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Articles by Alison Bashford
What palmistry and medicine have always had in common
Signs of the future are marked in our hands, or so any palmist will declare. But do hands also hold signs of the past? Do they have a history? Over decades of research as a historian of medicine and of human bodies, I’d never imagined such a niche question. And then it was sparked in an instant, between one second and the next, in the time it takes to open a manila folder.
Our eloquent hands - Alison Bashford
Physicians reject palmistry as nonsense. But reading the creases of our palms for hidden meaning is what doctors have always done by Alison Bashford BIO Detail from Mok the lowland gorilla’s handprint, collected after his death, reprinted in The Human Hand (1942) by Charlotte Wolff.
Decoding the Hand: A History of Science, Medicine, and Magic
A lot of what, and who, we think we are as individuals and social beings is concentrated in our hands. When teaching the rhetorical trope of synecdoche to undergraduates, I always use the expression ‘give me a hand’ to illustrate the difference between figurative language and simple truth-telling. In Decoding the Hand, Alison Bashford is alive to the multiplicity of meanings held by these extremities. There are many stories to be told here, and Bashford tells them well.
Decoding the Hand
A History of Science, Medicine, and Magic The astonishing history of palmistry and biometrics—from occult physicians to the very foundations of modern science and medicine. Why did Isaac Newton read books on chiromancy, the occult science of hand reading that revealed the secrets of the soul? Why did Charles Darwin claim that the hand gave humans dominion over all other species?
Marathon Running Linked to Short-Term Brain Structure Changes
New research suggests that long-distance running triggers a temporary change in brain structure. Written byAlison Bashford Image credit:©iStock.com, paci77 Register for free to listen to this article Carlos Matute, a neuroscientist at the University of the Basque Country in Leioa, Spain, wasn’t just logging miles when he trained for marathons.
A stress-sensing circuit signals to the central pacemaker to reprogram circadian rhythms
Abstract The circadian system provides a temporal framework for animals to anticipate environmental events, including threats. However, the effects of stressors on the circadian system remain poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that, in mice, stressors shift the phase of the central pacemaker, housed in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), through glutamatergic inputs from the anterior paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (aPVT).
Dual Hypocretin Receptor Antagonism Reduces Oxycodone Seeking During Abstinence
Abstract A major barrier in the treatment of opioid use disorder is persistent drug craving during abstinence. While opioid-based medications have been used to treat opioid use disorder for decades, there is an urgent need for novel, non-opioid-based pharmacotherapies. The hypocretin/orexin (hypocretin) system is a promising target for treating opioid use disorder due to its influence on motivation for drugs of abuse through actions on dopamine transmission.
Maritime geographies and the borders of disease: Three historical precedents of quarantined vessels
Ayuda Buscar en la ayuda Buscar en la ayuda Maritime geographies and the borders of disease: Three historical precedents of quarantined vessels [1] University of New South Wales, Australia Localización: International journal of maritime history, ISSN 0843-8714, Vol. 37, Nº. 1, 2025, págs.
Washington Independent Review of Books
Bashford focuses her book on two members of the family: patriarch Thomas H. Huxley and his grandson Julian. From Thomas’ birth in 1825 (he died in 1895) to Julian’s death in 1975 (born in 1887), Bashford proposes “thinking of them as one long-lived man, 1825-1975, whose vital dates bookended the colossal shifts in world history.” Both were prolific, inquisitive, creative, provocative, and famous.
Evolutionary Links: What Great Apes Tell Us About Being Human
When we enter the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, with five million other visitors each year, we step simultaneously into the age of the dinosaurs and into the Victorian age. We inhabit a grand Romanesque hall successfully campaigned for by Richard Owen, still awed by the terrible lizards that he named, and that he had carefully boxed over from the British Museum collection in the early 1880s to the new site.
Climate, Politics and Procreation: Alison Bashford
In the third episode of a four-part series exploring the intersection of climate chaos and reproductive justice, Meehan Crist speaks to historian Alison Bashford. Alison discusses the history of efforts to control population size, how population is thought about in the Anthropocene, and how suspending critique of the past can give valuable insight into the present. This is the unabridged version of Meehan's discussion with Alison Bashford. Image: Detail from an etching by George Cruikshank.
