Graduate Student, Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology
Thesis Title: "From the Hands of Quacks:" Aural Surgery in Nineteenth-Century Britain
About
My doctoral dissertation (tentative title: “From the Hands of Quacks: Aural Surgery in Nineteenth-Century London”) will concentrate on the source of the tensions between the social model of deafness which largely encouraged education and isolation, and the medical model, which emphasized that medicine and technology as necessary for prescribing a solution for social ills. I thus plan for my research to explore the complex interactions between the deaf, socio-educational institutions, and the medical profession in early 19th century Britain. More specifically, I will focus on the network of medical practitioners who specialized in treating ear diseases or deafness. These practitioners were known by their contemporaries as “surgeon-aurists” or simply “aurists.”
