Harold John Cook Honorary FRCP, served as Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL from 2000 to 2009, and was the Queen Wilhelmina

Wilhelmina of the Netherlands

Wilhelmina was Queen regnant of the Kingdom of the Netherlands from 1890 to 1948. She ruled the Netherlands for fifty-eight years, longer than any other Dutch monarch. Her reign saw World War I and World War II, the economic crisis of 1933, and the decline of the Netherlands as a major colonial...

 Visiting Professor of History at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 in New York during the 2007-2008 academic year.

Prof. Cook's research interest include a number of related projects on the ways by which medical knowledge was exchanged between distant locations. More generally, he is interested in the ways in which challenges and opportunities for the field of the history of medicine are unfolding in the context of recent developments in global history.

Cook is co-editor of the journal Medical History

Medical History

-Release history:...

, serves on a number of advisory boards and professional bodies, and has been elected to an honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians

Royal College of Physicians

The Royal College of Physicians of London was founded in 1518 as the College of Physicians by royal charter of King Henry VIII in 1518 - the first medical institution in England to receive a royal charter...

.

Academic career

Prof. Cook's academic career has evolved across decades.

• 1974 - BA Cornell College
  Cornell College
  Cornell College is a private liberal arts college in Mount Vernon, Iowa. Originally called the Iowa Conference Seminary, the school was founded in 1853 by Reverend Samuel M. Fellows...
  
  
• 1975 - MA University of Michigan
  University of Michigan
  The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
  
  
• 1981 - PhD University of Michigan
• 1982 - Assistant Professor, Harvard University
  Harvard University
  Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
  
  
• 1985 - Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin–Madison
  University of Wisconsin–Madison
  The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
  
  
• 1988 - Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin–Madison
• 1993 - Professor, University of Wisconsin–Madison
• 2000 - 2009 Director, The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL
• 2010 - John F. Nickoll Professor of History, Brown University

In Matters of Exchange (2007), Cook argues that engaging in international trade changed the thinking of the Dutch and those with whom they came in contact. He suggests that the preference for accurate information which accompanied the rise of commerce also laid the groundwork for the rise of science globally. The book documents the developments in medicine and natural history were fundamental aspects of this new science. It was a runner-up for the 2008 Cundill Prize

Cundill Prize

The Cundill Prize in History at McGill University was founded in 2008 by Peter Cundill to recognize and promote literary and academic achievement in history. The prize is presented annually to an author who has published a non-fiction book in the prior year that is likely to have profound...

.

Books

• 2007 - Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age. Yale University Press
  Yale University Press
  Yale University Press is a book publisher founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day. It became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but remains financially and operationally autonomous....
  
  . 10-ISBN 0-300-11796-5; 13-ISBN 978-0-300-11796-7 (cloth)
• 1994 - Trials of an Ordinary Doctor: Joannes Groenevelt in Seventeenth-Century London. Johns Hopkins University Press
  Johns Hopkins University Press
  The Johns Hopkins University Press is the publishing division of the Johns Hopkins University. It was founded in 1878 and holds the distinction of being the oldest continuously running university press in the United States. The Press publishes books, journals, and electronic databases...
  
  . 10-ISBN 0-801-84778-8; 13-ISBN 978-0-801-84778-3 (cloth)
• 1986 - The Decline of the Old Medical Regime in Stuart London. Ithaca: Cornell University Press
  Cornell University Press
  The Cornell University Press, established in 1869 but inactive from 1884 to 1930, was the first university publishing enterprise in the United States.A division of Cornell University, it is housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage....
  
  . ISBN 0-801-41850-X; 13-ISBN 978-0-801-41850-1 (cloth)

Articles and contributions

2006

• "What Stays Constant at the Heart of Medicine," Editorial, British Medical Journal
  British Medical Journal
  BMJ is a partially open-access peer-reviewed medical journal. Originally called the British Medical Journal, the title was officially shortened to BMJ in 1988. The journal is published by the BMJ Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association...
  
