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Richard Bellis

@richardtbellis.bsky.social

Historian of anatomy, disease, and medical books. Associate Lecturer in Medical Humanities, Medical school, Uni of St Andrews. Support Chester FC and edit the fanzine The Blue & White.

5,546 Followers  |  430 Following  |  60 Posts  |  Joined: 23.08.2023  |  1.815

Latest posts by richardtbellis.bsky.social on Bluesky

RTing this for the historians/literature scholars of death who follow me. Superb

29.07.2025 10:12 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Finally, it analyses how data was consciously deployed by the eugenics society in their creation of 'facts' about the disabled and highlights the historical prominence given to these numbers and relative paucity of work on the disabled people who engaged with and set the agenda for eugenic research

29.07.2025 09:00 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 5    ๐Ÿ” 1    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Second, it highlights the role of disabled people as both consumers of and creators of eugenic propaganda by explorong letters sent to the eugenics society by disabled people which have not previously been considered in this context

29.07.2025 08:49 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 6    ๐Ÿ” 1    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

There are a few findings in this article that I think will be of broad interest. First, it shows that eugenic sterilisation did happen in 1930s Britain, despite the failure of the eugenics society to secure legislation for it.

29.07.2025 08:46 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 38    ๐Ÿ” 13    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 3    ๐Ÿ“Œ 2
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Gersonโ€™s Magic Bullet Why have so many rejected established cancer therapies for juice cocktails and coffee enemas?

ICYMI: In 2012, Jess Ainscough celebrated 2yrs of โ€œintense detoxification and nutritional treatmentโ€ via the Gerson therapy: โ€œCancer is something I will always manage with my clean lifestyle.โ€

Read my essay on quackery in @sciencehistory.org's Distillations

www.sciencehistory.org/stories/maga...

21.07.2025 08:42 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 22    ๐Ÿ” 5    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Congratulations!

17.07.2025 12:20 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Evaluating the impact of two decades of USAID interventions and projecting the effects of defunding on mortality up to 2030: a retrospective impact evaluation and forecasting analysis USAID funding has significantly contributed to the reduction in adult and child mortality across low-income and middle-income countries over the past two decades. Our estimates show that, unless the a...

Elon Musk casually, and illegally, dismantled USAID. According to a new study in the Lancet, that action will lead to *14 million* premature deaths between 2025 and 2030.

Again: Elon Musk is directly responsible for 14 million coming deaths. 4.5 million will be children.

02.07.2025 20:00 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 4587    ๐Ÿ” 2373    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 132    ๐Ÿ“Œ 208

people come up with all kinds of fanciful math to justify billionaires' wealth but imo present political moment demonstrates conclusively that we need to tax billionaires at whatever rate will keep them focused on their own fucking business rather than our Medicaid and pediatric cancer research

02.07.2025 15:34 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 6103    ๐Ÿ” 1630    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 90    ๐Ÿ“Œ 56

Academia.edu is running papers through AI to create โ€œpodcastsโ€ summarizing your work. So theyโ€™re feeding AI your work and the podcasts are utter horseshit as expected. Time to delete the old account.

27.06.2025 19:41 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 8    ๐Ÿ” 6    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Topic Collection: Visual Medical Humanities | Medical Humanities

Are you working in #VisualMedicalHumanities with a specific focus on art, anatomy and medicine? The BMJ Medical Humanities has just released this CFP for articles on "visuality in medical practice and history". Looking forward to seeing how this moves the field forward!

mh.bmj.com/pages/topic-...

24.06.2025 07:07 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 29    ๐Ÿ” 22    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Poster advertising an oral history project on South Asian Medical practitioners in Scotland. Please get in touch with monique.lerpiniere.2022@uni.strath.ac.uk if you know anyone who worked/studied in the medical field in Scotland who is of South Asian heritage.

Poster advertising an oral history project on South Asian Medical practitioners in Scotland. Please get in touch with monique.lerpiniere.2022@uni.strath.ac.uk if you know anyone who worked/studied in the medical field in Scotland who is of South Asian heritage.

My PhD student Monique Lerpiniere is looking for oral history participants for her @sgsah.bsky.social project on South Asian medical practitioners in Scotland. Please see the poster for info and share if you know anyone. Thank you! @rcpsgheritage.bsky.social @strathhumanities.bsky.social #histmed

30.05.2025 15:19 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 40    ๐Ÿ” 55    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Delighted to have a new article out with the superb Sally Frampton, Gina Hadley, @harbottlestores.bsky.social et al on current challenges facing medical humanities academics teaching in UK medical schools. Many opportunities but cohesion necessary for an effective future

doi.org/10.1007/s405...

02.06.2025 13:24 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 5    ๐Ÿ” 2    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

This story has repeated every year since the 90s: โ€œAt a conference last year, Robert Goldstein, the chief operating officer of BlackRock, the worldโ€™s biggest money manager, said โ€œWe have more and more conviction that we need people who majored in history, โ€ฆโ€

17.05.2025 13:04 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 193    ๐Ÿ” 44    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 7    ๐Ÿ“Œ 4

Fantastic thread. Nuanced - but still devastating - critique of Starmerโ€™s position on migration

15.05.2025 18:25 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 35    ๐Ÿ” 11    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2    ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
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Very happy to announce that the final conference of The Global War Against the Rat project, on the topic of Zoonosis as a Historical & Anthropological Question, will be taking place on June 16-17 (in-person only) - programme link here: wwrat.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/zoonosis-as-...

14.05.2025 13:26 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 18    ๐Ÿ” 4    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

This is the nub of it: a group of US billionaires, many explicitly hostile to UK democracy, have bet tens of billions of dollars on a business model that they now realise is flawed, and they are lobbying for a compulsory bailout from millions of UK citizens - through free access to our life's work.

