Guest Post: Alison Moulds on guest curating “Vaccination: Medicine and the masses”

Guest curating “Vaccination: Medicine and the masses” at the Hunterian Museum
Alison Moulds (PhD candidate, University of Oxford)

Alison Moulds at the opening of her collaborative exhibition

This April saw the launch of my first-ever exhibition; working alongside the Hunterian Museum (at the Royal College of Surgeons of England) I helped to guest curate a series of displays that explores the history of vaccination from its inception in the late eighteenth century to its ubiquity in the present day.

My colleague Sally Frampton, a Postdoctoral Research Assistant, and I became involved with the exhibition through our wider research project, Constructing Scientific Communities. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, it looks at citizen science in the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries, and is particularly interested in interrogating the public-professional divide in fields such as natural history and medicine. We’re partnered with other institutions, including the University of Leicester, Natural History Museum, Royal Society, and Royal College of Surgeons.

Given the focus of our project, when it came to creating the exhibition narrative, we were keen to look at the ways in which ordinary people have contributed to the history of vaccination. This included not only those who had a hand in its discovery – such as Benjamin Jesty, the Dorset farmer whose experiments with cowpox predated those of the GP Edward Jenner – but also those who protested against its usage. During the Victorian period vaccination was made compulsory through legislation, a landmark moment in the history of state public health, but also one which sparked widespread resistance. Our exhibition’s title “Vaccination: Medicine and the masses” signals the way in which we see vaccination as a key site for interactions between medical professionals, individual patients, and the wider public. Pro- and anti-vaccination activities were equally important to us, though we knew a medical museum needed to engage with the scientific aspect as well as the social history.

Cruikshank's The Cowpox Tragedy (1812), Courtesy of the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons

As newbies to the world of curating, one of the most exciting aspects for us was undoubtedly tracking down the objects for display. We decided early on that we wanted a diverse range of material, from ephemera to medical instruments, portraiture to film. One of our first ports of call was the Hunterian Museum’s own catalogue. Here we found papers belonging to Jenner, including personal correspondence and a draft manuscript of his inquiry into experiments with cowpox (1798). The Hunterian’s in-house collection also contained one of the earliest and most iconic satirical images about vaccination – George Cruikshank’s The Cowpox Tragedy (1812). All these items ended up on display.
We then started exploring other collections, including the Jenner Museum in Gloucestershire, the Gordon Museum of Pathology at King’s College London, and the John Johnson Collection at the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford. Among the gems we discovered was an incredibly affecting set of photographs of smallpox patients from the early twentieth century, which show the devastating effects of the disease. These were objects found ‘behind the scenes’ at the Jenner Museum that we reproduced for the exhibition. Following the installation, seeing the way in which all our objects interact with one another in the space has been one of the most rewarding aspects of the exhibition becoming a reality.

The process of display wasn’t without its hurdles, however. There were anxieties about how to share the reproduced patient photos, as well as human specimens, sympathetically. We didn’t want their inclusion to seem gratuitous, but neither did we want to adopt a sanitised approach. We were committed to showing people the reality of the disease, which is all too easy to forget now it has been eradicated. We also experienced an eleventh-hour emergency when we discovered we didn’t have a suitable screen available to show a wonderful public health information video we’d tracked down at the Wellcome Library. Getting one installed in time was a huge relief, especially since Surprise Attack (1951) has proved immensely popular with visitors. A narrative of mild peril, the film depicts a young girl who contracts smallpox and a town responding with a mass vaccination campaign co-ordinated by the local Medical Officer of Health. One of its biggest draws is probably the fact it features John Le Mesurier, better known for his later role as Sergeant Arthur Wilson in Dad’s Army.

Bringing together such a wide range of objects wasn’t always easy and perhaps one of the biggest difficulties for us was constructing a coherent and accessible narrative about the history of vaccination around them. We hoped to give some sense of the chronology of vaccination but also tease out overarching themes along the way. We wanted to tackle the objects on display but also gesture towards other aspects of the debate. As academics, brevity isn’t always our strong suit and we had to be rigorous about slicing and dicing our beloved words into something that would work well for museum audiences. We also struggled with creating object labels where provenance wasn’t always clear or where it was protracted and confused!

