Roy Porter: "The Social History of Science and Medicine in the Late Eighteenth Century"

Marta Sutton Weeks Distinguished Visitor

Roy Porter is Senior Lecturer in Social History of Medicine at the Wellcome Institute in London. He gave three public lectures during this residency. The first, "Gilbert White and the Taste for Nature in Eighteenth-Century England," was in conjunction with the Stanford University Libraries' exhibition "Cultural Landscapes: Gilbert White and 'The Natural History of Selborne'"-- although the October 17 earthquake had forced the exhibition to close prematurely. His second lecture, co-sponsored by the Stanford Medical School Humanities Group, addressed the question "How Ethical was Medicine in Late Eighteenth-Century England?" And his final lecture, at a History of Science colloquium, was "Gilbert White: Amateurs and Professionals in British Natural History."