Search results
Hesyre was a high court official in ancient Egypt and lived about 2650 bc during the reign of King Djoser. He managed to combine religious as well as secular posts, and has the distinction of being the first recorded physician and firstknown dentist in history. Healthcare developed at an early period in ancient Egyptian history as is supported by the evidence from the skeletal and mummified remains, from the artistic record, as well as from inscriptional and textual sources. These textual sources, the medical papyri, provide details of medical procedures undertaken, drugs employed and treatments provided - some of which have influenced modern medical practice. What we know about Hesyre comes from his impressive tomb at Saqqara, the walls of which are brightly decorated with items of daily life. Additionally, the tomb contained six fine wooden panels listing Hesyres titles, among them those relating to his practice of medicine and dentistry.
innovations in everyday medical practice to humanitarian work in the field. It seems to me a cultural, a psychosocial block. If you talk about surgery , for example, in a humanitarian setting, immediately among many NGO workers their antibodies will rise. They will say, ‘That’s terrible, you can’t allow that Western, too high-tech surgery; it is inappropriate.’ But then if you say, ‘So, what about obstructed labour and interventions to save the mother and the child?’, then
the government won’t see the difference if it is us or ICRC providing the surgery and yet we don’t have the permanent ability to address the needs of non-war-wounded patients, such as obstetrics. Indeed, surgical care available to wounded combatants had been considered a trump card to obtain guarantees of respect and protection from the opposition’s leadership, whose soldiers, according to MSF-H’s head of mission
Beautyscapes explores the rapidly developing global phenomenon of international medical travel, focusing specifically on patient-consumers seeking cosmetic surgery outside their home country and on those who enable them to access treatment abroad, including key figures such as surgeons and facilitators. Documenting the complex and sometimes fraught journeys of those who travel for treatment abroad, as well as the nature and power relations of the transnational IMT industry, this is the first book to focus specifically on cosmetic surgery tourism. A rich and theoretically sophisticated ethnography, Beautyscapes draws on key themes in studies of globalisation and mobility, such as gender and class, neoliberalism, social media, assemblage, conviviality and care, to explain the nature and growing popularity of cosmetic surgery tourism. The book challenges myths about vain and ill-informed travellers seeking surgery from ‘cowboy’ foreign doctors, yet also demonstrates the difficulties and dilemmas that medical tourists – especially cosmetic surgery tourists – face. Vividly illustrated with ethnographic material and with the voices of those directly involved in cosmetic surgery tourism, Beautyscapes is based on a large research project exploring cosmetic surgery journeys from Australia and China to East Asia and from the UK to Europe and North Africa.
The Introduction opens with a description of the book’s intent and my position as an anthropologist examining the humanitarian field. I introduce the story of one war victim – Ismael – who presents in microcosm the unique aspects of the patients in the MSF Reconstructive Surgery Programme (RSP). I go on to explore the invisibility of the war-wounded, especially those who have never participated in combat. The Introduction continues with a discussion on the delivery of humanitarian surgery, a specific field in the larger world of humanitarian aid. I touch briefly on the history of MSF surgical programmes and capture some of the history of MSF’s surgical practices, which go back to the very origins of the organization itself. RSP is a programme that reflects the cumulative MSF experience. The Introduction concludes with an in-depth description of MSF’s RSP in Amman, Jordan. Currently, patients in the RSP, who often sustain critical injuries years before they are admitted to the hospital, have various levels of disability or have lived with significant post-surgical complications. The Introduction explores several of the aspects that make the RSP unique. Among them are surgical procedures focused on functional improvements, the months and sometimes years-long rehabilitation undergone by patients away from their home countries, the scale of the programme, and the multi-disciplinary treatment provided.
This book explores seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain’s experiences with and responses to the surgical reconstruction of the nose, and the concerns and possibilities raised by the idea of ‘nose transplants’ in this period. Challenging histories of plastic surgery that posit a complete disappearance of Gaspare Tagliacozzi’s reconstructive operation after his death in 1599, the book traces the actual extent of this knowledge within the medical community in order to uncover why such a procedure was anathema to early modern British culture. Medical knowledge of Tagliacozzi’s autograft rhinoplasty was overtaken by a spurious story, widely related in contemporary literature, that the nose would be constructed from flesh purchased from a social inferior, and would die with the vendor. The volume therefore explores this narrative in detail for its role in the procedure’s stigmatisation, its engagement with the doctrine of medical sympathy, and its attempt to commoditise living human flesh. Utilising medical research and book histories alongside literary criticism, the project historicises key modern questions about the commodification and limits of the human body, the impact of popular culture on medical practice, and the ethical connotations of bodily modification as response to stigma.
Community and little narratives 127 6 Community and little narratives In this chapter we explore how cosmetic surgery tourists form communities, sometimes in person but more often on social media and the websites that they use to conduct research, to meet others, and then to navigate, document and narrate their experiences. In addition to this, we show how some people use social media to make and maintain friendships and links connected with their surgical/travel experiences. One sort of cosmetic surgery tourist stands out in her sociality and in her intent
Cosmetic investments 31 2 Cosmetic investments Cosmetic surgery tourism is part IMT and part cosmetic surgery, and each of these elements evokes considerable anxiety and debate in both the media and in some academic accounts. In this chapter we elaborate our position on cosmetic surgery as well as introducing our patient-consumers and their motives for travelling abroad for treatment. Our intention is to frame cosmetic surgery through attention to the narratives our participants shared with us, drawing together their discussions and experiences to challenge
(‘On the surgery of mutilations through grafting’, (Venice: 1597)). Tagliacozzi's rhinoplasty procedure lifted a flap of skin from the patient's upper arm to reconstruct the nose, and is now so well known it forms the logo of the American Association of Plastic Surgeons, with Tagliacozzi heralded as the ‘father’ of plastic surgery. But histories of plastic surgery maintain that after Tagliacozzi's death his procedure disappeared from medical knowledge for the following two centuries. This is incorrect. It is likely that Tagliacozzi's procedure was never practised in
Historians of the British Civil Wars are increasingly taking notice of these bloody conflicts as a critical event in the welfare history of Europe. This volume will examine the human costs of the conflict and the ways in which they left lasting physical and mental scars after the cessation of armed hostilities. Its essays examine the effectiveness of medical care and the capacity of the British peoples to endure these traumatic events. During these wars, the Long Parliament’s concern for the ‘commonweal’ led to centralised care for those who had suffered ‘in the State’s service’, including improved medical treatment, permanent military hospitals, and a national pension scheme, that for the first time included widows and orphans. This signified a novel acceptance of the State’s duty of care to its servicemen and their families. These essays explore these developments from a variety of new angles, drawing upon the insights shared at the inaugural conference of the National Civil War Centre in August 2015. This book reaches out to new audiences for military history, broadening its remit and extending its methodological reach.