Roy Sydney Porter (31 December 1946 – 3 March 2002) was a British historian known for his work on the history of medicine. He retired in 2001 as the director of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine at University College London (UCL).

Life

Porter grew up in South London and attended Wilson's School in Camberwell. He won a scholarship to Christ's College, Cambridge, where he studied under J. H. Plumb. His contemporaries included Simon Schama and Andrew Wheatcroft. He achieved a double starred first and became a junior Fellow in 1968, studying under Robert M. Young and lecturing on the British Enlightenment. He was then appointed to the post of Assistant Lecturer in European History at Cambridge University and promoted to Lecturer in European History in 1977. He died of a heart attack five months later, while cycling.

He was known for the fact that he needed very little sleep.

Porter was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1994, and was made an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Works

Starting with the publishing of his PhD thesis, as The Making of Geology in 1977, Porter wrote or edited over 100 books, He is particularly notable for his work in the history of medicine, in pioneering an approach that focuses on patients rather than doctors. He also edited the journal History of Science for many years.

  • Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine (2003)
  • Flesh in the Age of Reason (2004)
  • The Cambridge History of Medicine (2006)
  • Madmen: A Social History of Madhouses, Mad-Doctors and Lunatics (2006)

On the Enlightenment

  • Edward Gibbon: Making History (London, 1988) ()
  • The Enlightenment (Basingstoke, 1990; 2001)
  • Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (London, 2000) ()
  • Published in the US as The Creation of the Modern World: The Untold Story of the British Enlightenment (New York, 2000) ()

On social history

  • English Society in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1982; Harmondsworth, 1990) ()
  • London: A Social History (London, 1994; 1996; 2000) ()
  • The Rise and Fall of London's Town Centres: Lessons for the Future (London, 1996) ()

History Today Articles

  • "Under the influence": mesmerism in England (September 1985)
  • The Rise and Fall of the Age of Miracles (November 1996)
  • Bethlam/Bedlam: Methods of Madness? (October 1997)
  • Reading is Bad for your Health (March 1998)
  • Matrix of modernity – Roy Porter discusses how the British Enlightenment paved the way for the creation of the modern world (April 2001)
  • The body politic: diseases and discourses – Roy Porter shows how 18th-century images of the medical profession flow over into the work of political caricaturists (October 2001)

Co-authored

  • Rape, with Sylvana Tomaselli (1986)
  • Patient's Progress: Doctors and Doctoring in Eighteenth-Century England, with Dorothy Porter (1989)
  • The Facts of Life: The Creation of Sexual Knowledge in Britain, 1650–1950, with Lesley A. Hall (1995)
  • Gout: The Patrician Malady, with G S Rousseau (1998)

As editor

  • The Ferment of Knowledge: Studies in the Historiography of Eighteenth-Century Science, with G S Rousseau (1980)
  • Dictionary of the History of Science, with W F Bynum and E J Browne (1981)
  • The Enlightenment in National Context, with Mikulás̆ Teich (1981)
  • Contributed essay, 'The Enlightenment in England'
  • The Anatomy of Madness: Essays in the History of Psychiatry, 3 volumes, with W F Bynum and Michael Shepherd (1985)
  • Volume I: People and Ideas – contributed essay 'The Hunger of Imagination: approaching Samuel Johnson's melancholy'
  • Revolution in History, with Mikulás̆ Teich (1986)
  • Contributed essay, 'The scientific revolution: a spoke in the wheel?'
  • Problems and Methods in the History of Medicine, with Andrew Wear (1987)
  • The Social History of Language, with Peter Burke (1987)
  • Drugs and Narcotics in History, with Mikulás̆ Teich (1988)
  • Romanticism in National Context, with Mikulás̆ Teich (1988)
  • Sexual Underworlds of the Enlightenment, with G S Rousseau (1988)
  • The Dialectics of Friendship, with Sylvana Tomaselli (1989)
  • The Hospital in History, with Lindsay Patricia Granshaw (1989)
  • Exoticism in the Enlightenment, with G S Rousseau (1989)
  • Fin de Siècle and its Legacy, with Mikulás̆ Teich (1990)
  • The Popularization of Medicine, 1650–1850 (1992)
  • The Renaissance in National Context, with Mikulás̆ Teich (1992)
  • The Scientific Revolution in National Context, with Mikulás̆ Teich (1992)
  • Consumption and the World of Goods, with John Brewer (1993)
  • Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine, with W F Bynum (1993)
  • A Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century World History, with Jeremy Black (1994)
  • The Biographical History of Scientists (1994)
  • Sexual Knowledge, Sexual Science: The History of Attitudes to Sexuality, with Mikulás̆ Teich (1994)
  • Inventing Human Science: Eighteenth-Century Domains, with Christopher Fox and Robert Wokler (1995)
  • Languages and Jargons: Contributions Towards the Social History of Language, with Peter Burke (1995)
  • Pleasure in the Eighteenth Century, with Marie Mulvey Roberts (1996)
  • Nature and Society in Historical Context, with Mikulás̆ Teich and Bo Gustafsson (1997)
  • From Physico-Theology to Bio-Technology: Essays in the Social and Cultural History of Biosciences, with Kurt Bayertz (1998)
  • Also contributed essay 'Gout and quackery; or, banks and mountebanks'
  • Toleration in Enlightenment Europe, with Ole Peter Grell (2000)
  • The Confinement of the Insane: International Perspectives, 1800–1965, with David Wright (2003)
  • Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations, with W F Bynum (2005)

Books about Roy Porter

  • Remembering Roy Porter (2002, The Wellcome Trust)
  • Medicine, Madness and Social History: Essays in Honour of Roy Porter (2007)

References

  • Roy Porter memorial and bibliography at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL website.
  • Roy Porter at The Guardian.