  (BMJ
  British Medical Journal
  BMJ is a partially open-access peer-reviewed medical journal. Originally called the British Medical Journal, the title was officially shortened to BMJ in 1988. The journal is published by the BMJ Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association...
  
  ) 333 (23 December 2006): pp. 1281–1282.
• "Medicine," in The Cambridge History of Science, vol. 3: Early Modern Science, ed. Katherine Park and Loraine Daston. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  Cambridge University Press
  Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
  
  , pp. 407–434.
• "Introduction" to The Western Medical Tradition 1800 to 2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–6.
• "Das Wissen von den Sachen," in Seine Welt Wissen. Enzyklopädien in der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Ulrich Johannes Schneider. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft
  Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft
  The Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft is a German publishing house in Darmstadt. With about 140,000 subscribers it is one of the largest book clubs in Germany....
  
   (WBG), pp. 81–124 (trans. into German by Jan Neersö).

2005

• "Global economies and Local Knowledge in the East Indies: Jacobus Bontius Learns the Facts of Nature," in Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World, ed. Claudia Swan and Londa Schiebinger. Philadelphia: Penn State University Press
  Penn State University Press
  The Penn State University Press, also called Penn State Press was established in 1956, and is a non-profit publisher of scholarly books and journals. It is the independent publishing branch of the Pennsylvania State University and is a division of the Penn State University Library system...
  
  , pp. 100–118, 299-302.
• "Medical Communication in the First Global Age: Willem ten Rhijne in Japan, 1674–1676," in Academia Sinica
  Academia Sinica
  The Academia Sinica , headquartered in the Nangang District of Taipei, is the national academy of Taiwan. It supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from mathematical and physical sciences, to life sciences, and to humanities and social sciences.Academia Sinica has...
  
  , no. 11 (2004): pp. 16-36.

2004

• "Thomas Bonham," "Richard Boulton
  Richard Boulton
  Richard Boulton , was a physician.Boulton was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, and for some time settled at Chester, was the author of a number of works on the medical and kindred sciences, including: 1. 'Reason of Muscular Motion,' 1697. 2. 'Treatise concerning the Heat of the Blood,' 1698....
  
  ," "Richard Browne," "Sir John Colbatch," "Abraham Cyprianus," "Sir George Ent," "Charles Goodall
  Charles Goodall
  Charles Goodall was an English cricketer who played for Nottingham Cricket Club from 1813 to 1827. He made one first-class appearance for Nottingham in 1826.-Further reading:...
  
  ," "Joannes Groenevelt," "John Hutton
  John Hutton
  John Hutton is the name of:*John Hutton , British Member of Parliament for Richmond, 1701–1702*John Hutton , famous for glass engravings at the Shakespeare Centre at Stratford upon Avon or at Coventry cathedral...
  
  ," "John Marten," "Thomas O'Dowde," "John Pechey," "William Rose
  William Rose
  William Rose may refer to:*William Rose , England international footballer*William Cumming Rose , American nutritionist*William Rose , American screenwriter...
  
  ," "Thomas Sydenham
  Thomas Sydenham
  Thomas Sydenham was an English physician. He was born at Wynford Eagle in Dorset, where his father was a gentleman of property. His brother was Colonel William Sydenham. Thomas fought for the Parliament throughout the English Civil War, and, at its end, resumed his medical studies at Oxford...
  
  ," "William Trigge," "Mary Trye," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
  
  .
• "Health," The Lancet, 364: pp. 1481.
• "Early Modern Medicine," in Encarta Encyclopedia (World English edition).

2003

• "Medicine, Materialism, Globalism: The Example of the Dutch Golden Age," Professorial inaugural lecture, UCL, 27 February 2003. Download PDF text.