Since our academic research usually sees us poring over weighty tomes on our own, often in a dusty archive somewhere, the collaborative aspect of exhibition work was something we really enjoyed. It enabled us to work not only together, but also with the Museum’s in-house curator (Bruce Simpson) and curators elsewhere, as well as archivists and librarians. We were also committed to promoting wider public engagement around the exhibition, and worked with the Hunterian’s Learning and Events Officer, Hayley Kruger, to organise a “Museums at Night” opening, complete with anti-vaccination songs, a screening of public health information videos from across the twentieth century, and a talk from Dr Richard Barnett, medical historian and author of The Sick Rose. It was great to watch people exploring the space and to hear their thoughts on the exhibition. Rarely does our work have such an immediate and widespread impact.

Alison Moulds is a second-year DPhil English Literature student at St Anne’s College, University of Oxford. Working as part of the AHRC-funded project “Constructing Scientific Communities”, and in partnership with the Royal College of Surgeons of England, she is researching the construction of the doctor-patient relationship and the formation of professional identity in nineteenth-century medical writing, including fiction by doctors. She previously undertook her MA Victorian Studies part-time at Birkbeck College, University of London while working full-time in health policy and public affairs. She is Peer Review Editor for the Victorian Network journal. She blogs at https://victorianclinic.wordpress.com/ and can be found on Twitter @alison_moulds.

“Vaccination: Medicine and the masses” runs from Tuesday 19 April to Saturday 17 September at the Qvist Gallery, Hunterian Museum. Open Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-5pm. Free admission.

February's Hipster Museum: The Steam Museum

Earlier this month we featured Kew Bridge's Steam Museum as one of our top heritage wedding venues. We have a little suspicion that a few of you may have thought - wait what? Where is that? An industrial museum in London? Is Kew Bridge in London? These are exactly the sort of questions we hope to answer in our #hipstermuseum series, so with that in mind, we made the trek to become one with the power of steam.

If you want to get to the Steam Museum, then you'll need to board a train at Waterloo at take it all the way (shock horror) to Zone 3. Yes thats right, further out than your zone 1-2 travel card- but hey, if you want to see three story tall steam engines in situ, then you need to travel a bit. (Yes we know you can see a steam engine at the Science Museum, but its not sitting in its original, purpose built building IS IT?!) Once you get off the train you shouldn't have too much difficulty locating the museum as its enormous 200 foot high Italianate standpipe tower literally towers over the local area. While it might look like it, this isn't actually a chimney, but a clever series of inter-connected pipes which helped maintain the pressure between the water mains and the fu**king enormous steam engines inside the waterworks.

The Kew Bridge Pumping Station (aka the buildings and machinery which now comprise the museum) was founded in 1838 to help improve the drinking water for early nineteenth century London. As you probably know from your medical history, the first half of the 1800s was not a super great time to be alive in the city- what with all the cholera and that. It was discovered however that the water to the West of the city was less polluted, and therefore the station was constructed by the Grand Junction Waterworks Company. The buildings were made around the enormous steam engines needed to pump water to residents, and many of them are still in place today, now supplemented by further acquisitions to the historic collections. 

Despite expanding and making an enormous amount of money, it turns out private companies like the Grand Junction Waterworks weren't necessarily providing London with the clean water it needed. The government stepped in and created the Metropolitan Water Board in 1904. Not overly impressed with the Victorian facilities at Kew, the MWB chose not to modernise, leaving the steam engines running until the 1940s. After its closure in the mid-twentieth century, Kew Bridge pumping station was immediately designated as a museum - although one that wasn't really open to the public or advertised. You simply had to be in the know to get in. #1950shipsters 

Since its 2014 refurbishment, the newly rebranded Steam Museum is trying to make its name as a cool, interactive place to learn about the history of sanitation and water engineering in London. But its also a totally awesome and aesthetic venue perfect for events, filming, and badass industrial selfies, as well as a popular place for school tours and, as ever, engineering geekery. 

It might be a bit of a trek, but the Steam Museum is such an amazing atmospheric site its already been in some of your favourite TV shows including Dr Who and East Enders. With a swish new cafe, brand new interpretation, and an ever increasing events programme, it's definitely worth the trip west! 

Our January Hipster Museum: the MusEYEum

It's been a few years now we've been doing this, and you've probably got the sense that we might sometimes play favourites with our city's museums. Alright, you've caught us, we just love medical museums! I mean - who doesn't right? And while we spend lots of time at the Wellcome or the Hunterian, London is chock full of small medical museums yet to be discovered! For this month's hipster museum, we take you into the history of spectacles at the British Optometry Association's museum, the MusEYEum. When you see the badass glasses in store for you, we know the hipster crowd will come in droves.

