Teaching GCSE History: The History of Medicine

>>ADDED JANUARY 2012 NEW SMART TASK on 18th century surgery This quick activity asks students to explore the detail in Rowlandson’s cartoon called ‘Amputation’ see below

>>ADDED 30 September 2011 NEW SMART TASK Has the medical progress brought about by the First World War been exaggerated? Optimists v pessimists. 

>>ADDED 12 August 2011 NEW LESSON Who deserves to be remembered as the inventor of vaccination: Jenner or Jesty?

Schools have been teaching this topic for over 35 years now.  No matter how innovative the textbooks, we all need to use fresh approaches from time to time.  The featured lessons offer a wide range of strategies, often stimulated by ideas such as Ian Dawson’s but often where innovative teachers have tried to be even more imaginative.  You’ll love the quality of the resources and the way they have been used in novel ways.  Whole lessons are spent exploring a German painting showing surgery in 1890, analysing a page from Vesalius and working out who should appear on the front page of a medicine textbook from 1500. 

Outstanding Lessons

• Who deserves to be remembered as the inventor of vaccination: Jenner or Jesty? Up to date enquiry in which students investigate the recent interpretation that it was Jesty rather than Jenner who should be remembered as the father of vaccination.  Students carry out their own research to substantiate the different points of view before debating.  Good use is made of TimelinesTV.
• Prehistoric Medicine: Getting your GCSE course off to a great start
• What was the real  impact of the theory of the four humours on the history of medicine? A question of tadpoles!
• How did Snow make the breakthrough with cholera? A problem-solving activity
• Who mattered most in medieval medicine? Who would you have on your textbook front cover for the year 1500?
• Can you date this painting of 19th century surgery?
• Vesalius: Does he deserve his reputation? Students are interviewed as part of a BBC documentary

Smart Tasks

• SMART TASK:18th century surgery This quick activity asks students to explore the detail in Rowlandson’s cartoon called ‘Amputation’. They score one mark for each of the 10 labelled examples of relevant detail and 3 marks each for good inferences. If they can explain the purpose of the cartoon they score an extra 5. First to 20 wins. Accompanying PowerPoint, supported by teacher notes which give you all the detail you need to impress even the most able students!
• SMART TASK: Has the medical progress brought about by the First World War been exaggerated? Optimists v pessimists  (September 2011)  Fully resourced smart task in which students play optimist v pessimist when trying to work out if the contribution of the First World War to the development of medicine has been exaggerated. First students speculate, then they classify information cards before evaluating a short TV programme’s verdict.
• SMART TASK: Why was there so much opposition to Jenner’s ideas on vaccination in the 19th century?  (November 2010) A short, fun task involving role play with all the instructions on the PowerPoint presentation.
• SMART TASK: Revision - Name your best squad of key individuals 
• SMART TASK: Medieval Medicine. What can we work out from the
  picture?
• SMART TASK: Renaissance Medicine.  Is the artist 'taking the piss'?

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Teaching the History of Medicine

As you all know, the trick with teaching this course is to marry a strong contextual knowledge with an understanding of the various factors that had a positive and a negative impact on change. Concepts of progress and regress need to be looked at over varying lengths of time. So, with the lessons. Many will be depth studies, especially those on Public Health, but there are also some which cover spans of hundreds of years.  Because this topic has been taught in to the 14-16 age range for over 30 years now, there is no shortage of  source material in the books. Much of it is very repetitive though. This site aims to bring a fresh approach and some  fresh images too.

Websites

1. 27th May 2010 Great new resource on Smallpox Through Time produced by Andrew Chater on www.timelines.tv. It comprises 13 modules covering the story of smallpox from ancient times to the present day. Have look at the Jenner section. Great!

2. The Science Museum's Brought to Life: Exploring the History of Medicine. Using the profits from the drug company he founded, Sir Henry Wellcome collected around one million items, first exhibited in in 1913. 100,000 of them are on loan to the Science Museum which this month launched this new website, showcasing 2,500 of the most interesting of them. From anaesthetic machines to anti-masturbation devices, they offer a glimpse into our obsessive quest for health and wellbeing. Robert Bud, principal curator of medicine at the Science Museum says: "Henry Wellcome saw in the development of medicine the development of all human civilisation. He had a real faith in medicine as a pillar of culture."

3. BBC site leads the way, with the added bonus of a new audio section

4. Schoolshistory site organised by individuals and factors

5. HistoryGCSE.org has a number of useful links and plenty of fill in the gap exercises, if that is your preference.

6. Schoolhistory provides its valuable crop of helpful interactive revision diagrams.

7. Thinking history. Ian has a variety of imaginative lessons on many topics.

8. Oxford University Press' Dictionary of National Biography is surprisingly well suited to this course. The teachers' notes provide a couple of interesting ways in which you could use the database to compare the numbers involved in medical activity in different periods.

9. The site www.medicinethroughtime.co.uk  has been established to offer support to pupils following a GCSE course that incorporates the SHP development study in medicine through time.  Notes on the site are intended to summarise key points and issues raised across the various specifications; provide resources of interest to both pupils and teachers and to offer a range of practical suggestions about revision, tackling different kinds of questions and ways in which the course can be delivered most effectively.

The site is maintained by Dan Moorhouse.  Apart from being a full time teacher who delivers this course, Dan is co-author of the SHP Dynamic Learning range on the history of medicine and is a regular provider of inset at the Schools History Project conference.  Updates to the content of the site will now be at reasonably regular intervals.  Initially the priority will be providing my pupils will the basic narrative. Following on from this will be a series of resources for use in the classroom, revision materials and some interactive features.

Up next

Poll position: Which was the greatest contribution to medical advances since 1840?

Why was there so much opposition to public health reform in the nineteenth century? A simple role play

Why did the Greeks make more progress in medicine than people in the Middle Ages?

How important was the work of Jenner in the treatment of disease?

If you would like to preview sample activities and resources from these lessons, then email us and we will forward some draft material prior to formal publication here.

£49.95 for 12 months unlimited access.

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