Professor John Carson

Like other scholars around the world, I was saddened and dismayed to learn of the planned closure of the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL. I spent two years at the Centre (when it was the Wellcome Institute) as a postdoc, and they proved critical to my intellectual development. Not only did I have the time and funds to explore my own research project, but I basically learned the history of medicine from scholars such as Roy Porter, Bill Bynum, Stephen Jacyna, Chris Lawrence, and many others. The Centre continues to be one of the leading institutions for the history of medicine and it is a terrible day for us all when such a place is closed.

I do urge the Wellcome Trust and UCL to reconsider their decision, and to continue to support
not just excellent research but excellent institutions that help train the next generation of historians of medicine.

John Carson
Associate Professor
Department of History
Director, Science, Technology & Society Program
University of Michigan