BMJ fifteen

history and politics of health and welfare

Peter Lepping, consultant psychiatrist and honorary professor at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board in North Wales, joins us to discuss his experience dealing with patients who have delusional infestations. He talks about how to broach the diagnosis, and gives practical tips on how to investigate this difficult condition.

Read his practice pointer:
http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h1328

How to talk to a patient about delusional infestation

The BMJ website is 20 years old this week - the first general medical journal online. Launch editor Tony Delamothe discusses with fellow digital pioneers Richard Smith and John Sack how the internet transformed doctors’ reading habits and the journal’s international reach. David Payne reports

www.bmj.com/twenty


bmj.com at 20

E252 | Geneticists and historians are generally considered strange bedfellows. However, new advances in bio-archaeology and genetics are facilitating this odd coupling. In this episode, we speak to Nükhet Varlık, author of Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World : the Ottoman experience, 1347-1600 (Cambridge University Press), about how genetic evidence has transformed the study of the Plague in the past ten years, allowing geneticists to more readily identify the presence of Yersinia pestis bacteria in a human remains. Whereas before historians had been hesitant to diagnose diseases posthumously, they can now speak with greater certainty about the presence of plague. We then discuss the life of plague in the early modern Ottoman Empire in particular, focusing on the creation of ‘plague capitals’ in the urban centers of the Ottoman Empire following the conquest of Constantinople and how integrating the Ottoman experience of plague changes the story of how historians of medicine approach the topic. To inspire future collaborations among our listeners, we end with a peek at the process of working with geneticists and what such approaches can contribute to the study of the history of the Middle East.

More at http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2016/07/plague.html

Nükhet Varlık is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University–Newark. She is a historian of the Ottoman Empire interested in disease, medicine, and public health.

Nir Shafir is a historian of the Middle East whose research examines the intersections of knowledge production, religious practice, and material culture in the early modern world (1400-1800). He curates Ottoman History Podcast’s series on history of science in addition to being one of the co-founders of hazine.info, a website that explores the archives and libraries of the Islamic world. He is currently an advanced doctoral candidate in the History Department at UCLA.

CREDITS

Episode No. 252
Release Date: 29 July 2016
Recording Location: Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
Editing and production by Chris Gratien
Sound excerpts: Baglamamin Dugumu - Necmiye Ararat and Muzaffer; Katibim (Uskudar'a Gider iken) - Safiye Ayla; Egil Daglar Ustunden Asam - Viktoriya Hanim; Harmandali - Recep Efendi, Cemal Efendi
Special thanks to Muhtelif for allowing us to use "Bint El Shalabiya"
Images and bibliography courtesy of Nükhet Varlık avaiable at http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2016/07/plague.html

Tracing Plague in the Ottoman Empire | Nükhet Varlık

E270 | Genomic research is resolving old questions about the history of plague, revealing, for example, that the Black Death was caused by the same species of plague that exists today and demonstrating the complex ways in which plague moved throughout the medieval and early modern world. Yet even as scientific methods today shed light on the history of plague, past understandings and depictions of disease remain both highly relevant and ignored. In this episode, we chat with Lori Jones about early modern European views of plague and explore the relationship between disease, landscape, and geography within the European imagination. We talk about the origins of environmental understandings of disease and how plague became increasingly associated with eastern and southern locales such as the Ottoman Empire and Southern Europe. We also have a separate conversation (beginning at 32:30) about the misuse of medieval images concerning disease and medicine in the 21st century as digital media facilitate both the spread and disembodiment of historical images. 

More at http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2016/09/disease-landscape-europe.html

Lori Jones is a PhD Candidate in the University of Ottawa's Department of History. Her research focuses on how written portrayals of the geographical and historical origins of the plague evolved across the late medieval to early modern periods.

Chris Gratien holds a Ph.D. from Georgetown University's Department of History. His research focuses on the social and environmental history of the Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East. He is currently preparing a monograph about the environmental history of the Cilicia region from the 1850s until the 1950s.

Nir Shafir is a historian of the Middle East whose research examines the intersections of knowledge production, religious practice, and material culture in the early modern world (1400-1800). He curates Ottoman History Podcast’s series on history of science in addition to being one of the co-founders of hazine.info, a website that explores the archives and libraries of the Islamic world. He is currently an advanced doctoral candidate in the History Department at UCLA.

Andreas Guidi is a Ph.D. candidate at the Humboldt University in Berlin and at the EHESS in Paris researching on networks, generations, and capital transmission in late and post-Ottoman Rhodes. He is also the creator of the Southeast Passage podcast.  