2002

• "Bernard Mandeville," in A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Steven Nadler. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing
  Blackwell Publishing
  Wiley-Blackwell is the international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley's Global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publishing, after Wiley took over Blackwell Publishing in...
  
  ,, pp. 469–482.
• "Body and Passions: Materialism and the Early Modern State," in Osiris, 17: pp. 25–48.

2001

• "Time's Bodies: Crafting the Preparation and Preservation of Naturalia," Merchants and Marvels, ed. Paula Findlen and Pamela Smith. London: Routledge
  Routledge
  Routledge is a British publishing house which has operated under a succession of company names and latterly as an academic imprint. Its origins may be traced back to the 19th-century London bookseller George Routledge...
  
  , pp. 237–247.
• "Fines and Fortunes: Recognition and Regulation of Practitioners for the First 200 Years," in The Royal College of Physicians and Its Collections, ed. G. Davenport, W. Ian McDonald, and Caroline Moss-Gibons. London: Royal College of Physicians
  Royal College of Physicians
  The Royal College of Physicians of London was founded in 1518 as the College of Physicians by royal charter of King Henry VIII in 1518 - the first medical institution in England to receive a royal charter...
  
   pp. 28–30.
• "Medicine and Health," in Tudor England: An Encyclopedia, ed. Arthur F. Kinney and David W. Swain. London: Garland
  Garland
  A garland is a class of decoration, of which there are many types.Garland may also refer to:-Places:*Garland, Arkansas, a town in Miller County*Garland County, Arkansas*Garland, Maine, a town in Penobscot County...
  
  , pp. 475–479.

2000

• "Boerhaave
  Herman Boerhaave
  Herman Boerhaave was a Dutch botanist, humanist and physician of European fame. He is regarded as the founder of clinical teaching and of the modern academic hospital. His main achievement was to demonstrate the relation of symptoms to lesions...
  
   and the Flight from Reason in Medicine," in Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 74 (2000): pp. 221–240.

1999

• "Bernard Mandeville and the Therapy of the 'Clever Politician'," in Journal of the History of Ideas, 60 (1999): pp. 101–124.

1998

• "Closed Circles or Open Networks?: Communicating at a Distance During the Scientific Revolution" (with David Lux), History of Science, 36: pp. 179–211.

1997

• "From the Scientific Revolution to the Germ Theory," in Western Medicine: An Illustrated History, ed. Irvine Loudon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 80–101. [paperback ed. 2001.]

1996

• "Institutional Structures and Personal Belief in the London College of Physicians," in Religio Medici: Medicine and Religion in 17th-Century England, ed. Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham. Aldershot: Scolar Press, pp. 91–114.
• "Natural History and Seventeenth-Century Dutch and English Medicine," in The Task of Healing: Medicine, Religion and Gender in England and the Netherlands, 1450-1800, Hilary Marland and Margaret Pelling, eds. Rotterdam: Erasmus Publishing, pp. 253–270.
• "Physicians and Natural History," in Cultures of Natural History, ed. Nicholas Jardine, James Secord, and Emma Spary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 91–105.
• "The Moral Economy of Natural History and Medicine in the Dutch Golden Age," in Contemporary Explorations in the Culture of the Low Countries, William Z. Shetter and Inge Van der Cruysse, eds., Publications of the American Association of Netherlandic Studies, vol. 9. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America
  University Press of America
  University Press of America is an academic book publisher based in the United States. Part of the independent Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, it was founded in 1975 and boasts of having published "more than 10,000 academic, scholarly, and biographical titles in many disciplines"...
  
  , pp. 39–47.

1995

• "Medical Ethics, History of: IV. Europe: B. Renaissance and Enlightenment," in Encyclopedia of Bioethics, revised edition, Warren T. Reich, ed.. (New York: Macmillan
  Macmillan Publishers (United States)
  Macmillan Publishers USA, also known as Macmillan Publishing, is a privately held American publishing company owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than 30 others....
  
  , Vol. 3, pp. 1537–1543.

