition to promoting germ theories and the principles of the antiseptic system, he also devoted much time and effort to communicating the performative aspects of antisepsis and of the many other surgical innovations that he developed. Attention to 'detail' and striving for 'improvement' were crucial to Listerian practice, and he sought to convey his credo in three main ways: first, his publications aimed at 'bringing the subject out in the same sort of way as it had been worked out by himself'; second, he set out strict protocols and information on materials and methods, yet also encouraged surgeons to improvise; and third, he made himself an exemplar of a new form of professionalism, which made constancy and vigilance in practice a moral duty for surgeons.

Legionnaires' disease is now routinely discussed as an 'emerging infectious disease' (EID) and is said to be one of the earliest such diseases to be recognised. It first appeared in 1976 and its cause was identified in 1977, the same year that Ebola fever, Hantaan virus and Campylobacter jejuni arrived. The designation of Legionnaires' disease as an EID was retrospective; it was not and could not be otherwise as the category only gained currency in the early 1990s. In this article we reflect on the changing medical understanding and social profile of Legionnaires' disease in the decade or so from its recognition to the creation of EIDs, especially its ambivalent position between public health and clinical medicine. However, we question any simple opposition, between public health experts who approached Legionnaires' disease as a new and worrying environmental threat that could be prevented, and clinicians who saw it as another cause of pneumonia that could be managed by improved diagnosis and treatment. We argue that in the British context of public spending cuts and the reform of public health, the category of 'new' diseases, in which Legionnaires' disease was central, was mobilised ahead of the EID lobby of the early 1990s, by interested groups in medicine to defend infectious diseases services.

A generation ago the nineteenth century was at the heart of medical historical scholarship, as the era when modem medicine was born. Over the last decade or so things have changed: other centuries vie for center stage, and former key "turning points," like hospital medicine and laboratory medicine, are now seen in terms of continuities on longer timescales. But though chronologically reframed, the modes of medicine still appear chiefly at the level of programmatic intentions, including rhetorical uses of science. This essay argues that work in this vein needs to be complemented with equal attention to the performative aspects of practice--in the clinic, in the laboratory, and in the field--and that historians of medicine still have much to learn from the "practice turn" in the history of science.

Historians tend to treat science and medicine as having developed in parallel, and we maintain separate societies and journals, often giving primacy to science, at least for intellectual history. Yet much of "science" before circa 1800 was dependent on the organizations of medicine, and much of science now is promoted for the improvement of medical diagnoses and therapies. This Focus section unpicks some of the historical and historiographical relationships, recognizing the present prominence of biomedicine and the diminishing utility of distinctions between science, medicine, and technology.

The history of medicine in twentieth-century empires has been dominated by studies of "imperial tropical medicine" (ITM) and its consequences. Historians have been fascinated by the work of medical scientists and doctors in the age of high imperialism, and there are many studies of medicine as a "tool of empire." This paper reviews work that explores colonial medicine as a broader enterprise than ITM in three spheres: missionary activity, modernization, and protection of the health and welfare of indigenous peoples. To illustrate the themes of mission and mandate, it discusses the development of policies to control leprosy in the tropical African and Asian colonies of Britain in the first half of this century, especially the work of the British Empire Leprosy Relief Association (BELRA). Although BELRA's efforts did little to change imperial medical and health agendas, they had an important impact locally and ideologically, and show how closely interwoven the themes of Christian caring, medical humanism, colonial development, and welfare policy had become by the outbreak of the Second World War.