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The National Living Power Research Institute in Latvia and its Problems

Juris Salaks

7th May 2009; Goethe Institute Riga, Latvia.

World War One marked a historic turning point for Latvia, and the interwar period was awash with assessments of the country’s perceived demographic crisis and the declining proportion of ethnic Latvians in Latvia. The ‘Institute for the Study of Living Strength’ was set up to battle this moral panic in Spring 1938, and comprised three departments – anthropology, population density, and eugenics. In this fascinating conference paper, Juris Salaks introduces the Institute’s hereditary and public health agendas, and its attempts to engage with the wider Latvian public unto its dissolution in 1940.

Eugenics, Race and Psychiatry in the Baltic States: a Trans-National Perspective 1900-1945

Prof Paul Weindling

7th May 2009; Goethe Institute Riga, Latvia

In his opening address to the conference on “Eugenics, Race and Psychiatry in the Baltic States: a Trans-National Perspective 1900-1945” (7/8 May, Goethe Institute Riga, Latvia), Paul Weindling introduces the themes and ambitions of various discourses on race and racial anthropology more widely, and discusses their relevance to the Baltic states and their ethnic composition in particular. Offering a fascinating insight into the general history of race and eugenics, Paul Weindling discusses the transformation from imperial dynasties to democracies and the intensification of anthropological research locally as well as internationally. During the First World War frequently anthropological traditions turned into biological determinism that although continuously criticized and challenged, nonethess gained great influence - and so too in the Baltics.

Development of Lithuanian Psychiatry 1918 – 1940

Arunas Germanavicius

7th May 2009; Goethe Institute Riga, Latvia.

This lecture offers an analysis of the development of Lithuania’s psychiatric services between gaining its independence in 1918 and the Soviet occupation of 1940. Psychiatric services in Czarist Russian territories belonging to Lithuania had been underdeveloped, and in 1903 the only major regional psychiatric hospital was in Naujoji Vilnia (Vileika), a suburb of Vilnius. But its role eroded during the First World War when it served as military base.

The late works of Emil Kraepelin

Octavian Buda

7th May 2009; Goethe Institute Riga, Latvia.

Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) is identified as the founder of contemporary scientific psychiatry, as well as of psychopharmacology and psychiatric genetics. Kraepelin believed that psychiatric diseases stemmed from biological and genetic malfunctions. His theories dominated the field of psychiatry at the start of the twentieth century, despite the later psychodynamic incursions of Sigmund Freud and his followers.

Eugenics and Racial Identity in Latvia: Scientific Transfer and European Zeitgeist

Bjorn Felder

7th May 2009; Goethe Institute Riga, Latvia.

This paper seeks to examine these themes by scrutinising Latvian racial anthropology after 1918 within not only its local, but its European context. A ‘latecomer’ to the club of nation states, the Latvian state founded in 1918 was soon confronted with many of the problems it shared with many Central and East European states seeking to create a national history in the tradition of the European ‘master story’. The process of defining the Latvian nation was influenced by the contemporary European discourse that promoted biological paradigms as ‘modern’, while the Latvian national discourse on nationhood was dominated by ethno-nationalism by the 1930s, and that understood the nation as an organic unity generated by a distinct biological heritage. The introduction of a nationwide eugenic project in 1937 exacerbated the virulence of these biological tenets that came to dominate the definition of what a nation was.

The Application of Eugenics in Estonia

Ken Kalling

7th May 2009; Goethe Institute Riga, Latvia.

In this lecture, Ken Kalling investigates the themes and agents that sought to biologize Estonian national thought between the turn of 19th century and the Second World War. Ken argues that Estonian eugenics’ popular appeal lay with its ability to constitute the lowest common denominator adjoining popular scientific knowledge, populism, and social reasoning. Analysing how a small nation’s self perception broached the questions of how to regulate the quality and quantity of it’s ‘stock’, and the influence exerted by its substantial pre-independence anti-alcohol movement, Ken traces the institutionalisation of Estonian eugenics from the 1924 creation of the ‘Estonian Eugenics Society’ unto the 1940 Soviet rescinding of the country’s eugenic legislation.

Rural Medicine in 18th Century France

Tim McHugh

28th April 2009; Oxford Brookes University

This lecture seeks to contest Jean-Pierre Goubert’s picture of eighteenth-century Brittany as a medical desert by examining the roles played by parish priests in shaping the medical experience of the peasantry. The parish priest in Brittany was largely responsible for implementing much of the charitable action unlocked by the Catholic Reformation. One part of this was the ‘rescuing’ of the peasantry from medical ignorance. The paper also argues that parish priests deserve to be seen as amateur practitioners in their own right.

Healthcare in South Africa 1940-1990

Anne Digby

17th March 2009; Oxford Brookes University

Race has been called the South African disease, and in this lecture I shall be discussing two aspects of it as it relates to my recent and forthcoming research on the history of medicine in South Africa. After outlining some general points about the distinctive features of the country, I outline my current project on changing access to public and private healthcare in a segregationist and then apartheid society from the 1940s to 1990s.

Clothing as Medicine

Steve King

17 March 2009; Oxford Brookes

This lecture looks at the inter-relationships between clothing and medicine. It explores some established fields (clothing as protection from disease and clothing and medicine in advice literature for instance), but also a wide range of under-explored topics such as clothing as a vector of disease and clothing as therapy and cure for disease.

Oxfordshire Science Festival 2009

Video/Podcasts

28th February 2009, Oxfordshire Science Festival Opening Day,

The 2009 ‘Oxfordshire Science Festival’ began with the launch event ‘Science in Your World’ held on the 28 February 2009 in Oxford’s Bonn Square. Opened by Professor Marcus Du Sautoy’s ‘Mind Games’ show, the event featured 15 organizations whose themed stalls showcased their particular research interests with various hands on activities for all ages, in addition to the half hourly science shows.

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We had the pleasure of being interviewed on Monday by Patrick Redmond from Birmingham Skeptics in the Pub. Listen to the interview below or visit the site.