14.05.2025 08:24 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 25    ๐Ÿ” 10    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

โ€œThe damage this has done to our country is incalculable.โ€ This sentence would feel right at home in some of the 1970s Monday Club/National Front material that I read for Imperial Island.

12.05.2025 10:18 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 265    ๐Ÿ” 73    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 9    ๐Ÿ“Œ 2

A Labour message could be "we're proud of Britain's top-class universities & we're going to make sure every penny goes on teaching & research. We stand for students & staff against the bosses".

Instead, it's "Farage is right: universities need a kicking. So we'll look a bit cross & hope that works"

06.05.2025 13:59 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 86    ๐Ÿ” 17    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 3    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Thackray Insights: Left for Dead - Thackray Museum of Medicine Taking place across our Autumn/Winter season, Thackray Insights invites you to delve deep into eyeยญ opening topics and explore the...

On Saturday I'll be in Leeds at the Thackray Museum of Medicine to discuss the history of human remains and their place in current collections. Do join if you can!
thackraymuseum.co.uk/event/thackr...

01.05.2025 14:03 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 9    ๐Ÿ” 5    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Thackray Insights: Left for Dead - Thackray Museum of Medicine Taking place across our Autumn/Winter season, Thackray Insights invites you to delve deep into eyeยญ opening topics and explore the...

On Saturday I'll be in Leeds at the Thackray Museum of Medicine to discuss the history of human remains and their place in current collections. Do join if you can!
thackraymuseum.co.uk/event/thackr...

01.05.2025 14:03 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 9    ๐Ÿ” 5    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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FT: #ChesterFC 2-1 Buxton FC.

๐—ช๐—ต๐—ฎ๐˜ ๐—ฎ ๐—ป๐—ถ๐—ด๐—ต๐˜ ๐—ฎ๐˜ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐——๐—ฒ๐˜ƒ๐—ฎ! ๐Ÿ•บ

We'll see you in Kidderminster, Seals. ๐Ÿ’™

#CFCBUX | #UTS

30.04.2025 21:46 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 23    ๐Ÿ” 6    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 3    ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
Post image Post image Post image Post image

This statement about the transphobic Supreme Court ruling by the UK's Crab Museum (yes a museum about crabs) is better than 99% of the statements I've seen on the topic

www.crabmuseum.org/visit

๐Ÿฆ€๐Ÿฆ€๐Ÿฆ€๐Ÿฆ€๐Ÿฆ€๐Ÿฆ€๐Ÿฆ€๐Ÿฆ€

22.04.2025 21:16 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 12828    ๐Ÿ” 5356    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 156    ๐Ÿ“Œ 283

๐ŸงตNOT BY ME, this is a post from someone who wants to remain anonymous but works extensively with trans people pre-transition. They were asked by someone โ€œwhy do you think thatโ€™s so much [coverage of trans people] in the news at the moment?โ€

This was their response:

20.04.2025 07:54 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1849    ๐Ÿ” 1037    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 50    ๐Ÿ“Œ 141

Quite cool to read in print an article I've written. Not exactly Oscar Wilde but hope people like it ๐Ÿšดโ€โ™‚๏ธ๐Ÿป๐Ÿ˜

17.04.2025 11:10 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 6    ๐Ÿ” 1    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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St Andrews Medical Humanities Network Inaugural Symposium: Conference Review Islay Shelbourne reports from the inaugural symposium of the newly established Medical Humanities Network at the University of St Andrews.

@islayshelbourne.bsky.social reports from the inaugural symposium of the newly formed Medical Humanities Network at the University of St Andrews, drawing out shared themes and methods across disciplines. Organised by @richardtbellis.bsky.social & Morven Shearer.

thepolyphony.org/2025/04/16/s...

16.04.2025 11:12 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 12    ๐Ÿ” 4    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 1

Trans women are women and no court judgement can change that. Without wanting to diminish the negative effect that legal oppression has on trans lives, there is no reason why lawyers and judges are qualified to make this argument over actual experts in the field.

16.04.2025 08:54 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 539    ๐Ÿ” 170    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 5    ๐Ÿ“Œ 3

Delighted with the win today. Made the 6 hour drive to Chester plus hour driving fanzines/my brother around all worth it! #coyb

12.04.2025 17:05 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 2    ๐Ÿ” 1    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Issue 38 In this issue: Profiles of Kevin Ellison, Frank Wrightson, and Bobby Hamilton Interview with Nick Phillipson on the Disabled Viewing Platform,...

Issue 38 is out tomorrow at the home game against Darlington.

We'll be selling the fanzine in the club shop and at the corner of the Harry Mac/east stand. It's still ยฃ2.

If you are going to miss us, you can pick a copy up here - theblueandwhitefanzine.bigcartel.com/product/issue-38

11.04.2025 10:42 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 1    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 2
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Agnes Callard and the Examined Life In her new book, Callard makes the case that we should all live more philosophically but where does politics fit in?

"The very first line of Open Socrates admonishes the reader, โ€œThere is a question you are avoiding.โ€ For Callard, that question is: Why are you living this way? But this only points to a host of questions that Callard herself avoids..."

me for @thenation.com

www.thenation.com/article/cult...

08.04.2025 13:26 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 357    ๐Ÿ” 73    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 20    ๐Ÿ“Œ 33
Bridging Fellow Click the link provided to see the complete job description.

We are recruiting! 3 Bridging Fellowships of 12 months for recent PhD graduates to develop research, ideas and connections in the @durhamimh.bsky.social Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities. Applications close 25 April durham.taleo.net/careersectio... Please share widely!

28.03.2025 09:48 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 26    ๐Ÿ” 20    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 3

@richardtbellis is following 20 prominent accounts