Historical Perspectives Quarterly

The treatment of alcoholism that should not exist: Addiction, East German doctors, and Western methods in the German Democratic Republic

Wahl, M.

Addiction was considered ‘alien to Socialism’. At least, that was the narrative upheld by the socialist East German state, which thus followed the traditional argumentation of socialist and social democratic movements since the turn of the century. While the state clung to this ideological claim, the consumption and abuse of beer, spirits, and benzodiazepines continued to increase. However, there ... [see more]

Urbanization and mortality in Britain, c. 1800–50†

Davenport, R.

In the long‐running debate over standards of living during the industrial revolution, pessimists have identified deteriorating health conditions in towns as undermining the positive effects of rising real incomes on the ‘biological standard of living’. This article reviews long‐run historical relationships between urbanization and epidemiological trends in England, and then addresses the specific ... [see more]

A Rat’s Progress: Plague and the “Migratory Rat” in British India, 1896-1899

Lynteris, C.

Whether referring to oceanic travel on board of ships or to movement in terra firma, framings of the “migratory rat” formed a key epidemiological component of approaches to the Third Plague Pandemic (1894-1959) as the first pandemic to be understood as caused by a zoonotic disease. In this article, I examine the emergence and development of scientific framings of the migratory rat in the first, ex... [see more]

The Soviet export of sleep therapy to the Eastern Bloc countries after the Pavlovian session in 1950

Popova, K.

Following the decisions of the scientific session ‘For the further flourishing of Pavlov’s doctrine’ of the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR in 1950, important reforms were introduced under political control in the USSR and the Eastern Bloc countries. Research plans of science institutions and medical university curricula were changed according to these decisions... [see more]

Cold war of strains: the ‘Bulgarian’ BCG vaccine between Paris, Copenhagen, and Moscow (1940s–1950s)

Angelova, M.

This article deals with the tuberculosis policy in Communist Bulgaria from the 1940s to the end of the 1950s. The focus is on the BCG vaccination as the major preventive tool. The article’s reconstruction of decision-making draws on evidence from archive records produced by the Bulgarian Ministry of Health. The main question guiding the research is how past Bulgarian experiences on the one hand, a... [see more]

Editorial: Narrating imperial infrastructure

Kim, H.

‘Creative environmental engineering’ and the cost of environmental claims: legitimisation of tire artificial reefs by US federal scientists in 1960s–1970s

Porsnovs, D.

Between 1966 and 1974, the US Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife carried out research on the possibilities of using waste materials for constructing artificial reefs. One of the main outcomes was the recommendation to construct reefs from waste tires. With the encouragement of the findings, more than 700 reefs containing tens of millions of tires were built along the US Atlantic seaboard. This... [see more]

Safe Sex and the Debate over Condoms on Campus in the 1980s: Sperm Busters at Harvard and Protection Connection at the University of Texas at Austin

Osseo-Asare, A.

During the 1980s, college students in the United States helped to destigmatize the distribution and use of condoms. They shifted their aims from preventing unwanted pregnancy to stopping the spread of sexually transmitted infections including the newly identified acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Two student-led initiatives to deliver condoms after hours at Harvard University in Cambridge... [see more]