CREDITS

Episode No. 270
Release Date: 19 September 2016
Recording Location: Paris, France
Editing and production by Chris Gratien
Sound excerpts: Katibim (Uskudar'a Gider iken) - Safiye Ayla; Baglamamin Dugumu - Necmiye Ararat and Muzaffer; Harmandali - Recep Efendi, Cemal Efendi
Special thanks to Kara Güneş for allowing us to use the composition "Istanbul" in the intro and outro music
SoundCloud image: The burial of plague victims in Tournai (Detail of a miniature from “The Chronicles of Gilles Li Muisis” (1272-1352), abbot of the monastery of St. Martin of the Righteous. Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, MS 13076-77, f. 24v)
Images and bibliography courtesy of Lori Jones available at http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2016/09/disease-landscape-europe.html

Disease and Landscape in Medieval and Early Modern Europe | Lori Jones

E277 | The Algerian War is perhaps the most recognizable national and anti-colonial movement of the 20th century. From the iconic film “The Battle of Algiers” to Frantz Fanon's influential book The Wretched of the Earth, the violence of the Algerian fight for independence and the French reaction has marked depictions of not only the war but representations of Algerian history on the whole. In this podcast, however, we explore another battlefield of contention during the Algerian War: medicine and humanitarian relief. As our guest Jennifer Johnson demonstrates in her new monograph The Battle for Algeria (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), both the French government and the Algerian National Liberation Front used medicine and public health as a tactic, and the presence of humanitarian organizations in Algeria as well rendered the war not just a national struggle but in fact an international affair.

More at http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2016/10/humanitarianism-algerian-war.html

Jennifer Johnson is an Assistant Professor of History at Brown University. She received her PhD from Princeton University. Her main research interests are 20th century Africa, specifically the Maghrib, nationalism, decolonization, and public health. She is the author of The Battle for Algeria: Sovereignty, Health Care, and Humanitarianism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016). She is currently working on a book project which examines the relationship between public health and state-building in postcolonial North Africa.

Chris Gratien holds a Ph.D. from Georgetown University's Department of History and is currently an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. His research focuses on the social and environmental history of the Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East. He is currently preparing a monograph about the environmental history of the Cilicia region from the 1850s until the 1950s.

Zoe Griffith is a doctoral candidate in History at Brown University working on political economy and governance in Egypt and the Ottoman Mediterranean. Zoe is a co-curator of the OHP series on legal history in the Ottoman Empire and Islamic world.

Nora Lessersohn is a Ph.D. student in History and Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University.  Her work focuses on Ottoman Armenians in Anatolia, Istanbul, and the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries.

CREDITS

Episode No. 277
Release Date: 31 October 2016
Recording Location: Brown University
Editing and production by Chris Gratien
Sound excerpts: from archive.org - Baglamamin Dugumu - Necmiye Ararat and Muzaffer; Harmandali - Recep Efendi, Cemal Efendi; Katibim (Uskudar'a Gider iken) - Safiye Ayla; from Excavated Shellac- Lili Labassi - Mazal Haye Mazal
Special thanks to Kara Güneş for allowing us to use the composition "Istanbul" in the intro and outro music
Images and bibliography courtesy of Jennifer Johnson available at http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2016/10/humanitarianism-algerian-war.html

Decolonization, Health Care, and Humanitarianism in Algeria | Jennifer Johnson

Twenty years ago the statistician Doug Altman railed against, “The Scandal of Poor Medical Research,” in an editorial in The BMJ. 

10 years later, Iain Chalmers and Paul Glaziou calculated that costs $170 billion annually in wasted research grants.

In this podcast, recorded at Evidence Live, we spoke to Altman and Chalmers about their campaigns to improve the design, conduct, and reporting of clinical trials, and why that level of waste still occurs.

Reward Alliance - http://rewardalliance.net/
Equator Network - http://www.equator-network.org/
Research publication audit "Getting our house in order" - http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/3/e009285

"For the public good, not for careers" - Iain Chalmers and Doug Altman on research waste

In the USA, when googling "depression" patients will be presented with a link to the PHQ-9 screening test.

Google has developed this in collaboration with the National Alliance on Mental Illness - and Ken Duckworth, the alliance's medical director, debates the merits of this approach with Simon Gilbody, from the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York.

Also joining this podcast is David Gilbert, mental health services user and director of InHealth Associates, who argues that it's only through patient involvement that real improvements to mental health can be obtained.

Read the debate and commentary:
http://www.bmj.com/content/358/bmj.j4144
http://www.bmj.com/content/358/bmj.j4207

Googling depression

E336 | How did people in Tibet view the Islamic World, and vice versa? How did a figure like Galen travel from Ancient Greece, through the Islamic World, and end up as a founding father in Tibetan medical history? In this episode, we speak to Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim about the exchange of knowledge, and especially medicine, between these regions. We discuss objects like musk, which originated in Tibet but played a huge role in the Muslim world, and scholars like Rashid al-Din al-Tabib, who wrote about Buddhism and Chinese medicine from Il-Khanid Iran. The silk road is often thought of as a trade route connecting China and Greece, but Ronit uses a new framework, the "Musk Route," for looking at the transmission of knowledge between Tibet and the Islamic world. She also describes the role of some important archives in shaping our understandings of these connections, like Dunhuang and the Cairo Geniza.

