The Skillful Surgeon: Expertise, Authority, and Surgical Illustrations in Late Renaissance Europe

Tuesday, November 11, 2025, 7-8:15pm

~ Sylvan E. Stool lecture ~

Alisha Rankin, PhD

Professor & Chair of History

Tufts University

Zoom link: Https://pitt.zoom.us/j/91220360228 

Surgery was generally something to be feared in Renaissance Europe. Without anesthesia, antiseptics, or antibiotics, it was dangerous, painful, and often deadly. Yet surgeons were also among the most populous and valued medical practitioners at the time, and they took their jobs seriously. This talk examines surgeons’ efforts to highlight their skill and competency. It focuses on illustrated writings by surgeons who conducted elective surgeries: couching for cataracts, removing bladder stones by lithotomy, and operating on inguinal hernias. In the German-speaking regions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, several specialist surgeons compiled ornately illustrated documentation of their expertise. In a bid to raise the status of specialists, I argue, these upwardly-mobile surgeons used both text and images to celebrate their significant skill and portray these elective surgical operations as reliable and routine.

Alisha Rankin is Professor and Chair of History at Tufts University and a co-editor of the Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Her work focuses on the history of medicine and science in early modern Europe, with a particular focus on questions of experiment, expertise and authority. She is the author of two award-winning books, Panaceia's Daughters: Noblewomen as Healers in Early Modern Europe (Chicago, 2013) and The Poison Trials: Wonder Drugs, Experiment, and the Battle for Authority in Renaissance Science (Chicago, 2021), alongside two edited collections and multiple articles. Currently she is co-editing the Cambridge History of Medicine, Volume 3: Early Modern Medicine, 1450-1700 and working on a book about specialist surgeons, from which this talk derives.

Attendance at this Zoom lecture is free.

*Please note the new time! After decades of events at 6pm on Tuesday evenings, we are pushing back the start time to 7pm to better accommodate folks who are commuting, have sign-out after a shift, or are joining us from more western time zones. We are also no longer catering dinner since the pandemic. Therefore, all lectures will begin at 7pm Eastern and wrap up by 8:15pm.*

The History of Hemophilia

Join us for the first lecture of the C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society's 42nd season. We kick off with the Milton Meyer Michaels memorial lecture, which will be a history of the disease hemophilia by a senior and well-respected hematologist, Dr. Franklin Bontempo at the University of Pittsburgh. Attendance is FREE.

Tuesday, September 30, 2025 ~ 7-8:15pm Eastern

~ Milton Meyer Michaels memorial lecture ~

Franklin Bontempo, MD

Professor of Medicine in Hematology

University of Pittsburgh

Recording available here!

*Please note the new time! After decades of events at 6pm on Tuesday evenings, we are pushing back the start time to 7pm to better accommodate folks who are commuting, have sign-out after a shift, or are joining us from more western time zones. We are also no longer catering dinner since the pandemic. Therefore, all lectures will begin at 7pm Eastern and wrap up by 8:15pm.*

Image: "Expensive medicine. Clotting factor. Hemophilia. Factor viii deficiency. Affordable Care Act. Pre-Existing Conditions. Health Care is a Right. Stop the Bleeding." By Andy Blackledge, Flickr (2019)

2025-2026 Lecture Series

We are delighted to announce our 42nd speaker series. NEW THIS YEAR: all lectures take place at 7pm Eastern Time. This will make it easier for folks who are joining after work or from more western time zones. The lectures are still free and open to the public via Zoom. Watch this space, join our email list, or check out our Facebook page to get the link.

