Seminar Conveners: Dr Alex Aylward, Professor Erica Charters, Professor Mark Harrison, Professor Rob Iliffe, Dr Catherine M Jackson, Dr Sloan Mahone; Co-conveners: Dr Mogens Laerke, Dr Hohee Cho
Seminars in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology
Dr Sally Frampton (University of Oxford)
“There is a Fatal Facility in the Use of Technical Terms”: a Media History Perspective on First Aid in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
First aid is slippery concept, traversing the dramatic and daring to the everyday and mundane. From lifesaving emergencies that take place atop mountains to sticky plasters on the fingers of wailing toddlers, first aid encompasses many forms of caregiving. At is heart, however, are two integral components that determine its medical and cultural meaning: it occurs in the face of sudden or urgent necessity to treat illness or injury, and it usually happens in the absence of a qualified healthcare practitioner. Set apart from professional medicine - although never completely disentangled from it - first aid shifts caregiving to the wider community. Drawing upon archival research on first aid and lifeguarding in Anglo-American contexts from the late nineteenth century onwards, this talk explores the value of approaches from media history to help explicate the resonance of ‘first aid’ and ‘lifesaving’ in the cultural sphere, as forms of care that require clear and wide communication beyond the boundaries of medicine.
