An alchemical adept carrying the vase of Hermes, which is inscribed �Let us go to seek the nature of the four elements’; from Salomon Trismosin’s sixteenth-century �Splendor solis’, Wellcome Library, London
Illustrated lecture with Morbid Anatomy Museum Visiting Scholar in Residence Richard Barnett, Engagement Fellow at the Wellcome Trust, with cocktails by Ronni Thomas; Gin kindly provided by our sponsor Hendrick’s Gin
Date: Thursday, April 10
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $8
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
** Copies of Barnett’s book The Book of Gin will be available for sale and signing
Globalization, the consumer society, the Glorious Revolution – each was conceived in gin. In this talk, author of The Book of Gin and Morbid Anatomy Museum Visiting Scholar in Residence Richard Barnett will reveal the ways in which this fiery, mysterious spirit captured the imaginations of all kinds of early modern Europeans. We’ll meet gentlemen pursuing natural philosophy in their private closets, physicians seeking new medicines and restoratives, alchemists searching for the elixir of life, and (of course) distillers looking to make money from the basic, visceral human drive for intoxication. Why were two heady, symbolically–charged substances – juniper and spirit – brought together in the same glass? What adventures did they have before and after this union? And just how did gin come to be consumed in such vast quantities – for health, for pleasure and for the promise of immortality?
Dr Richard Barnett studied medicine in London before becoming a historian. He has taught the history of science, medicine and evolutionary theory at the universities of Cambridge and London, and now holds one of the first Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellowships. His first book, Medical London: City of Diseases, City of Cures, was published in 2008, and was a Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4, and his next book – The Sick Rose, on anatomy and art in an age of revolution – will be published by Thames & Hudson in the UK and DAP in the US in May. He received the 2006 Promis Prize for poetry, and has made many appearances on BBC television and radio. His writing has also appeared in the London Review of Books, the Lancet, Strange Attractor, and the Natural Death Handbook (fifth edition). You can find him online at sickcityproject.wordpress.com, and on Twitter @doctorbarnett.