Professor Tilli Tansey, DSc, FMedSci, HonFRCP
Professor of the History of Modern Medical Sciences
Location: Arts Two 2.30email: t.tansey@qmul.ac.uk
Phone: 020 7882 5725
Tilli Tansey gained her first degree and PhD (on the neurochemistry of the Octopus brain) at the University of Sheffield, and then spent several years as a neuroscientist, working for the Medical Research Council in Edinburgh, the Multiple Sclerosis Society at St Thomas’ Hospital Medical School London, and also at the Stazione Zoologica Naples, and the Marine Biological Association’s Laboratory in Plymouth. In 1986 she joined the then Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in London and achieved a second PhD in 1990, on the career of Sir Henry Dale, FRS (1875-1968). She was a member of academic staff of the Wellcome Institute, later the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL until 2010, becoming Professor of the History of Modern Medical Sciences in 2008. She joined Queen Mary, University of London in October 2010. She is currently the Honorary Archivist of the Physiological Society and the meetings secretary and deputy president of the History of Medicine Faculty at the Society of Apothecaries, and has served on the History of Medicine Funding Committee of the Wellcome Trust. She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2007, only the second medical historian to be so honoured, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 2008, and in 2011 she was elected a Foreign Fellow of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, Russia, and awarded a DSc by the University of Sheffield. In 2012 she began a five year research project, "The Makers of Modern Biomedicine: Testimonies and Legacy", funded by a major Strategic Award from the Wellcome Trust.
Research interests:
Tilli specializes in the history of twentieth and twenty-first century medical sciences, particularly physiology, pharmacology and the neurosciences, and is also interested in the development of medical research funding and policy. She is the co-author of a history of the Burroughs, Wellcome & Co. pharmaceutical firm (Carnegie, 2007), and the co-editor of several books including Women Physiologists (Portland Press, 1993), Drugs, medicines and contraceptives in Dutch and Anglo-American healing cultures (Rodopi, 2002) and the Wellcome Witnesses to Twentieth Century Medicine series (vols 1-42, Wellcome Trust, 1997-present). The Witness Seminars address a wide array of topics in the recent history of medicine She has co-supervised oral and video-history projects on laboratory technicians, the pharmaceutical industry and contemporary neuroscience, the raw research materials of which are all deposited in the Wellcome Library for others to use. For all the Witness Seminar transcripts and the video-clips and transcripts of the Today’s Neuroscience, Tomorrrow’s History project click here. The "Makers of Modern Biomedicine" project will record oral testimonies from groups and individuals who have made significant contributions to the legacy of modern medicine, developed around five major themes: clinical genetics; neurosciences; global health and infectious diseases; ethics of research and practice; and medical technologies.
Postgraduate supervision:
Tilli is pleased to hear from candidates wishing to undertake PhD or MD research in any area in the history of modern medical sciences.
Publications:
Book
Church, R A, & Tansey, E M. (2007) Burroughs, Wellcome & Co., Knowledge, Trust and Profit, and the transformation of the British pharmaceutical industry, Carnegie Publishing, Lancaster, 594pp
Edited Texts
Tansey, E M with Reynolds, L A and/or Christie, D A (1997-2008) Wellcome Witnesses To Twentieth Century Medicine including: Monoclonal Antibodies (vol 1), Haemophilia (vol 4); Clinical Research (vol 7), Neonatal Intensive Care (vol 9) , Peptic Ulcer (vol 16) Short course chemotherapy for tuberculosis (vol. 24), Clinical Pharmacology (vols 33 & 34), MRSA (vol 32), Medicalisation of cannabis (vol 40) Wellcome Trust (vols 1-10) or Wellcome Trust Centre for History of Medicine, UCL (vols 11-40).
Edited books
Bindman, L J, Brading, A F & Tansey, E M (1993) (eds) Women Physiologists: an anniversary celebration of their contributions to British physiology, Portland Press, London 164
Lock, S P, Reynolds, L A, Tansey, E M, (eds) (1998) 'Ashes to Ashes' - The history of smoking and health. Rodopi, Amsterdam 244
Blakemore, C & Jennett, S, with A Cuthbert, R Porter, L Schiebinger, T Sears and E M Tansey (eds) (2001) Oxford Companion to the Body . Oxford University Press, Oxford 753
Gijswijt-Hofstra, M, van Heteren, G & Tansey, E M (2002) (eds) Drugs, medicines and contraceptives in Dutch and Anglo-American healing cultures. Rodopi, Amsterdam 295
Chapters
Tansey, E M (1993) The Physiological Tradition, Companion Encyclopaedia of the History of Medicine eds W F Bynum and R S Porter, Routledge, Volume 1, 120-152
Tansey, E M (1995) Sir Henry Dale and autopharmacology: the role of acetylcholine in neurotransmission, Essays in the history of the physiological sciences , ed C. Debru Clio medica Rodopi, Amsterdam, 180-193
Tansey, E M (1995) A brief history of Gray's Anatomy Gray's Anatomy, ed P L Williams et al, 38th edition, Churchill Livingstone, xvii-xx
Tansey, E M (1997, paperback 2002) From the germ theory to 1945, in Western Medicine. An Illustrated History ed. Irvine Loudon, Oxford University Press, 102-122
Tansey, E M (1998) 'They used to call it psychiatry': aspects of the development and impact of psychopharmacology. In Cultures of Psychiatry and mental health care in postwar Britain and The Netherlands ed Marijka Gijswijt-Hofstra & Roy Porter, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 79-102
