Life of medical pioneer celebrated in new book
The remarkable life of a 20th-century woman, dedicated to advances in medicine and social justice, has been captured in a new book published by the University of Chester Press.
Bloomsbury, Belsen, Oxford: Janet Vaughan – Medical Pioneer by Sheena Evans tells the story of a woman of huge energy and passion. As a doctor, medical researcher and social and educational reformer, Janet Vaughan aimed to relieve suffering and to enable people – especially women – to develop and use their talents. When young, married, living in Bloomsbury and building a career in haematology despite the barriers faced by women in medicine and science, she inspired Virginia Woolf in her writing of A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas. At the same time, her work for Spanish Medical Aid and membership of the Communist Party put her on the Nazi ‘black list’, destined to be executed in the event of a successful invasion of Great Britain.
During the Second World War, Janet Vaughan established and ran the busiest of London’s emergency blood transfusion depots while serving on groups looking at the reform of medical education in preparation for the NHS, as well as the Royal Commission on Equal Pay; and finally making a harrowing trip to the Belsen concentration camp to test a treatment for starvation.
Moving to Oxford after the war as Principal of Somerville College, she continued with research, becoming a leading authority on the effects of radiation on bone. She was eminent within the university in scientific and medical matters, and hugely influential more widely through her work for the Royal College of Physicians, the Nuffield Foundation and the University Grants Committee. Her influence in scientific and educational fields continued after retirement. After her death in 1993, Sir Raymond Hoffenberg, former head of the Royal College of Physicians and president of Oxford’s Wolfson College, called her ‘unquestionably one of the great figures of medicine of this century’.
Sheena Evans first heard of Janet Vaughan when she saw her interviewed as one of six Women of Our Century on the BBC in 1984, going on to spend around 20 years researching Vaughan’s fascinating life. She says: “The biography is a rounded one, which tries to cover at least the central fields of her activity and convey her character, including its flaws. She taught her children that ‘people come first’ and lived out her own precept with all her formidable energy and talents. The result is, I believe, an engrossing story, which deserves to be properly and accurately told.”
Sheena will give a free public talk about Janet Vaughan and the book at the University’s Festival of Ideas on Thursday, July 4 at 3pm. To find out more and book a place visit here.
Dr Pat Thane, Visiting Professor in History at Birkbeck College London, adds: “Janet Vaughan made pioneering, profoundly significant, contributions to medical research and health: discovering the causes of anaemia, the effects of malnutrition, inventing the blood transfusion service in World War 2, revealing the dire effects of plutonium following atomic events. At a time when there were few women in medicine, even fewer mothers like Vaughan, and they suffered extreme discrimination. She actively and effectively promoted women’s rights in medicine and more widely for equal pay, maternity rights and opportunities, including as Principal of an Oxford women’s college for 22 years. While in public roles she improved medical and other services in Britain and elsewhere, becoming internationally famous and respected. Men who achieve far less become public heroes.”
The book can be purchased directly from the publisher (www.chester.ac.uk/university-press) and booksellers and distributors. The ebook version will be available through Google Play and library collections including EBSCO, Ebook Central and Gardners.