Michael Flannery

• Professor Emeritus at University of Alabama at Birmingham

Despite considerable research into this famed naturalist’s life and work, the metaphysical views of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) remain controversial. This paper reviews Wallace’s refurbishment of the argument from design, placing him within the highly charged intersection of biology and religion. Wallace’s own evolution from nature to natural...

Ferngren Gary B., Medicine & Religion: A Historical Introduction (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2014), pp. xii, 241, paperback, £16, ISBN: 978-1-4214-1216-0. - Volume 59 Issue 2 - Michael A. Flannery

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913), naturalist and explorer of South America and the Malay Archipelago, secured his place in history by independently discovering the theory of natural selection. His letter outlining the theory was sent from Ternate in eastern Indonesia and received at Down House, according to Charles Darwin (1809–82), on June 18, 18...

Concerns about the anthropogenic ecological degradation of the planet—deforestation, species endangerment, pollution, and an increasing carbon footprint—have prompted numerous studies calling for wide-ranging, comprehensive global programs. In this regard, Tim Flannery's effort in Here on Earth to enlist Alfred Russel Wallace, a nineteenth-century...

Although James H. Jones put the Tuskegee syphilis-study debacle on the public’s radar screen with his book Bad Blood (New York, 1981), Reverby’s work about this deeply disturbing, experimental study of around 400 African-American men in the Black Belt of Alabama (largely Macon County) now stands as definitive. Her masterfully compiled and carefully...

Dear Editor, The History of the Health Sciences Section of the Medical Library Association (MLA) has approved a white paper advocating for history of the health sciences libraries and librarians. The nearly 4,000-word document was developed and written by Michael Flannery, University of Alabama at Birmingham; Ed Holtum, University of Iowa; Suzanne...

More than thirty years ago, Ackerknecht called upon his colleagues in the history of medicine to shift their emphasis from the published accounts of the medical elite to the more intimate records of daily practice found in diaries, daybooks, case records, correspondence, and physicians' ledgers—in other words, to close the gap "between the medicine...

Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 59.2 (2004) 302-304 The Battle of Gettysburg, often regarded as the high-water mark of the Confederacy, occurred on 1ñ3 July 1863. The scale of the conflict was awesome: more than 70,000 Confederates met some 85,000 Union troops at this Pennsylvania crossroads town in a conflict that cost the S...

Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 58.4 (2003) 475-476 It has been nearly twenty-five years since the initial publication of Todd Savitt's monograph Medicine and Slavery. The product of Savitt's dissertation on black health care in the antebellum South, Medicine and Slavery came out at a time when historians were setting their a...

This paper describes a popular, grassroots health crusade initiated by Samuel Thomson (1769-1843) in the early decades of the nineteenth century and the ways the Thomsonians exemplified the inherent contradictions within the larger context of their own sociopolitical environment. Premised upon a unique brand of frontier egalitarianism exemplified i...

This paper argues that historical works in pharmacy are important tools for the clinician as well as the historian. With this as its operative premise, delineating the tripartite aspects of pharmacy as a business enterprise, a science, and a profession provides a conceptual framework for primary and secondary resource collecting. A brief history an...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Bulletin of the History of Medicine 73.1 (1999) 178-181 Book Review Trying to Give Ease: Tommie Bass and the Story of Herbal Medicine A Reference Guide to Medicinal Plants: Herbal Medicine Past and Present John K. Crellin and Jane Philpott. Trying to Give Ease: Tommie Bass and the Sto...

This paper pursues the lead of Bart K. Holland in utilizing classic literature as a guide to the pharmacologic potentialities of natural products. Instead of focusing on European texts, however, American medicinal plants are examined through the work of the influential naturalist Constantine S. Rafinesque (1783-1840). Rafinesque is discussed with s...