September 30, 2025 ~ Milton Meyer Michaels Lecture

 "The History of Hemophilia"

Franklin Bontempo, MD (Medicine/Hematology, University of Pittsburgh)

November 11, 2025 ~ Sylvan E. Stool Memorial Lecture

"The Skillful Surgeon: Expertise, Authority, and Surgical Illustrations in Late Renaissance Europe"

Alisha Rankin, PhD (History, Tufts)

January 20, 2026 ~ Graduate School of Public Health speaker + Annual Business Meeting ~ TBA

February 24, 2026

"White-Capped Dreams: The (Dis)appearance of Filipino Men Nurses Under the Colonial Gaze, 1910–1945"

Ren Capucao, MSN, RN, and PhD 

(Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry, School of Nursing, University of Virginia)

April 7, 2026 ~ Jonathan Erlen Lecture

"The Antonine Plague and the End of Ancient Rome's Golden Era"

Colin Elliott, PhD (History, University of Indiana, Bloomington)

The Legacy of Infant Surgery without Anesthesia: Implications for Today

Tuesday, April 1, 2025, 6-7:15pm (Eastern)

~ Jonathon Erlen Lecture ~

Wendy Patrice Williams (Independent Scholar)

In the United States until 1986, it was standard medical protocol for surgeons to operate on infants and children under two without anesthesia or pain control; instead, paralytic drugs were given to keep them still, though conscious, albeit in an altered state. In 1952 at 26 days old, Wendy Patrice Williams underwent surgery for pyloric stenosis, and her memoir Autobiography of a Sea Creature: Healing the Trauma of Infant Surgery recounts the lifelong struggles she has endured with the preverbal trauma which resulted and also details the ways in which she has found to heal. Over many years as a blogger and as a result of the publication of her book, she has encountered numerous other individuals who have had similar histories and struggles, and in fact, anyone currently age 39 and older may be suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from infant surgery without anesthesia or pain control, a practice largely unacknowledged in medicine and only beginning to be understood by mental health professionals as a source of preverbal trauma.

In her memoir, Autobiography of a Sea Creature: Healing the Trauma of Infant Surgery (University of California Health Humanities Press, 2023), Wendy Patrice Williams shares her story of healing from PTSD that resulted from a stomach surgery at one-month old. She reveals her discovery that pre-1987, it was standard practice that infants needing surgery were not given anesthesia or pain control. Wendy blogs at Healing Infant Trauma and appears in the film Cutdown: Infant Surgery without Anesthesia, produced by Roey Shmool and free to watch at the link. Wendy earned a BA in English and an MFA in Creative Writing at Mills College and taught English at the College of Alameda and Folsom Lake College. She also studied biological sciences at Barnard College and marine science at the University of Miami. More information is available on her author page.

Here is a recording of the lecture.

The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society thanks its dues-paying members and the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law for its support of the continuing relevance of medical history in our world.

Black Infant Mortality and the American Roots of a Health Inequality

Tuesday, February 25, 6-7:15pm (Eastern)

~ University of Pittsburgh Department of Medicine Grand Rounds ~

Wangui Muigai, PhD (Brandeis University)

Join Dr. Muigai as she traces the origins of one of the most enduring health disparities in the nation: the racial gap in infant survival. Drawing on a range of archival materials spanning the 19th and 20th centuries, this talk explores the ways Black families, health care practitioners, and government officials have addressed the health and survival of Black mothers and their babies. The talk will conclude by reflecting on the legacy of these local and nationwide efforts in the ongoing struggle to improve birth equity.

At noon that day, Professor Muigai will deliver Grand Rounds for the University of Pittsburgh Department of Medicine, a talk entitled "Race-Concordant Care: Historical Insights and Ethical Challenges." For more information, see their website.

A historian of medicine and public health, Dr. Muigai is an assistant professor at Brandeis University. Her research examines the racial, social, and ethical dimensions of health and health care in America across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She is a Class of 2025 Fellow in the Greenwall Foundation’s Faculty Scholars Program in Bioethics and former History Fellow at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Currently she is completing a book-length history of Black infant mortality, forthcoming with Harvard University Press, and researching African American views on trust in health care. She earned her Ph.D. from Princeton University and A.B. from Harvard University.

