Elaine Leong: 'Warming Stones and Cold Bodies'

This talk investigates the history of Sir Richard Carew’s Warming-Stone. Through examination of handwritten notebooks, letters and printed medical pamphlets, it recovers the theoretical framework framing the stone’s design as a cure; the creation and launch of medical business in early modern London; and the place of cure testimonies in the marketing of early modern health technologies. In so doing, it highlights the dynamism inherent in the design, production, and marketing of the early modern health devices. Finally, it shows the utility of adopting history of technology frameworks to study early modern health objects and posits that further study of everyday health technologies can enrich histories of medicine. 

Above: An image is the title of Excellent Helps Really Found Out, Tried and Had… by a Warming Stone (London, 1660). 

About the speaker:

Dr Elaine Leong joined the department of history at UCL in 2019 and holds a Wellcome University Award. She moved to UCL from the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin where she led the Minerva Research Group ‘Reading and Writing Nature in Early Modern Europe’ from 2012 to 2019. Elaine’s research is centered upon medical and scientific knowledge transfer and production.

Please note, the zoom details for online attendees will be circulated 24 hrs before the start of the event.

This event is hosted by Thinking, Feeling, Imagining as part of the 2023-24 IMH Hidden Experience Seminar Series, which centres on hidden experiences of health and illness. For more information about the series, please visit our website.