Henry Cohen History of Medicine Lecture 2025
5:30pm - 7:30pm /
Thursday 22nd May 2025
Type: Lecture /
Category: Department
- IPH Dean
- Admission: Free to all
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Rates of mental illness are rising, waiting lists are lengthy and recent BBC programmes have revealed scandalous conditions and abuse at psychiatric facilities. Apart from demanding more funds to support an ineffective mental health system, few solutions have been suggested. What if we’re looking in the wrong place? History provides examples of preventive approaches to mental health, ranging from the role of diet and nature in preserving good mental health to acknowledging the detrimental effect of socioeconomic problems. Past societies also accepted many different ways of being ‘normal’. Most solutions, past and present, have required investment. What are we willing to pay?
Matthew Smith is Professor of Health History at the University of Strathclyde’s Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare, where he is also one of the University’s co-leads for the strategic theme: Health and Wellbeing. His books, include The First Resort: The History of Social Psychiatry in the United States and Hyperactive: The Controversial History of ADHD. He is co-editor of three edited volumes, including Preventing Mental Illness: Past, Present and Future and Deinstitutionalisation and After: Post-War Psychiatry in the Western World. Matthew is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker and co-edits the Palgrave book series ‘Mental Health in Historical Perspective’.
Matthew Smith is Professor of Health History at the University of Strathclyde’s Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare, where he is also one of the University’s co-leads for the strategic theme: Health and Wellbeing. His books, include The First Resort: The History of Social Psychiatry in the United States and Hyperactive: The Controversial History of ADHD. He is co-editor of three edited volumes, including Preventing Mental Illness: Past, Present and Future and Deinstitutionalisation and After: Post-War Psychiatry in the Western World. Matthew is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker and co-edits the Palgrave book series ‘Mental Health in Historical Perspective’.