Premodern medicine used a variety of mineral substances for therapeutic purposes. The present article deals with pitch-asphalt, and, in particular, a precious kind of it called mūmiyāʾ originating in Persia. It was first described in detail in the Arabic pharmacological tradition, and its fame spread throughout the medieval Mediterranean, including Byzantium. By editing and examining for the first time a previously unexplored medieval Greek text on mūmiyāʾ, this study offers new insights into the medicinal uses of this substance. It also significantly increases our understanding of the intense cross-cultural transfer of medical knowledge from the Islamicate world to Byzantium by showing that this was not merely based on the translation of a few Arabic medical works into Greek, but was a multifaceted phenomenon involving a complex nexus of sources that require further investigation.

In this textual comparison of seventeenth-century herbals, I show in detail that most of the descriptions and medicinal uses of English herbs included in Culpeper’s small folio The English Physitian (1652) and its enlargement of the following year were lifted straight out of the works of John Parkinson, apothecary. This was a deliberate act by Culpeper, to make available to the people of England the best information on native plant medicines for use in treating their illnesses. He attacked the College of Physicians of London, whom the great majority of the population could not afford to engage, for trying to keep this knowledge secret. Among later historians of the herbal tradition, Culpeper’s work was not accorded the same status as the great English herbals of William Turner, John Gerard, and John Parkinson, not because this borrowing was recognised but because its astrological content worked to divert attention from the quality and source of much of its guidance on treatment. Even contemporaries of Culpeper did not recognise the extent of the borrowing. Comparisons also reveal the limitations of Culpeper’s powers of plant description and his lack of interest in the developing science of botany. The editorial decisions Culpeper made to reduce a great folio herbal to a much smaller book to be sold for 3d touch on domestic and other non-medical uses, while points of discussion common to both authors such as the doctrine of signatures and superstitious beliefs about plants are explored.

The article, ‘Have we lost sleep? A reconsideration of segmented sleep in early modern England’, Medical History, 67, 2 (2023), 91–108, by Niall Boyce is devoted to criticising my historical research pertaining to 1) the predominance of segmented sleep in the pre-industrial Western world and 2) the nineteenth-century transition of sleep to today’s pattern of continuous slumber that most people in modern societies seek to achieve, albeit not always successfully. This response addresses Boyce’s reinterpretation of the evidence and indicates whether this is erroneous or selective. My analysis thereby reasserts the predominance of segmented sleep in pre-modern Western Europe. Boyce’s assessment rests not on his original investigation of primary sources but on my first study relating to segmented sleep, published in 2001. Not least of the flaws of ‘Have We Lost Sleep?’ is its surprising inattention to my subsequent works that have expanded, modified, and bolstered this initial publication.

I would like to thank Professor Ekirch for his reflections on ‘Have we lost sleep?’, which contain several points that I have already responded to within the paper following his peer review of my original submission to Medical History in 2023 (Professor Ekirch having voluntarily identified himself as a reviewer in a normally double-blind process). I acknowledge that the focus of my paper was on Ekirch’s original work from 2001; if I did not engage as he would have wished with his subsequent publications, this was simply because I do not perceive the same substantial developments in his thinking and research on the subject that he does. Indeed, the present critique by Ekirch amounts essentially to more of the same: a long list of references and quotes but little detailed discussion of any individual source. As my paper demonstrates, seemingly unambiguous evidence from a brief quotation can become less clear-cut when placed in context. I am sorry if I deploy the word ‘might’ more than Ekirch would like. This reflects, I hope, a healthy degree of uncertainty and intellectual humility in my approach to the complex issue of pre-industrial sleep. To extend Ekirch’s metaphor, if the jigsaw puzzle that both he and I are trying to assemble can take the form of a cat or a dog, it is possible that its true form is neither animal. The extent to which people woke in the night in pre-industrial Europe, the duration of such awakening, and the predominant cultural attitude towards this—concern, acceptance, or indifference—are topics about which it would seem wise to avoid sweeping statements and generalisations, given the relatively long period covered and the social, cultural, and individual diversity that must be taken into consideration. I can only repeat that I think amassing more brief references, and selectively citing relatively small physiological studies and anthropological evidence from global settings, is unlikely to provide much clarity, let alone definitive answers. I welcome Professor Ekirch’s contribution to this discussion as an indication that the question of segmented sleep in early modern Europe is by no means settled but is a matter of ongoing debate.

