Introductory description

‘From Cradle to Grave’, a 30 CATS undergraduate second-year option module, explores medicine in modern Britain through the lens of the lifecycle, examining how health care and medical interventions impinge on individuals and families from birth, through adolescence, maturity and aging, to death. It focuses on a wide range of themes – childhood disease and child poverty, the challenges of adolescence, fertility, reproductive health, childbirth and maternity, diet and wellness, chronic disease, the menopause and aging. The module is particularly concerned with the evolving relationship between family, state and medical provision in terms of the creation of services, as well as the question of ‘who is responsible for health'? The module will focus on the rise of the state’s involvement in medicine and health, changing institutional provision and the role of individuals, households and communities as active participants in their own health care, as well as the impact of voluntary organisations and patient/user groups. The module considers the role of geography, mobility, economics, class, gender and ethnicity alongside age as determinants of health issues and access to care.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Birth and Death in Modern Britain
Child Poverty, Health and the State
Medicine and School
Childhood, Illness and Disease
The Rise of State Medicine
Challenges of Youth
Healthy Lifestyles: Exercise, Sport and Health
Sex and Sexuality
The Rise of the Family Doctor
Birth, Marriage and Eugenics
Women, Medicine and the Lifecycle
The Empty Cradle: Fertility and Reproductive Health
Child Birth and Maternity
Work and Health
Menopause
Keeping Young, Keeping Alive: Middle Age
Aging and Society
Death in Modern Britain
Revision lecture

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• The development of critical and analytical study, writing and communication skills
• The ability to critically evaluate sources for the study of medicine in modern Britain
• To understand historical and theoretical interpretations of changes in medicine and health in modern Britain
• To present research in a creative, knowledgeable and succinct manner
• To develop written and oral communication skills
• To undertake bibliographic research
• To develop competency in using electronic resources for research and writing

Indicative reading list

Lucinda McCray Beier, For Their Own Good: The Transformation of English Working-Class Health Culture, 1880-1970 (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 2008).
Lucy Bland and Lesley A. Hall, ‘Eugenics in Britain: The View from the Metropole’, in Alison Bashford and Phillipa Levine (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 213–27. e-book
Hera Cook, The Long Sexual Revolution: English Women, Sex, and Contraception, 1800-1975 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). e-book
Roger Cooter and John Pickstone (eds), Medicine in the Twentieth Century (Amsterdam, etc.: Harwood, 2000).
Anna Davin, ‘Imperialism and Motherhood’, History Workshop Journal, 5 (1978), 9–66. e-journal
Anna Davin, Growing Up Poor: Home, School and Street in London 1870–1914 (London: Rivers Oram Press, 1996).
Angela Davis, Modern Motherhood: Women and Family in England, 1945-2000 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012). e-book
Deborah Dwork, War is Good for Babies and Other Young Children: A History of the Infant and Child Welfare Movement in England 1898–1918 (London: Tavistock, 1987).
Kate Fisher, Birth Control, Sex and Marriage in Britain, 1918-1960 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). e-book
Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra and Hilary Marland (eds.), Cultures of Child Health in Britain and the Netherlands in the Twentieth Century (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2003).
Germaine Greer, The Change: Women, Ageing and the Menopause (Penguin edn, 1992).
Ali Haggett, Desperate Housewives, Neurosis and the Domestic Environment, 1945-1970 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2012). e-book
Lesley Hall, Hidden Anxieties: Male Sexuality, 1900-1950 (Cambridge: Polity, 1991).
Anne Hardy, The Epidemic Streets: Infectious Disease and the Rise of Preventive Medicine, 1856-1900 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). e-book
Bernard Harris, The Health of the Schoolchild: A History of the School Medical Service in England and Wales (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1985).
Mark Jackson (ed.), Health and the Modern Home (London and New York: Routledge, 2007). e-book
Mark Jackson (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Medicine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). e-book
Greta Jones, Social Hygiene in Twentieth-Century Britain (London: Croom Helm, 1986).
Helen Jones, Health and Society in Twentieth-Century Britain (London: Longman, 1994).
Joan Lane, A Social History of Medicine: Health, Healing and Disease in England, 1750-1950 (London and New York: Routledge, 2001).
Christopher Lawrence, Medicine in the Making of Modern Britain 1700–1920 (London and New York: Routledge, 1994).
Nicky Leap and Billie Hunter, The Midwife’s Tale: An Oral History from Handywoman to Professional Midwife (London: Scarlett Press, 1993).
Jane Lewis, The Politics of Motherhood: Child and Maternal Welfare in England 1900–1939 (London: Croom Helm, 1980).
Jane Lewis, ‘Providers, “Consumers”, the State and the Delivery of Health-Care Services in Twentieth-Century Britain’, in Andrew Wear (ed.), Medicine in Society: Historical Essays (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), ch. 12, 317–46. scanned article
Vicky Long, The Rise and Fall of the Healthy Factory: The Politics of Industrial Health in Britain, 1914–60 (Houndmills: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2011). e-book
Carolyn Malone, Women’s Bodies and Dangerous Trades in England, 1880–1914 (Woodbridge, Boydell, 2003).
Lara Marks, Sexual Chemistry: A History of the Contraceptive Pill (New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press, 2001).
Hilary Marland, Health and Girlhood in Britain, 1874-1920 (Houndmills: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013). e-book
Jill Matthews, ‘They had Such a Lot of Fun: The Women’s League of Health and Beauty Between the Wars’, History Workshop Journal, 30 (1990), 22–54. e-journal
Pauline M.H Mazumdar, Eugenics, Human Genetics and Human Failings: The Eugenics Society, its Sources and its Critics in Britain (London: Routledge, 1992).
Frank Mort, Dangerous Sexualities: Medico-Moral Politics in England since 1830 (London: Routledge, 1987, 2000).
Ann Oakley, The Captured Womb: A History of the Medicine Care of Pregnant Women (Oxford: Basil Blackwood, 1984).
F.B. Smith, The People's Health 1830-1910 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979, 1990).
Julie-Marie Strange, ‘The Assault on Ignorance: Teaching Menstrual Etiquette in England, c.1920s to 1960s’, Social History of Medicine, 14 (2001), 247–65. e-journal
Julie-Marie Strange, Death, Grief and Poverty in Britain, 1870-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
Pat Thane, Old Age in English History: Past Experiences, Present Issues (Oxford University Press, 2000).
Keir Waddington, An Introduction to the Social History of Medicine: Europe since 1500 (Houndmills: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2011).
John Welshman, From Transmitted Deprivation to Social Exclusion: Policy, Poverty and Parenting (Bristol: The Policy Press, 2012).

Subject specific skills

-Critically evaluate sources for the study of medicine in modern Britain
-Understand historical and theoretical interpretations of the study of medicine in modern Britain

Transferable skills

-Develop critical and analytical study, writing and communication skills
-Present research in a creative, knowledgeable and succinct manner
-Develop written and oral communication skills
-Undertake bibliographic research
-Develop competency in using electronic resources for research and writing