Roy Porter

Roy Sydney Porter ( * December 31, 1946; † 3 March 2002) was a British historian who was particularly known for his contributions to the history of medicine.

Life

Porter grew up in London and attended Wilson 's School in Camberwell.

He won a scholarship to Christ's College, Cambridge University, where he studied under JH Plumb. Among his fellow students were, inter alia, Simon Schama and Andrew Wheatcroft. After an excellent first degree, he was a Junior Fellow in 1968, where he studied with Robert M. Young. 1972 Porter moved to the Churchill College as a tutor in history and was later Dean. He received his doctorate in 1974 with a thesis on the history of geology.

In 1979, Porter was a professor at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine. He became a professor of Social History 1993. The British Academy elected him a member in 1994. Porter was retired in September 2001 and died of a heart attack five months later. One of his last books was The Enlightenment ( engl. The Enlightenment ).

Porter was the author or editor of some 80 books. Besides medical history, the social history of the 18th century in the Kingdom of Great Britain and the era of the Enlightenment were favorite subjects of his research. He wrote and taught about the history of London.

Writings

• Fleeced and bled. A brief cultural history of medicine. German Christian DETOUX. Dörlemann Verlag, Zurich, 2004. ISBN 3-908777-06-2. Tb: Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-596-17136-9. .
• The Art of Healing, High 2007, ISBN 3867560714 (German first spectrum Verlag 2000 ).
• Madness. A small cultural history. German Christian DETOUX. Dörlemann Verlag, Zurich, 2005. ISBN 3-908777-06-2. Tb: Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-17137-8.
• (Ed., with WF Bynum ): Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine, Vol I. Routledge, London 1993, ISBN 0-415-04771-4.