Two forthcoming talks in the Blackheath History Forum, on 7th October and 21st October, may be of particular interest to AANZEHN members. Peter Hobbins (University of Sydney) will be speaking on ‘Snakebite, science and suffering: serpents, dogs and doctors in colonial Australia’ on Saturday October 7th, and Grace Karskens will discuss ‘Recovering the Hawkesbury’s Vanished Places: Four River Stories’ on Saturday 21st October. All talks start at 4pm at the Blackheath Primary School Hall, Leichhardt St & GWH, Sydney.
Further information below and at: https://blackheathhistoryforum.org.au/2017-program/
October 7: PETER HOBBINS (University of Sydney)
Snakebite, science and suffering: serpents, dogs and doctors in colonial Australia
How do we know when a snake is dangerous? In nineteenth-century Australia, snakes were often deemed ‘venomous’, yet the basis for this purported ‘knowledge’ was rarely disclosed. From Aboriginal testimony to anatomical analogy, settlers, naturalists and doctors accepted a wide variety of evidence. Yet beyond snakebite cases in humans, the most potent testimony has been largely overlooked. From the very first years of white colonisation, imported animals died regularly following bites by indigenous serpents. Horses and oxen, sheep and cats, pigs and fowls proved regular casualties. While at first accidental, by the late 1840s these encounters were increasingly orchestrated. With dogs forming the vast majority of victims, itinerant antidote sellers and snake charmers regularly encouraged colonial audiences to enjoy the spectacle of envenomation. In forcing snakes to bite domesticated animals, these staged ‘experiments’ were intended to prove not only that a serpent’s venom was dangerous, but that the resultant animal suffering was directly applicable to humans. In this talk Peter Hobbins will argue that such ‘vivisection’ was both widespread and blatant across the Australian colonies, with doctors following rather than leading popular practice. Furthermore, he believes, the moral consequences for snakes, dogs and ‘scientific medicine’ were rarely healthy.
Dr Peter Hobbins trained as a pharmacologist and worked as a medical writer before undertaking a Masters and then a PhD in history at the University of Sydney. Focusing on science, technology and medicine, Peter has recently published two books. Written with archaeologists Ursula Frederick and Anne Clarke, Stories from the Sandstone is a public history work exploring the past of Sydney’s former Quarantine Station. In early 2017 Manchester University Press published Peter’s monograph, Venomous Encounters: Snakes, Vivisection and Scientific Medicine in Colonial Australia.
October 21: GRACE KARSKENS (University of NSW)
Recovering the Hawkesbury’s Vanished Places: Four River Stories
Grace is fascinated by lost places: the physical processes and politics by which one landscape succeeds another over time; the way we can read markers of earlier, phases in later landscapes; and the impacts these vast changes have on people. Her talk will present and discuss four elemental stories from her forthcoming book People of the River (Allen & Unwin), a history of Aboriginal and settler peoples on the Hawkesbury-Nepean River from deep time to about 1830. These stories sketch out new ways to understand people and country in early colonial Australia, exploring the profound power of the bush and the river in shaping human destiny and sense of place in this country.
Professor Grace Karskens is a historian, writer and teacher. She is a leading authority on early colonial Australia and teaches Australian history at the University of New South Wales. Her books include Inside the Rocks: The Archaeology of a Neighbourhood and the multi-award winning The Rocks: Life in Early Sydney. Her latest book, The Colony: A History of Early Sydney, won the 2010 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction and the US Urban History Association’s prize for Best Book 2010. Her next book is People of the River, a history of Aboriginal and settler peoples on the Hawkesbury-Nepean River from deep time to about 1830.
Image: Edward Wilson, Hereabouts he generally treads upon a small snake, c.1842-1878, State Library of Victoria.
