Adrian Wilson

Profile

History of Childbirth; English Voluntary Hospitals, 1750-1850; History of Pathology; Historical Theory; Literary Theory.

I am a historian of early-modern medicine.

My main area of research is the history of midwifery, focusing chiefly on English developments but situating these within a wider European frame; in this field I have published one monograph and is working on two others.

I am also interested in the long-term development of Western medicine, particularly in the role of anatomy - the remarkable process by which the study of the dead body came to play a foundational role in the understanding of the living patient; and exploring this theme has led him to work on the history of disease concepts.

I also have a long-standing interest in the historical epistemology, which has led me into the realm of literary theory.

Research Interests

• History of Childbirth
• English Voluntary Hospitals 1750-1850
• History of Conceptions of the Body
• Historical Epistemology
• Literary Theory

Selected Publications 

• 'Midwifery in the "medical marketplace"', in Mark Jenner and Patrick Wallis eds., Medicine and the Market in Early Modern England (London, Palgrave Macmillan 2007), 153-74
• 'Porter versus Foucault on the "birth of the clinic"', in Roberta Bivins and John Pickstone eds., Medicine, Madness and Social History: essays in honour of Roy Porter (London, Palgrave Macmillan 2007), 25-35
  'Foucault on the "Question of the Author": A Critical Exegesis', Modern Language Review 99 (2004), 339-63.
• 'The Birmingham General Hospital and its Public, 1765-79', in Medicine, Health and the Public Sphere in Britain, 1600-2000, ed. by Steve Sturdy (London: Routledge, 2002), 85-106
• 'Collingwood's Forgotten Historiographic Revolution', Collingwood Studies, 8 (2001), 6-72.
• 'On the History of Disease Concepts: The Case of Pleurisy', History of Science 38 (2000), 271-319.
• 'Conflict, Consensus and Charity: Politics and the Provincial Voluntary Hospitals in the Eighteenth Century', English Historical Review 111 (1996), 599-619.
• 'A Memorial of Eleanor Willughby, a Seventeenth-Century Midwife', in Women, Science and Medicine 1500-1700: Mothers and Sisters of the Royal Society, ed. by Lynette Hunter and Sarah Hutton (Stroud: Sutton, 1997), 138-77.
• (ed.) Rethinking Social History: English Society 1570-1930 and its Interpretation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995).
  The Making of Man-Midwifery: Childbirth in England, 1660-1770 (London: UCL Press and Cambridge MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1995).
• 'The Perils of Early-Modern Procreation: Childbirth With or Without Fear?', British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 16 (1993), 1-19.
  'The Politics of Medical Improvement in Early Hanoverian London', in The Medical Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century, ed. by A. Cunningham and R. French (Cambridge: CUP, 1990), 4-39.

Downloadable versions of papers freely available via White Rose Research Online

<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>