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Overview

Professor Louise Hill Curth

Lecturer in Medical History
I specialise in the socio-cultural history of human and non-human animal health beliefs/practices.
Institute of Medical and Biomedical Allied Education
lhillcur@sgul.ac.uk
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Overview

I am a Professor of Medical History who is best known for my ground-breaking research and publications on the history of human and non-human medical beliefs and practices. In addition to my historical work, I also have a strong background in the wider, interdisciplinary field of medical humanities and 'health studies'.  My wide-ranging expertise has allowed me both to carry out collaborative research with colleagues in a variety of health-related fields, as well as to work with a number of universities and medical schools over the years. I was, therefore, extremely excited about the opportunity to join St George's in 2023 as their very first medical historian in order to help further develop existing and new programmes in medical humanities. 

Books:

· ‘A plaine and easie remedie for his horse’: equine medicine in early modern England (Brill, 2013)

· English Almanacs, Astrology & Popular Medicine, 1550 – 1700 (MUP, 2013) – new paperback edition

· ‘The care of brute beasts’: a social and cultural history of veterinary medicine in early modern England (Brill, 2009)

· English Almanacs, Astrology & Popular Medicine, 1550 – 1700 (MUP, 2007)

· From Physick to Pharmacology: Five Hundred Years of British Drug Retailing (Ashgate, 2006)

 

Contributions to books:

· ‘The Relationship between History, Health and Illness’ in J. Naidoo and J. Wills (eds) Health Studies: an introduction, third edition (Springer, 2022).

· 'Working animals and emotions' in S. Broomhall (ed) Emotions in Early Modern Europe: an introduction (Routledge, 2018).

· ‘The history of medicine, health and illness’ in J. Naidoo and J. Wills (eds) Health Studies: an introduction, third edition (Palgrave, 2015), 50 – 77.

· ‘Early modern Zoology’ in K.A.E Enkel (ed) Encyclopaedia of Neo-Latin (Brill, 2014), 2014 – 2016.

· ‘The Most Excellent of Animal Creatures’: Health Care for Horses in Early Modern England’ in P. Edwards and E. Graham (eds) The Horse as Cultural Icon (Brill, 2012), 217 – 240.

· ‘History of Health and Illness’ in J. Naidoo and J. Wills (eds) Health Studies: an introduction, second edition (Palgrave, 2008), 47 – 72.

· ‘A Remedy for his Beast: animal health care in early modern Europe’, Intersections: representations of animals, Yearbook for Early Modern Studies, 6 (2007), 360 – 381.

· ‘Introduction: Perspectives on the evolution of the retailing of pharmaceuticals’ in L. Hill Curth (ed) From Physick to Pharmacology: five hundred years of drug retailing (Ashgate, 2006), 1 – 11.

· 'Medical Advertising in the popular press: almanacs and the growth of proprietary medicines’ in L. Hill Curth (ed.) From Physick to Pharmacology, 29 – 48.

· ‘Making new spaces of public food consumption: Victorian catering and the Aerated Bread Company’ with G. Shaw and A. Alexander in J. Benson and L. Ugolini (eds) The Cultures of Selling: Perspectives on Consumption and Society since 1700 (Ashgate, 2005).

· 'Health, Strength and Happiness: Medicinal constructions of wine and beer in early modern England' with T. Cassidy in A. Smith (ed.) Drink

and Conviviality in Seventeenth Century England (Boydell and Brewer, 2004), 143 – 159.

· 'Almanacs as Medical Mediators' in C. Usborne and W. de Blecourt (eds.) Mediating Medicine: Cultural approaches to illness and treatment in early modern and modern England (Palgrave, 2004), 56 – 70.

 

Articles:

· Delabere Pritchett Blaine, Dictionary of National Biography (2017).

· ‘Medical advertising in the popular press’, Pharmacy in History, Vol. 50, No. 1 (2008), 3 – 16.

· ‘Astrological medicine and the popular press in early modern England’, Culture and Cosmos Vol. 9, No 1 (Summer, 2005), 73 – 94.

· ‘The Medical Content of English Almanacs’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Vol. 60, No.1 (July 2005), 1 – 28.

· 'Promoting retail innovation' with A. Alexander and G. Shaw, Environment and Planning A (2005, Vol. 37), 805 - 821.

· 'The Medicinal Uses of Wine in Early Modern England', The Social History of Drugs and Alcohol (Autumn, Vol. 18, 2004), 35 – 50.

· ‘Selling the Supermarket: the Americanisation of Food Retailing in Britain: 1945 – 1960’ with G. Shaw and A. Alexander, Business History (October 2004), 568 – 582.

· ‘Animals, Almanacs and Astrology: Seventeenth Century Animal Health Care in England’, Veterinary History, 12 (November 2003), 33 – 54.

· ‘Lessons from the past: Preventative Medicine in early modern England’, Journal of Medical Humanities, 29 (2003), pp. 1- 6.

· 'The Care of the Brute Beast: Animals and the Seventeenth-Century Medical Marketplace', Social History of Medicine, 15 (2002), pp. 375 - 392.

· 'A New Archive for the History of Retailing: The Somerfield Archive' with G. Shaw and A. Alexander, Business Archives, 84 (November, 2002), pp. 29 - 37.

· 'The Commercialisation of Medicine in the Popular Press: English Almanacs 1640 - 1700', The Seventeenth Century, 17 (Spring, 2002), pp. 48 - 69.

· 'The Birth of the British Supermarket: 1945 - 1960', with G. Shaw, History Today (November, 2002).

· ‘Martin Frobisher’ in The Naval History Encyclopaedia (2001).

· ‘English Almanacs and Animal Health Care in the Seventeenth Century’, Society and Animals, 8 (2000), pp. 71 - 86.

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