Leuven Centre for Health Humanities organises a yearly lecture series. Join online (or on campus, at KU Leuven)
This series explores entangled relations between nature and health with perspectives from medical history, psychology, disability & colonial studies, & environmental humanities.
#histmed
The Social Survey in Global Perspective, ed Charlotte Greenhalgh, @clarecorbould.bsky.social, and me, from @berghahnbooks.bsky.social now available! As ebook; or print at 50% off till April 30 with GREE4033 code
#histstm @austhistassoc.bsky.social @acadsocsci.bsky.social @humanitiesau.bsky.social
Book review
Given how much I admire Nancy Tomes, I'm very proud she praised our book, The Mask: A History of Breathing Bad Air! Her review in Technology & Culture perfectly captures our key arguments. Thanks!
A very insightful review of Spectacles of Waste by Baptiste Monsaingeon in the latest Technology & Culture: muse.jhu.edu/article/9809...
Comment enseigner le genre en médecine et santé? Enjeux méthodologiques défi de l’interdisciplinarité #infoclioevent
A new review by @KirkusReviews of A Field Guide to Falling Ill describes the book as “arresting prose meets emotional and clinical intelligence in this lucid collection.” Pick up a copy here!
Pforzheimer Lecture How Renaissance Scholars and Printers Decided on the Size of Books w/Dr. Ann Blair Wednesday, January 21 at 6 p.m.
The most exciting #BookHistory talk of the season is coming up next week!
Join us @ransomcenter.bsky.social or online as Ann Blair delivers the 2026 Pforzheimer lecture. This talk has Erasmus, Gessner, and volumes both large &small!
Learn more: www.eventbrite.com/e/pforzheime...
#booksky 🗃️📜📚
Book cover: The Mask
You can now take a deep breath and listen to this New Book Network podcast episode, hosted by the wonderful Miranda Melcher, where Thomas Schlich and I discuss The Mask: A History of Breathing Bad Air!
newbooksnetwork.com/the-mask
@newbooksnetwork.bsky.social
In the latest episode of #Cliocast, Séveric Yersin talks to author Bruno Strasser about his monograph «The Mask. A History of Breading Bad Air» (Yale University Press).
@brunostrasser.bsky.social @yalepress.bsky.social
www.infoclio.ch/en/node/191254
Some of our fantastic authors and editors sat down with @jwomenshistory.bsky.social to discuss our new book! Tune in to the podcast to hear @ayahnerd.bsky.social @lmansley.bsky.social and @sarahbelle721.bsky.social and learn more about the NC Reader! newbooksnetwork.com/the-nursing-...
author Bruno Strasser holding the book, The Mask.
Thrilled to see our book, The Mask: A History of Breathing Bad Air, featured on Nature’s list of 10 essential science reads of the year! www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Finally, we suggest that "When thinking about individual means of protection today, it is worth asking how such measures shift responsibility for health and how, by making dangerous workplaces seem safe, they might ultimately enable the expansion of such working environments."
We also show that "Throughout the entire 19th century, masks remained a technological utopia, an unfulfilled promise that people could work safely in highly toxic environments."
In this paper, we argue that "Today's medical masks have little to do with the epidemic masks of the past. Instead, they were developed in response to the Industrial Revolution as a means of protecting people from dust and other harmful substances in the workplace."
Check out @brunostrasser.bsky.social latest article in @thelancet.com: Masking harm: dust, diseases, and industry 😷 www.thelancet.com/journals/lan... @sciencesunige.bsky.social
4/12 The medical masks we use today weren’t originally invented for epidemics or hospital infections — they were created to protect workers in dusty factories!
Developed massively in the 19th C, but rarely worn until the 1920s.
Factory worker in Pittsburgh, 1958 (Photo by James Blair)
A photo of Phineas Gage holding the iron rod. The photo is in black and white, and is in a gilded frame. Phineas left eye is closed - from the damage he received to his skull from the accident.
In 1848, railroad worker Phineas Gage survived a 13-pound iron rod blasting through his skull. He lived, but his personality was never the same. His accident would change how we understand the brain forever. 🧵/1
And they used to hate masks. @brunostrasser.bsky.social yalebooks.yale.edu/2025/08/12/w...
