Centre of the History of Medicine in Ireland Research Seminars

Erwin H. Ackerknecht (1906-1988) was one of a deeply impressive group of physician-scholars who sought refuge in the US just before the Second World War. Many of these became associated with Johns Hopkins University and with the Bulletin of the History of Medicine. EHA was not Jewish, but left Germany because of his membership of far-left organisations, which he later abandoned. Like many refugees, EHA found it difficult to gain employment commensurate with his qualifications, and he ended his career in Zürich. EHA produced model studies of epidemic disease in America and therapeutics, but is generally best known for his book on the Paris hospital around 1800, and for a highly influential essay on anticontagionism which became the definitive reference for many wishing to indicate what is meant by the social history of medicine. This paper seeks to show that it is possible to challenge both EHA’s history and his historiography, at least in certain contexts. But the point can also be made that offering such challenge is not without risk.

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