Tansey, E M (1999) Historical perspectives on the autonomic nervous system with a particular emphasis on chemical neurotransmission, in Autonomic Failure: a textbook of clinical disorders of the autonomic nervous system, 4th edition, eds C J Matthias and Sir Roger Banister, Oxford University Press, xxiii-xxix
Tansey, E M (2001) Physiology in Oxford Illustrated Companion to Medicine, eds S Lock, G Dunea and J Pearn, Oxford University Press, 642-649
Tansey, E M (2001) Ergot to ergometrine: an obstetric renaissance? In Women and Medicine eds L. Conrad & A. Hardy, Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine series, Rodopi, Amsterdam 195-215
Tansey, E M (2002) Charles Sherrington, E D Adrian and Henry Dale: The Cambridge Physiological Laboratory and the physiology of the nervous systemm in Cambridge Scientific Minds, eds P. Harman & S. Mitton, Cambridge University Press, 187-201
Hardy, A & Tansey, E M (2006) Medical enterprise and global response, 1945-2000, in The Western Medical tradition, 1800-2000, Cambridge University Press, 391-535, 555-564
Tansey, E M (2006) Witnessing the Witnesses: pitfalls and potentials of the Witness Seminar in twentieth century medicine, in Writing Recent Science: the historiography of contemporary science, technology and medicine, eds Ron Doel & Thomas Soderqvist, Routledge, 260-78
Tansey, E M (2008) The Witness Seminar technique in modern medical history, in Social Determinants of Disease, eds. H. Cook, A. Hardy & S. Bhattacharya, Orient Longman, 279-295
Tansey, E M (2009) 11th August 1921?: The discovery of insulin in Defining Moments: dramatic archaeologies of the twentieth century: studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology ed. John Schofield, Archaeopress, 39–46
Articles
Tansey, E M (1989) The Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories 1894-1904: the Home Office, pharmaceutical firms and animal experiments Medical History 33: 1-41
Tansey, E M (1990) Illustrations from the Wellcome Institute Library: Sir Henry Dale's laboratory notebooks, 1914-1919 Medical History 34: 199-209
Tansey, E M & Booth, C C (1993) 'A guide to medical science and thought in Britain': The British Medical Bulletin 1943-1993 British Medical Bulletin 49:1-16
Tansey, E M & Catterall, P (1994) Monoclonal antibodies: a witness seminar in Contemporary medical history Medical History 38: 322-327
Tansey, E M (1994) Protection against dog distemper and Dogs Protection Bills: the Medical Research Council and anti-vivisectionist protest, 1911-1933 Medical History 38: 1-26
Tansey, E M (1994) Funding medical research before the creation of the Medical Research Council Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 87: 546-548
Tansey, E M (1995) What's in a name: Henry Dale and adrenaline, 1906 Medical History 39: 459-476
Tansey, E M & Catterall, P (eds) (1995) Technology transfer in Britain: the case of monoclonal antibodies Contemporary Record 9: 409-444
Tansey, E M (1995) An F4-vescent episode: Sir Henry Dale's laboratory 1919-1942 The first W D M Paton memorial lecture British Journal of Pharmacology 115: 1339-1345
Tansey, E M (1995) Pills, profits and propriety: the early pharmaceutical industry in Britain: The 1995 Foundation lecture Pharmaceutical Historian 25:3-8
Bradley J K & Tansey E M (1996) The coming of the electronic age to the Cambridge physiological laboratory: E.D. Adrian's valve amplifier in 1921 Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 50: 217-228
Tansey, E M (1997) 'Not committing barbarisms': Sherrington and the synapse, 1897. Brain Research Bulletin 44: 211-212
Tansey, E M (ed) (1998), Hart, P D'Arcy (1998) Chronic pulmonary disease in South Wales coalmines: an eye-witness account of the MRC surveys (1937-1942) Social History of Medicine 11: 450-468
Tansey, E M (1999) 'The dustbin of history, and why so much modern medicine should end up there' The Lancet 354: 811-812
Tansey E M (2002) 'Medicines and men: Burroughs, Wellcome & Co. and the British drug industry before the Second World War' Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 95: 411-416
Tansey E M (2003) 'Henry Dale, histamine and anaphylaxis: reflections on the role of chance in the history of allergy' Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol and Biomed 34: 455-472
Tansey, E M (2006) Pavlov at home and abroad: his role in international physiology Autonomic Neuroscience: Basic & Clinical 125: 1-11
Tansey, E M (2006) Henry Dale and acetylcholine Comptes rendus Acad Sci. Paris (Special edition) 239: 419-425
Tansey, E M (2008) Keeping the culture alive - the laboratory technician in twentieth-century British medical research Notes & Records of the Royal Society 62: 77–95
Tansey, E M (2008) Working with C S Sherrington Notes & Records of the Royal Society 62: 123-130
Tansey, E M (2008) Working with Cambridge physiologists Notes & Records of the Royal Society 62: 131–137
Tansey, E M (2008) 'Vendre medicaments arreu del món: L’empresa farmacéutica Burroughs Wellcome & Co' Mètode: (Science, publicity and propaganda) 59: 85–91
Tansey, E M (2009) Roy Sydney Porter in Munk's Roll at http://munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk/Biography/Details/5854
Tansey, E M (2011) 'The early education of a Nobel laureate: Henry Dale’s schooldays' Notes & Records of the Royal Society 65: 379-391; also available online http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/cgi/content/abstract/rsnr.2011.0018v1
Tansey, E M & Ziganshin, AU (2011) 'British physiological journals 1878-1925, and contributions from Russia.' Kazan Medical Journal 92: 764-776
Gareth Jones, J, Tansey, E M and Stuart, D G (2011) 'Thomas Graham Brown (1882–1965) Behind the scenes at the Cardiff Institute of Physiology' Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 20: 188-209