The Agony and the Ecstasy: Drugs for Pleasure and Pain in the History of Medicine
| Code | School | Level | Credits | Semesters |
| HIST3072 | History | 3 | 20 | Autumn UK |
- Code
- HIST3072
- School
- History
- Level
- 3
- Credits
- 20
- Semesters
- Autumn UK
Summary
This 3rd year option introduces students to the social and cultural history of drugs, principally in terms of how they were promoted and received within the West, referring mostly to the period post 1900. It examines not only certain key developments within the history of mainstream pharmacology, but also at the way (now) illegal narcotics originally entered the market place, often as medicines. It focuses upon the way polarised cultural opinions about drugs evolved, with attention particularly paid to the contingencies of geographical location and historical period. Seminars introduce drug therapies and the controversies surrounding them, with the aim of highlighting wider social interests— including the power of the state, drug companies, religious organisations and the influence of public opinion.
Students within each seminar will discuss readings (taken from both primary and secondary material) in relation to pre-assigned questions. Students will be expected to prepare for seminars by undertaking the designated readings in advance and thereafter actively participating in seminar discussions. Seminars will include individual presentations, so students must be prepared to actively participate.
Target Students
Students must have taken HIST1001 or HIST1002.
Classes
- One 2-hour seminar each week for 10 weeks
- One 1-hour lecture each week for 10 weeks
Assessment
- 50% Coursework 1: Individually assessed coursework item
- 50% Coursework 2: Individually assessed coursework item
Assessed by end of autumn semester
Educational Aims
The aim of this module is to use a variety of source material (advertisements, medical articles, government papers and personal accounts) to critically think about the changing role of both narcotics and pharmaceuticals in society. Why are some drugs acceptable (e.g. morphine) and others banned (e.g. heroin)? What were the social fears and cultural issues that some drugs awakened? Has society become increasingly medicalised? Why and when did it become fashionable to resort to pills to cure behaviours not deemed to be ‘normal’? Conversely, how have pharmaceuticals improved modern lives?An illustrative, but not definitive, list of subjects to be covered (the specific drugs covered may change in different years):1. Introduction: course parameters and historiographic themes2. Opium: universal remedy or social vice3. Cocaine and the rise of regulation4. Cannabis, culture and insanity5. Ritalin and ADHD6. Happy pills: tranquilizers and antidepressants.7. The contraceptive pill8. Menopause and viagra9. LSD and Ketamine10. ConclusionsLearning Outcomes
Intellectual Skills:
1. Ability to make a close specialist evaluation of the key developments within the history drug therapies through independent study and seminar work
2. Ability to understand how attitudes to all types of drugs today are heavily contingent upon historical events and attitudes
3. Ability to handle different approaches to history in areas of controversy.
4. Ability to appreciate the different regional and chronological contexts in which medical cultures develop, and be able to comment intelligently on the importance of these contexts
Practical skills:
5. Ability to analyse the key developments within a particular historical environment
6. Ability to focus on and comprehend complex issues
7. Ability to understand and deploy historical terminology in a comprehensible manner
8. Ability to follow the complex reasoning inherent in the discourse of the period.
9. Ability to compose well-constructed historical narratives on specific topics on the history and policy surrounding drugs drawing upon both primary and secondary literature
Transferrable Skills:
10. Independent and autonomous study and group work, including presentation of material for group discussion.
11. Ability to digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment
12. Ability to present complex arguments orally.