Diet and Nutrition. Natural Health, and Healthy Living

*Call for Papers: Collected Volume of Essays on Early Modern Disability*

Abstract: 500 words (Due Date: April 1, 2010)

Editors: Allison P. Hobgood and David Houston Wood

Accepted abstracts will lead to scholarly essays (c. 5,000-6,000 words) to be included in a proposed book collection tentatively entitled “Disabling the Renaissance: Recovering Early Modern Disability.”

While Renaissance scholarship in the past few decades has been interested in all sorts of new identity histories, too little work has been undertaken on early modern disabled selves as such. Accordingly, we are interested in essay submissions that call attention to how recent conversation about difference in the early modern period has often overlooked or misidentified disability. This volume will present early modern disability studies as a productive theoretical lens that can reanimate existing scholarly dialogue about Renaissance subjectivities even as it motivates more politically invested classroom pedagogies.

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Scientizing the Other: Science, Medicine and the Study of Human Difference, 1800-1950

A one-day postgraduate student conference to be held at Churchill College, University of Cambridge

22 June 2010

For the last two hundred years, members of the scientific and medical establishments have represented and misrepresented peoples of different class, sex, race, age and ability in their efforts to chart human variation. This conference will explore how science has been used to evaluate the ‘other’ in society, and will examine the various means by which seemingly objective conclusions were reached concerning whole segments of the population.

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For 2010 Americans dream of cosmetic makeovers that tighten abs and leave a brighter smile, rather than those that erase worry lines and lift sagging facial features.

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I guess because I have been traveling, flying and getting back into the swing of being a Cruise Director I haven’t had time to sit back and realize…….that I am now 45 years of age ……………. bloody hell………….I am 45 years old………and that frightens me nearly as much as you would all be frightened if [...]

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Meet Annie one of the new Entertainment Staff here on your Carnival Dream.Except Annie is not her name………..it’s a nickname………..for obvious reasons and it’s one she seems to love and she certainly has been blessed with a sunshiney personality that makes her perfect for the job of Entertainment Staff.This is a rare thing because it [...]

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According to the headlines, 10 percent of Americans are unemployed. The truth is that closer to 17 percent of the population cannot find full-time work; this number includes workers who have become discouraged and have given up looking for work as well as those who have settled for part-time jobs because they cannot find the full-time employment that they need.

The situation is not going to change anytime soon. As Princeton economist Paul Krugman recently warned: “We are facing mass unemployment — unemployment that will blight the lives of millions of Americans for years to come.”

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Gilles Frydman is one of the leading ePatients. He started and runs ACOR (Association of Cancer Online Resources) and has discussed the role of engaged patients with rare diseases at the last few Health 2.0 Conferences. We'll be hearing more from Gilles in the US this year, but first we're inviting him to present at Health 2.0 Europe. His twitter name (@kosherfrog) reveals Gilles’ ethnic and national background, so we thought he was a very appropriate person to discuss both the future of online patient activism, and the Health 2.0 scene in the US and Europe.

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Evidently Dysport is very friendly with some docs. Too friendly for the FDA when it comes to promoting Dysport before it's been approved.

From Pierce Mattie PR:

It appears it is not only bloggers that are feeling the heat from the government in regards to their relationships with the brands they write about, but cosmetic dermatologists as well. Recently the FDA made an example of Dr. Leslie Baumann by sending her a warning when she was sourced for several beauty magazine articles regarding her positive praise of Dysport, the newly approved Botox competitor created by Medicis prior to such approval. The warning appears to have more to do with disclosure than anything else, which, mark my words, will be the buzzword of 2010 due in part to both the FTC and FDA.

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H-Net Disability (history)listserv* has posted an excellent book review of an important new book entitled Permeable Walls: Historical Perspectives on Hospital and Asylum Visiting, eds. Graham Mooney, Jonathan Reinarz.

Here is the first paragraph excerpted:

Graham Mooney and Jonathan Reinarz’s Permeable Walls is the first collection entirely devoted to the history of visiting patients in the hospital and asylum setting, neatly deflecting attention away from a more traditional focus within the history of medicine upon the experiences of patients and doctors within the institutional setting. This is an important contribution to the historiography, given that visiting patients, relatives, and friends in medical institutions is a universal practice worldwide, and that people tend to visit the hospital as a visitor more frequently than they do as a patient. Consideration is therefore given to an experience that is not so much part of the institution, but one that is periodically and momentarily drawn into its ambit. Throughout the collection, visitors are presented as an understudied constituency in medical history, and their experiences are explored in broad social, cultural, and geographical perspectives. It is shown, for instance, that discussion of the wider significance of visiting in fact draws attention to issues such as urban governance, philanthropy, the public sphere, civil society, and citizenship. This is all achieved via discussion of the different types of visitors: patient visitors, public visitors, house visitors, and official visitors.

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Call for Papers
Pharmaceuticals in Historical Context

The American Institute of the History of Pharmacy invites submissions for the 2nd Madison Medicines Conference, “Pharmaceuticals in Historical Context,” to be held 22-23 October 2010.

Pharmaceuticals – whether from natural sources or research laboratories – have been central to the treatment of disease throughout human history. The conference organizers welcome proposals for 20-minute papers that address the theme of placing medicines into the social, political, economic, or philosophical context of any era or place using the tools of history.

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