1994

• "Good Advice and Little Medicine: The Professional Authority of Early Modern English Physicians," in Journal of British Studies, 33: pp. 1–31.

1993

• "Medicine," in Encyclopedia of Social History, ed. Peter N. Stearns. New York: Garland, pp. 459–462.
• "The Cutting Edge of a Revolution? Medicine and Natural History near the Shores of the North Sea," in Renaissance and Revolution: Humanists, Scholars, Craftsmen and Natural Philosophers in Early Modern Europe, ed. J.V. Field and Frank A.J.L. James. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 45–61.

1992

• "The New Philosophy in the Low Countries," in The Scientific Revolution in National Context, ed. Roy Porter & M. Teich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 115-149.

1991

• "Physick and Natural History in Seventeenth-Century England," in Revolution and Continuity: Essays in the History of Philosophy of Early Modern Science, R. Ariew and P. Barker, eds. Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy, vol. 24 Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press
  Catholic University of America Press
  The Catholic University of America Press, also known as CUA Press, is the academic publishing house of the Catholic University of America. Founded on November 14, 1939, and incorporated on July 16, 1941, the Press is a founding member of the Association of American University Presses...
  
  , pp. 63–80.

1990

• "The New Philosophy and Medicine in Seventeenth-Century England," in Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution, ed. David Lindberg and Robert Westman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 397–436.
• "Sir John Colbatch and Augustan Medicine: Experimentalism, Character and Entrepreneurialism," in Annals of Science
  Annals of Science
  Annals of Science is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering the history of science and technology. It is published by Taylor & Francis and was established in 1936...
  
  , 47: pp. 475–505.
• "The Rose Case Reconsidered: Physic and the Law in Augustan England," in Journal of the History of Medicine, 45: pp. 527–555.
• "Practical Medicine and the British Armed Forces After the 'Glorious Revolution'," in Medical History, 34 (1990): 1-26.
• "Charles Webster's Analysis of Puritanism and Science,' in Puritanism and the Rise of Modern Science: The Merton Thesis, ed. I. Bernard Cohen. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press
  Rutgers University Press
  Rutgers University Press is a nonprofit academic publishing house, operating in Piscataway, New Jersey under the auspices of Rutgers University.-History:...
  
  , pp. 265-300.

1989

• "Policing the Health of London: The College of Physicians and the Early Stuart Monarchy," in Social History of Medicine, 2: pp. 1–33.
• "Physicians and the New Philosophy: Henry Stubbe and the Virtuosi-Physicians," in Medical Revolution in the 17th Century, Roger French and Andrew Wear eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 246–271.
• "The Medical Profession in London," in The Age of William III and Mary II: Power, Politics and Patronage, 1688-1702, Martha Hamilton-Phillips and Robert P. Maccubbin eds. Williamsburg: College of William and Mary
  College of William and Mary
  The College of William & Mary in Virginia is a public research university located in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States...
  
  , pp. 186–194.

1987

• "The Society of Chemical Physicians, the New Philosophy, and the Restoration Court," in Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 61: pp. 61–77.

1985

• "Against Common Right and Reason: The College of Physicians Against Dr. Thomas Bonham," in American Journal of Legal History, 29 : pp. 301–24.

1980

• "Early Research on the Biological Effects of Microwave Radiation, 1940-1960" (with Nicholas Steneck, Arthur Vander, and Gordon Kane), Annals of Science, 37 (1980): pp. 323–51.
• "The Origins of U.S. Safety Standards for Microwave Radiation" (with Nicholas Steneck, Arthur Vander, and Gordon Kane), Science, 248: pp. 1230–37.

1978

• "Ancient Wisdom, The Golden Age, and Atlantis: The New World in Sixteenth-Century Cosmography," in Terrae Incognitae, 10: pp. 25–43.

External links

• Wellcome Trust: Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL
• Yale University Press: Episode #6: podcast interview with Prof. Cook