The Huxleys: An Intimate History of Evolution
“The layers of Huxley introspection were endless,” writes historian Alison Bashford in her deftly crafted biography of this illustrious British family. Throughout The Huxleys: An Intimate History of Evolution, Bashford shows the impact of Huxley introspection on science, literature, religion, society, and one another for almost two centuries. Bashford focuses her book on two members of the family: patriarch Thomas H. Huxley and his grandson Julian.
Overpopulation isn't a threat
In the enduring thought game “Who would you host at a dinner party?”, three men sit at my table: the 21st-century’s Elon Musk and the 20th-century Huxley brothers, scientist Julian and writer Aldous. They would talk about Mars and whether humans should bother with it, about energy and its limits, about artificial intelligence and its possibilities. And they would talk about the future.
The Huxleys: a revolution in how we see ourselves
Across the 19th and 20th centuries, the Huxley family reshaped how we think about humanity and our relationship with the natural world. Within a family of scientists, educators, novelists, mystics, and filmmakers, two men led the way: ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’, the zoologist T.H. Huxley and his grandson and intellectual inheritor, the ecologist and conservationist, Julian Huxley.
An Intimate History of Evolution: The Story of the Huxley Family
In 1937, the evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley was contacted by a male fan who wanted more than an autograph. ‘Dear Sir,’ he wrote. ‘Would you consent to being the father of my wife’s child, possibly by artificial insemination?’ Most people would have baulked at such a request, even if the ‘possibly’ hinted that he might not have had to use a turkey baster, but it seems that Huxley took it in his stride.
Literary Review - September 2022 Issue
'By the middle of the 19th century, one Albert Smith ... was conducting a group on a real and rather perilous journey up Mont Blanc, complete with porters carrying quantities of food, alcohol and home remedies, including laudanum.' https://literaryreview.co.uk/from-mont-blanc-to-magaluf
Chimps and Bulldogs
Not everyone has a chimpanzee named after them. When the primate ethologist Jane Goodall called one of the troop she studied in Tanzania ‘Huxley’, it was an affectionate tribute to her colleague Julian Huxley, distinguished biologist and prominent popular science writer.
Recently Arrived New Books
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Myanmar: “Not doing something is itself a statement” • Hamish McDonald
Senior general Min Aung Hlaing is unlikely to be planning to shift any of his wealth into Australian shares or a Margaret River bolthole, or to export jade and rubies from his military-controlled mines. But even if he were, the Australian government’s leadfooted response to the coup he led on 1 February this year suggests he wouldn’t fall foul of sanctions.
Sea of islands • Alison Bashford
Voyagers: The Settlement of the Pacific By Nicholas Thomas | Head of Zeus | $35 | 228 pages If some hemispheres are mainly terrestrial continents with watery edges, the Pacific hemisphere is the inverse. Mainly water with tiny, scattered islands, it was famously and beautifully rendered by Tongan anthropologist Epeli Hauʻofa as a “sea of islands.” It is known best by its longstanding inhabitants, whose lives are shaped by its waters, its winds and its earthly and celestial bodies.
Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development
This essay considers the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley and his twentieth-century grandson Julian Huxley as cosmopolitans. Perhaps their foundational shared question was how to comprehend human unity and human difference, both biologically and politically; how to comprehend humans as one. Both Huxleys insisted on the singularity of the human species, but as evolutionary theorists insisted also on individual biological variation and distinction.
Cambridge Oceanic Histories
Skip to main content Accessibility help We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. Cambridge Oceanic Histories is intended as a key repository for the most innovative transnational and world histories over the longue durée.
Thinking historically about public health
Thinking historically about public health Alison Bashford1, Carolyn Strange2 1 Department of History, University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 2 Research School of Humanities, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Associate Professor Alison Bashford, Department of History, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia; Alison.bashford{at}arts.usyd.edu.au Abstract This paper argues that analysing past public health policies calls for scholarship that integrates insights not...
Quarantine and the imagining of the Australian nation
Armstrong, D. (1993). Public health spaces and the fabrication of identity . Sociology, 27, 393–410 . Google Scholar | SAGE Journals Bashford, A. (1998a). Purity and pollution: Gender, embodiment and Victorian medicine. Basingstoke: Macmillan . Google Scholar | Crossref Bashford, A. (1998b). Epidemic and governmentality: Smallpox in Sydney, 1881, unpublished paper. Google Scholar Beer, G. (1990). The island and the aeroplane: The case of Virginia Woolf. In H.K. Bhabha (Ed.), Nation and narration, pp. 265–290.
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