A blue-grey box with a Red Cross on it, which reads: "BLOOD TRANSFUSION SET."
The hematologist Oswald H. Robertson pioneered the idea of "blood banks" in WWI by packing glass jars of citrated blood from universal donors in an ice-filled chest that he had constructed from ammunition cases. He convinced countless others to donate blood during the war.
Violet Affleck’s impassioned call at #UNGA80 for masking and clean #indoorair is the latest episode in the long —and always controversial— history of masks. To explore the earlier chapters and better understand what’s happening today, check out our book!
tinyurl.com/579pz264
Portrait of Napoleon visiting plague victims in Jaffa.
3/12 - During Covid-19, men refused to wear masks more often than women. Already in the 19th c., men objected to protective masks—because real men know no fear!
Fearless Napoleon touches a plague victim with his face uncovered. His frightened marshal holds a cloth to his mouth (A.-J. Gros, 1804).
Thanks!
13 October 2025, Université de Genève Laurence Talairach (Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès): “Women, Algology, and Science Popularisation in Nineteenth-Century Britain” 3 November 2025, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne Dania Achermann (Universität St. Gallen): “Travelling with Isotopes: Radiocarbon Dating and the Interdisciplinarisation of Climate Science” 15 December 2025, Université de Lausanne Sabrina Minuzzi (Università degli Studi di Udine): “From Early Modern materia medica to Modern Pharmacology: Framing a Research Hypothesis” 16 February 2026, Université de Genève Caitjan Gainty (King’s College London): “Radical Medicine: Medical Activism in the Long 1960s” 16 March 2026, Université de Lausanne Barbara di Gennaro (CREA Padova): “The State Drug: Theriac, Pharmacy and Politics in Early Modern Italy” 20 April 2026, Université de Neuchâtel Elisabeth Davin-Mortier (Sorbonne Université): “Les utopies hydro-politiques sionistes durant le Mandat en Palestine britannique (1922-1948) : une stratégie d’accaparement des ressources en eau ?” 11 May 2026, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne Marco Storni (Université Libre de Bruxelles): “Provincializing Natural Philosophy: Or, Being Cartesian in Newtonian France” 15 June 2026, Université de Neuchâtel Guillaume Carnino (Université de Technologie de Compiègne): “Automatisation : faux enjeux de substitution et vraies évolutions du travail”
Excited to share this year's program for the Séminaire romand d’histoire des sciences et des techniques! The colloquium is co-organized with @brunostrasser.bsky.social (Geneva), Simona Boscani Leoni (Lausanne), & Gianenrico Bernasconi (Neuchâtel) #histSTM #histsci
www.epfl.ch/labs/lhst/la...
OK, a🧵: Our new paper studies workers' political consciousness in times of class demobilization.
We show there's more to workers' politics than right-wing resentment. Listening to workers, we reconstruct their moral critiques of money, power & recognition.
Link journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
2/12 - When we look at images of people with cloths over their faces during past epidemics, we think of modern filtering masks.
In fact, these pieces of cloths were perfuming devices, soaked in vinegar, when odors caused diseases!
Bas-relief, 12th century, Cathedral of Basel, CH.
#histstm
📰Entretien de @brunostrasser.bsky.social dans le Journal de l'#UNIGE à l'occasion de la parution du livre «The Mask. A History of Breathing Bad Air» dont il est co-auteur : www.unige.ch/lejournal/re...
👉 yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...
@brunostrasser.bsky.social presents his book "The Mask" written with Thomas Schlich, a book that tells the story till the 1970s.
Published by @yalepress.bsky.social @yalebooks.bsky.social
#nocovid #eahmh25
Protecting Bodies at Work: Technical Devices, Materialities of Health, and Political Imaginaries #infoclioevent
🚨September 18-19🚨
Don't miss the international conference :
"Protecting Bodies at Work. Technical Devices, Materialities of Health, and Political Imaginaries"
Program: shorturl.at/rmniy
You can attend online: shorturl.at/Be9mF (Zoom link)
🗃️ #AcademicSky #MedievalSky
Safe melted plastic syringe blocks? Unsettling presentation on single disposables in medicines by Jeremy Greene at #eahmh25
