Editorial: Ten Years and More of "Health & History"

Abstract

TenYearsand More of Health & History WarwickH. Anderson In the guise of a shrewd strategist, Geoff Kenny approached me sometime in 1997 and whispered thatthe Australian Society of the History of Medicine (ASHM) was likely to support a journal soon and 1 should be sure to offer it a home in the new Centre for the Study of Health and Society (CSHS) at the University of Melbourne. I wonder now if there were any other contenders for this honour. In any case, it did seem at the time the sort of responsibility we should assume at Melbourne. We boasted a relatively long, if occasionally conflicted, lineage of medical historians, including Diana Dyason, Kenneth Russell, and HaroldAttwood; recently we had re-launched the history of medicine programme,recruitingJanetMcCalman among others; and 1 was talking with the Johnstone-Need family to ensure endowment of the Medical History Unit (which now bears their name). And yet, my feelings were mixed. I had never edited a journal before and already I was over-committed to developing the CSHS and to devising and delivering a significant portion of the new medical curriculum at Melbourne. At some point I also hoped to finish my book, The Cultivation of Whiteness. But whenever I looked around, there was Geoff Kenny at my shoulder, ever persistent. Itsoon became clearhe was notalone. PeterWinterton,Geoff Miller, John Pearn, Ben Haneman, Di Tibbits, Linda Bryder, Barry Smith and many others in the ASHM also campaigned vigorously and subtly for a journal. After the Norfolk Island conference, there was a general feeling of confidence and heft in the society, a sense of maturity that seemed to demand some flagship publication. In the circumstances I mostly was excited to be offered the editorship. I hoped the new journal would help to consolidate and promote the growing community of historians of medicine in Australia, New Zealand, and perhaps even Southeast Asia. But reservations about my capacity to take on this task alone led me to ask Janet McCalman to share Health & History, 2008. 10/1 1 2 WARWICK H.ANDERSON editorial burdens. Some trepidation also was expressed in my insistence on calling the serial a bulletin, not a journal- I argued that this echoed the successful Bulletin of the History of Medicine, but it was additionally a means of lowering the bar, of still appearing respectable should we happen to receive few submissions. But as soon as I departedthree or more years later, Health and History, clearly by then capable of attractingample material, claimed its rightful status as a 'journal.' The new serial's title, Health and History, expansively encompassed the diversity of historical interests found in the ASHM. In particular,it seemed to please the historians of public health, nursing, and pharmacy among us. Moreover, it appealed to general social and cultural historians who hesitate to claim medical expertise. As I observed in the editorial note to the first issue: Theinternational journalsrarelypublishonAustralian orAsian topics:we areinanexcellentpositionto developandtopublish historicalaccountsof diseaseandhealthcareintheAsia-Pacific region.Otherjournalshave a publishinglegacy thattendsto favoura rathernarrowdefinitionof healthcare:we can, from the beginning,declareour interestin the rigoroushistorical analysisof theenormousvarietyof healthcare. How punctiliously I repeated 'health care' and eschewed 'medicine'! I might, though, have been rathermore attentive to our friends and colleagues across the Tasman, who since then have graciously contributed so much to thejournal's success. We were unusually lucky with the first issue, thanks largely to Emily Booth who arrangedforus to publish theproceedings of a workshop on the history of disease held at Latrobe University. James Patterson, a distinguished professor of history at Brown University, surveyed recent studies in the social history of medicine in the United States, followed by the responses of four local scholars, including me. Excerpts from Patterson's article later were republished in a US 'reader' in the history of medicine, a text targeting undergraduate students. I now read my contribution to the issue with wry amusement. Evidently, I was trying to negotiate the perennial tensions between medically trained historians and those with higher degrees in history who express interest in medical issues. Much of the essay was an attempt to reassure both groups that the new serial would be TenYearsand Moreof Health & History 3 kind to them. I managed...