Not too long ago we went on an expedition to the Benjamin Franklin House museum, which we never even realised was tucked away on a cute little 18th century street just next to Charing Cross station. Without even knowing it we walked straight past the BOA museum, which is housed inside the Royal College of Optometrists. If you didn't know, London is full of the medical colleges and most of them keep a little museum or displays of their specialty's history. Smaller, more focused versions of what you might find at the Royal College of Physicians or Surgeons. Most, like the BOA museum, require you to make an appointment to visit- but don't let that put you off!

Much like the cabinet of curiosities of yore, you need a guide to get you into the MusEUum - in this case their dedicated Curator Neil Handley. While booking an appointment might be a bit of a hassle, its definitely worth it for every visitor to get to speak directly to the collection's keeper, and get a brief tour to boot! The museum itself is surprisingly large for a specialist medical collection, stretching over two good sized rooms absolutely packed with cases, wall displays, videos, drawers and interactives. While like most collections the majority of objects are in storage, the MusEYEum certainly has a go at getting out as much as is possible.

So what is the history of optometry then? Basically, the long history of man attempting to correct or enhance his eyesight. The Chinese culture invented spectacles centuries ago, with the first recorded European discovery of eye glasses being Marco Polo's journey to the east. By the 18th century, spectacles have really hit their stride. However - unlike the quirky hipsters of today, glasses weren't a go to fashion accessory. In fact to wear them meant admitting something was wrong with you; spectacles were viewed almost as a disfigurement. As a result, opticians of the 18th and 19th centuries came up with amazing and often beautiful ways to make these accessories.

From opera glasses, to early coloured spectacles, contact lenses, and magnifying glasses; humans have come up with some pretty impressive objects to help us see. Rather than focusing on the more technical aspects of optometry, the MusEYEum tries to put the history of spectacles in its social context, and really gets you thinking about how important sight, and its correction, can be. Personally, I got a little too excited about the handling collection, which allows you to try on actual historic spectacles, including Victorian pince-nez, monocles, 50s plastic retro behemoths, and early 19th century blue specs. Some of the displays feel downright steam-punk, but then again this is the history that our modern Victoriana trends are based on. 

An old-fashioned museum packed with things to explore, the MusEYEum is rapidly increasing in popularity and visitor numbers. So you'd better arrange your visit before it gets way too mainstream. For appointments, contact Curator Neil Handley. 

The history of being Well: an immersive theatre experience

It's 7pm on a gloomy Bank Holiday Monday evening and the Ministry of Curiosity has trekked to the far East- Dagenham East that is, in search of a history of medicine adventure. After a few failed attempts, we find ourselves in front of an old factory building, the former May and Baker pharmaceuticals factory. Organised by Creative Barking and Dagenham in partnership with the local community, we embarked on an immersive theatre experience through the building an the history of chemicals production in East London...

As a historian of medicine, I was incredibly excited for our visit to Well. Theatre, performance, exciting London spaces, and medicine - I mean honestly what more could you want! Although a few minutes in, I honestly did think to myself - oh lord, what have you hipsters done now? Spooky actors uplit by florescent bulbs, ominously pouring one phial of coloured water into another isn't necessarily how I would communicate the history of a pharmaceutical factor to the public. Walking down a cooridor which looked more or less like it had been decorated with print outs from Wellcome Images, I wondered to what extent the theatre directors had actually spoken with any pharmaceutical historians.

However, as the performance continued, I started to change my mind about the experience. For me, the turning point was really the scene in which the participants watched a factory employee prepare for their day, with complete health and safety gear, while listening to an oral history about the personal experience of being a part of the May and Baker family. It occurred to me that this project wasn't really about the history of medicine or pharmacy, it was about people's relationship with this building and their sense of purpose of what they were doing (Sanofi specialised in cancer-fighting drugs). And that was when I really started to enjoy myself. Entering an area mocked up as a ball-room with former employees waltzing in memory of all the Christmas and going-away parties of the past, I almost cried. 

The concept behind Well is absolutely fantastic - engaging members of the local community, and former factory employees, in an exciting project that allows them to share their experience of and love for the Sanofi factory. The building itself is absolutely worth the price of admission - winding your way through the chemical stores, factory floor and offices is absolutely fascinating - an incredibly rare peak into the spaces of 20th century science. 

To truly experience Well, you might need to put aside some of your more pedantic preconceptions (why is this an Ebola ward, there was no Ebola outbreak when this factory was open, and they certainly never treated patients here) and focus instead on the incredible emotional investment that the local people have made in the factory building. Along the way there are certainly touches of pure genius, a lone shower of pills in an echo-y corridor has an absolutely amazing effect. But really it's the people, the participants, that make it all worth while. 

Well is only open until September 6th - but believe us, it's worth making the trip East! For more information on opening times, tickets, and booking click here.