More at http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2017/11/ronit-yoeli-tlalim.html

Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim is a Senior Lecturer in the History Department at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research deals with the transmission of medical ideas along the so-called ‘Silk-Roads.’

Taylor M. Moore is a PhD Candidate in Modern Middle Eastern History at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She is interested in the interconnected histories of medicine, magic, and ethnographic museums in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Egypt.

Shireen Hamza is a PhD student in the History of Science department at Harvard University. Her research focuses broadly on the history of science and medicine in the Islamicate Middle Ages, especially in the Indian Ocean World.

Episode No. 336
Release Date: 3 November 2017
Recording Location: International Congress of Traditional Asian Medicines, Kiel, Germany
Audio editing by Shireen Hamza
Music: "Eeyori jon" and "Tchaman" by Hadar Maoz
Bibliography courtesy of Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim available at http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2017/11/ronit-yoeli-tlalim.html

Medicine Along the Musk Route | Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim

E365 | In the early twentieth century, Muslim modernizers all over the world were making new claims about Islam, and the Muslims of China were no exception. In this episode, we discuss the relationship of Southeast Asia to the emergence of a modern Chinese Islam. In a period often characterized in terms of non-Arab Muslims' rediscovery of the Middle East, John Chen shows how connections between Chinese Muslims (Hui) and diverse groups across the Indian Ocean also shaped the new Chinese Islam. The processes often considered to be Arabization were in fact multiregional exchanges. Delving especially into the histories of Islamic medicine in China, John illustrates how Chinese Muslim leaders, imams, and historians took to print, radio, and even to sea routes, to articulate new visions of identity in an emerging nation-state and a changing Islamic world. See more at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2018/07/muslim-medicine-modern-china.html

John Chen earned his PhD in History from Columbia University in 2018. He is currently preparing a book manuscript based on his dissertation, "Islamic Modernism in China: Chinese Muslim Elites, Guomindang Nation-Building, and the Limits of the Global Umma, 1900-1960."

Shireen Hamza is a doctoral student in the History of Science department at Harvard University. Her research focuses broadly on the history of science and medicine in the Islamicate Middle Ages, especially in the Indian Ocean world.

Nir Shafir is a historian whose research explores the intellectual and religious history of the early modern Middle East, with a focus on material culture and the history of science and technology. He curates Ottoman History Podcast’s series on history of science in addition to being one of the co-founders of hazine.info, a website that explores the archives and libraries of the Islamic world. He is an assistant professor of history at UCSD.

CREDITS
Episode No. 365
Release Date: 2 July 2018
Recording Location: Berlin, Germany
Audio editing by Shireen Hamza
Music: "Qadim Praise in Yunnan," courtesy of Guangtian Ha and Sounding Islam in China
Images and bibliography courtesy of John Chen available at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2018/07/muslim-medicine-modern-china.html

Medicine and Muslim Modernity in China | John Chen

After ten years at the helm of the Cochrane Library, Dr David Tovey recently stepped down as Editor-in-Chief. This week he joins Ray to reflect on Cochrane’s past, present and future and share some of the challenges and rewards of leading one of the world’s largest and most trusted health research networks.

18 David Tovey

For the next few months Talk Evidence is going to focus on the new corona virus pandemic.

There is an enormous amount of uncertainty about the disease, what the symptoms are, fatality rate, treatment options, things we shouldn't be doing.

We're going to try to get away from the headlines and talk about what we need to know - to hopefully give you some insight into these issues.

This week

5.00 - Carl gives us an update about pneumonia in primary care, should you give antibiotics when you're not sure if it's bacterial or viral

10.00 - The importance and difficulty of making guidelines now

15.00 - We hear from guideline maker Per Vandvik, about making guidance.

21.40 - Preprint servers for medicine are showing their use in this fast changing situation. Joseph Ross from Yale School of Medicine, and one of The BMJ's research editors, talks to us about the kind of information we're seeing on medRxiv.

31.10 - Testing. What are the tests, and when do we want specificity, and when do we want sensitivity. Nick Beeching from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine joins us to explain.

Reading list:
www.bmj.com/coronavirus

Rapidly managing pneumonia in older people during a pandemic
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/rapidly-managing-pneumonia-in-older-people-during-a-pandemic/

https://www.medrxiv.org/

Covid-19: testing times
https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1403

bmj.com at 20

BMJ talk medicine