Foreign Bodies: New Exhibition at UCL

In 1942, G. O. Chambers (visiting surgeon to the English prison system) attempted to outline the “psychology of the intentional swallower”. Chambers was fascinated by the way in which foreign objects might end up in the alimentary tract, and what swallowing such items might say about a person: chiefly, he claimed, it indicated “an underlying psychological framework of egoism, vanity and self-attention”.¹

Chambers’ understanding of intentional swallowing was framed through two (seemingly very different) categories of swallower: circus performers and incarcerated prisoners. Yet Chambers linked the two, despite their differences, by claiming that the latter exhibited an intensified version of the psychology of the former. Prisoners, he thought, were “stubborn, defiant and antisocial”, and their desire to gain attention and material gain mirrored the habits of circus performers.

While Chambers’ understanding of the intentional swallowing of non-food items seems simplistic and unduly pejorative, his interest in objects that had travelled through the human body was not unusual for this era. A few years earlier, Irish doctor Ian Fraser had declared that “a paper on foreign bodies is really a story of the human body.”² Meanwhile, American surgeon Chevalier Jackson had amassed a collection of more than two thousand foreign bodies in the first few decades of the twentieth century.³

A new exhibition, which opened at UCL this week, takes the concept of the foreign body well beyond the medical realm. UCL Researchers in Museums (a group of PhD students in various disciplines) use foreign bodies as a starting point to look at the ways in which we define ourselves – biologically, psychologically socially and politically – through concepts of “otherness”. How and why do non-human items end up inside the human body? Where do we draw the line between human and animal, living being and inorganic “thing”, self and other? Through seven very different research projects, this exhibition addresses the idea of what is alien to us and how this concept has shifted across history, culture and even species.

The Foreign Bodies exhibition runs from 18 March to 14 July, in the North Cloisters (Wilkins Building), with a trail leading visitors to other foreign bodies in UCL Museums. Every Friday at 2pm (from April), there will be a curator-led tour taking visitors through some of the trail.

1 G. O. Chambers, “Foreign Bodies in the Alimentary Tract”, British Medical Journal, Sept 26 1942, 362-6

2 Ian Fraser, “Foreign Bodies”, British Medical Journal, 13 May 1939, p. 967. For more on this topic see Sarah Chaney, “Curious Appetites: Surgery and the Foreign Body”, The Lancet, Vol. 380 No. 9847, pp 1050-1051.

3 Mary Cappello, Swallow: Foreign Bodies, Their Ingestion, Inspiration and the Curious Doctor who Extracted Them, New York, London: The New Press (2011).

Psychical Research and the UCL Centre for the History of Psychological Disciplines

A recent international conference indicated the growing profile of the UCL Centre for the History of Psychological Disciplines. The Centre aims to foster a historical approach to the psychological disciplines, as well as providing opportunities for dialogue between historians and psychologists. The conference certainly offered such an occasion, with speakers including historians, psychologists, neuroscientists and parapsychologists. As the conference organisers recognised, researchers in the field of nineteenth and twentieth-century parapsychology are often met with hostility, captured in terms such as “pseudoscience”, “irrational” and “quackery”. Yet this refusal to engage with a particular field of ideas may lead to sterility within both history and science, whereby research only confirms what we already think we know. As keynote speaker historian of science Ivor Grattan-Guinness pointed out, it is well to remain sceptical of scepticism!

Indeed, the papers indicated the diversity of the field of psychical research. Dr Richard Noakes, of the University of Exeter, highlighted the ways in which the state of experimental physics at the turn of the twentieth century predisposed scientists to take an interest in the so-called paranormal. As with psychical research, physics could be viewed as unstable, uncertain and often controversial. The results of experiments were often faint and highly open to interpretation. On the other hand, physicists were generally well-respected, and their status encouraged broader support for psychical research: indeed, in the 1920s, membership of the Society for Psychical Research reached its peak of around 12,000.

Renaud Evrard, of the University of Rouen, gave a historical talk on Pierre Janet’s experiments on mental suggestion and experimental psychology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, a topic that fascinated him due to his own research on exceptional states. A clinical psychologist by profession, Evrard co-founded the Centre for Information, Research and Counselling on Exceptional Experiences in 2009. He worked on this topic for his doctoral dissertation, and discovered that the relationship between mystical or paranormal experiences and mental health was far more complex than is often allowed. CIRCEE offers French speakers an opportunity to discuss their experiences: perhaps for the purpose of advice, perhaps simply to become a part of future research.

The relationship between studying history and psychology was brought into sharp relief by this fascinating conference, and we hope that future events at the Centre will prove just as rich.

From: http://ahp.apps01.yorku.ca/?p

Visit to UCL Pathology Collections

December’s meeting of London’s Museums of Health and Medicine introduced those present to a new medical collection in London: the Royal Free Hospital Pathology Collection. Now part of UCL Museums, the museum contains a variety of collections, mostly medical specimens. Last year, one of the most fascinating collections was on display in the exhibition The Body in Pieces, late nineteenth century plaster casts depicting a variety of bone conditions from the young patients at the Great Ormond Street Hospital. These surreal fragments made an unusual display, and will hopefully be exhibited again.

Another exhibit in the small teaching museum (pictured right) proved particularly fascinating from a mental health perspective, however. This old wooden cabinet may not look like much from a distance. Small printed labels on the drawers proclaim it to contain the “RFH Neuro Archive”, a description that doesn’t seem to do justice to the beautiful objects inside. A recent post addressed the issues around the display of human remains: however, such concerns, while certainly valid, often can’t do justice to the objects themselves. Indeed, on first opening these narrow drawers it is hard to  believe that the objects within are specimens at all, for the variety of dyes used turns these feathery brain slices into works of art. Why were so many different colours used? Did they highlight different structures? Did these slides help researchers to understand and explore the human brain? And do they have any meaning now, besides indicating the fascinating artistry of the inside of the human  body?

Maybe the use of these collections for further teaching and research,  both medical and historical, will help to answer some of these questions. Sadly, the slides are not on public display at present. Hopefully, however, some of these objects will find an opportunity for display elsewhere in UCL. For more information on UCL’s museums, and to contact staff about research in the Royal Free Hospital collection, visit their website.

 

Images courtesy of UCL Museums

Body Matters: a different perspective

So what does the museum’s part-time registrar do when she’s not at Bethlem? Answer – an MA in Museum Studies at UCL. A major part of the course is the development of an original and exciting exhibition.

Body Matters is an exhibition that approaches themes relating to health and well-being from a new perspective and in turn challenges some commonly held perceptions. This exhibition will offer a glimpse into the work of seven of UCL’s researchers who are all, in very different ways, advancing the knowledge of bones. Body Matters examines how subjects ranging from ancient tuberculosis to the future of prosthetics can have an impact on our lives and those around us.

After four months of hard work, late nights and deadlines our registrar is looking forward to it finally being finished and open to the public.

Body Matters is curated by Museum Studies students from UCL’s Institute of Archaeology, and opens to the public on 17 May 2010.

For more information, click here.