Oxford Centre for the History of Science, Medicine and Technology

The Oxford Centre for the History of Science, Medicine and Technology (HSMT) brings together research on the history of science, medicine, and technology across the University of Oxford.  Housed in the History Faculty, we are uniquely broad in our chronological and geographical expertise.  We cover HSMT from the ancient world to the modern era, and do so on a global scale.  We have particular expertise in the history of global and colonial medicine and in the history of science and technology from 1500 to 1900; we also include the world-renowned History of Science Museum. Oxford HSMT draws upon expertise in ancient science, medicine and technology; medieval natural philosophy and astronomy; early modern and Enlightenment science; the history of scientific instruments; historical interactions between religion and science; evolutionary and Malthusian theory; scientific racism and eugenics; accounts of mental illness in a comparative perspective; the history of epidemics; Islamic science; environmental history; the global history of science, medicine and technology; science, medicine, and war; and the nature of innovation in the modern medical sciences.  Our research probes the notion of knowledge itself, analysing how we have defined types and categories of knowledge and the historical processes that underlie knowledge formation.