Existing scholarship on prison diets has emphasised the role of food and its restriction as a key aspect of the deterrent system of prison discipline introduced in the 1860s. Here we suggest that a strong emphasis was placed on dietary regulation after the establishment of the reformist, but also ‘testing’, separate system of confinement in the mid-nineteenth century. While the impact of diet on the physical health of prisoners was a major concern, we argue that the psychological impact of food was also stressed, and some prison administrators and doctors argued that diet had an important protective function in preserving inmates’ mental wellbeing. Drawing on a wide range of prison archives and official reports, this article explores the crucial role of prison medical officers in England and Ireland in implementing prison dietaries. It highlights the importance and high level of individual adaptations to dietary scales laid down centrally, as a means of utilising diet as a tool of discipline or as an intervention to improve prisoners’ health. It examines the forays of some prison doctors into dietary experiments, as they investigated the impact of different dietaries or made more quotidian adjustments to food intake, based on local conditions and food supplies. The article concludes that, despite central policies geared to establishing uniformity and interest in new scientific discourses on nutrition, a wide range of practices were pursued in individual prisons, mostly shaped by practical rather than scientific factors, with many prison medical officers asserting their autonomy in making dietary adjustments.

Doctors have played an important role in the development of health institutions in Latin America. However, they are not the only profession that has had a voice in these matters. There are also other factors influencing the development of ministries of health. This issue has gone unnoticed in the literature. This article suggests that it is possible to identify two distinct trends in the creation of health ministries in Latin America. The first, of an early nature, was seen principally in Central America and the Caribbean in countries dependent on or under the influence of the United States which, from the 1880s, promoted health Pan-Americanism. The second trend, which became apparent from 1924, was characterised by the emergence of ministries in a context of institutional breakdown and the appearance of new actors (military or populist leaders). This second trend was first seen in Chile in 1924. This article analyses the creation of the Ministerio de Higiene, Asistencia y Previsión Social (Ministry of Hygiene, Assistance and Social Security) in Chile in 1924 and its subsequent development through to 1931. The analysis looks at the health measures adopted, the context in which this occurred and the debates triggered by the ministry’s process of institutional development, based on parliamentary discussions, presidential speeches, official statistics, legislation, documents prepared by key actors and the press of the time.

The late nineteenth and early twentieth century saw dramatic new developments in climatic medicine, particularly the institutionalisation of thinking about tropical hygiene. There were also more limited efforts to understand how hygiene theories should be applied in a polar environment. Studying the British National Antarctic Expedition (1901–1904), led by Robert Falcon Scott, helps us understand how these practices had both similarities and differences from applications of hygiene in other contexts. The expedition offers unique insights into debates about hygiene, environment, and health because of the important, and well documented, role that medics, naval officers and scientists played in organising logistical arrangements for the journey to Antarctica. In analysing the writings of expedition members and organisers, this paper examines the ways that the universal tools of hygiene theories were applied and developed in a polar environment. Many of the most acute threats seemed to come not from the outside environment but from the explorers’ supplies and equipment. There was general agreement on many issues. Yet the expedition’s organisers, medics and leadership had numerous arguments about the best way to preserve or restore health. These disagreements were the product of both competing medical theories about the cause of disease and the importance of embodied (and somewhat subjective) observations in establishing the safety of foods, atmospheres and environments in this period.

This article focuses on the circulation of knowledge about epilepsy in Sweden between 1915 and 1940. During the period medical research on epilepsy increased, which simultaneously brought a new degree of specialisation and distinction between branches of medicine. The aim of this article is to study the impact of new medical knowledge about epilepsy on the treatment and education of children with epilepsy in Sweden. In order to concretise the aim, the study focuses on the asylum Margarethahemmet. The key source material consists of Margarethahemmet’s annual reports and yearbooks. The minutes of the meetings of the Swedish General Association for the Care of the Feebleminded and Epileptic for the period 1915–1938 have been used as supplementary material. In order to trace the impact of medical discoveries on Margarethahemmet’s operations, contemporary scientific articles, mostly from Germany, have also been used. The article demonstrates how new research and new knowledge was sought internationally and nationally, to provide doctors and special teachers at the asylum with a proper knowledge about education, care and treatment for children with epilepsy. The increased understanding of the disease directly impacted the ability of a stigmatized group – people with epileptic disorder – to actively participate in society on the same terms as others.