This lecture will be online only. Attendance is FREE. Click here for the Zoom link. 

The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society thanks its dues-paying members and the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law for its support of the continuing relevance of medical history in our world.

History of Engineering Public Health

Tuesday, January 21, 2024, 6-7:15pm (Eastern)

~ University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health Lecture ~

Jennifer Rogers, MS (Southern Association for the History of Medicine and Science)

How has public health been engineered to make modern cities more livable, and why is sanitary engineering no longer something one majors in? Infrastructure such as sewer systems, water filtration, waste removal, and pest control remain under-appreciated bulwarks of health today, but how we train experts in them has changed. Drawing from the Georgia Tech archives, among others, this talk will explore how public health departments, college departments, professional societies, and city planning initiatives all had a part in engineering American public health.

Image credit: Getty

Jennifer Rogers is the Most Recent President of the Southern Association for the History of Medicine and Science (SAHMS). She is a historian of medicine, technology, and science. Her degrees are a BS in the History, Technology, and Society and an MS in the History and Sociology of Technology and Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology. A lifelong educator, researcher, and public historian, Rogers joined the board of SAHMS in 2014, serving as webmaster, registration coordinator, vice president, and two terms as president.

The lecture recording can be found here. The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society thanks its dues-paying members and the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law for its support of the continuing relevance of medical history in our world.

Image credit: Jennifer Rogers, Georgia Tech Archives

Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the 1st Exchange Transfusion for Icterus Gravis Neonatorum

The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society has invited Dr. Jon F. Watchko, MD, Professor Emeritus in the Division of Newborn Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine to present a lecture commemorating the 100th anniversary of the first exchange transfusion for severe neonatal jaundice. He will cover the groundbreaking work of Alfred P. Hart and L. Bruce Robertson at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

Mark your calendars for Tuesday, November 19, 2024, from 7-8pm, via Zoom. Zoom link:  https://ccac.zoom.us/j/95357525424?pwd=cI726bvrv5QgdxSisD9Yfsho9vl9pf.1

Exchange transfusion (ET) is a procedure that couples alternating blood removal (exsanguination) with blood infusion (transfusion) to accomplish its beneficial effect. ET has been a mainstay of treating hazardous neonatal hyperbilirubinemia (severe jaundice) for a 100 years dating back to Alfred P. Hart’s seminal use of the procedure in a newborn with familial icterus gravis neonatorum at the Hospital for Sick Children Toronto in 1924. Its novel application by Hart at that time and at the Hospital for Sick Children was no accident. The history of the development of ET as a viable treatment intervention and its original application to neonatal hyperbilirubinemia by Hart in 1924 is commemorated in this C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society presentation.

Dr. Watchko has a keen interest in the pathobiology of bilirubin-induced brain injury and clinical strategies to prevent kernicterus. His early work focused on unconjugated bilirubin brain uptake and clearance, determination of in vivo neurotoxic central nervous system bilirubin thresholds in the Gunn rat model of acute bilirubin encephalopathy (ABE) and in human neonates with kernicterus, pharmacologic neuroprotection against ABE, and bilirubin-induced cerebellar hypoplasia. More recently he has conducted clinical studies on improving the identification of infants at risk for significant hyperbilirubinemia and bilirubin neurotoxicity. Dr. Watchko is recognized as a world authority on neonatal jaundice, authored more than 200 academic papers, chapters and reviews, and co-edited two books, Neonatal Jaundice (2000) and Care of the Jaundiced Neonate (2012). He serves on the American Academy of Pediatrics National Hyperbilirubinemia Clinical Practice Subcommittee and is a member of the Society for Pediatric Research, the American Pediatric Society, and the Perinatal Research Society.

Image credit: Exchange Transfusion ~ early 1950s. Peter Dunn. Arch Dis Child 1993;69:95-96.

The C.F. Reynolds Medical History Society thanks its dues-paying members and the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law for its support of the continuing relevance of medical history in our world.