Timeless spaces: Field experiments in the physiological study of circadian rhythms, 1938-1963.

In the middle of the twentieth century, physiologists interested in human biological rhythms undertook a series of field experiments in natural spaces that they believed could closely approximate conditions of biological timelessness. With the field of rhythms research was still largely on the fringes of the life sciences, natural spaces seemed to offer unique research opportunities beyond what was available to physiologists in laboratory spaces. In particular, subterranean caves and the High Arctic became archetypal 'natural laboratories' for the study of human circadian (daily) rhythms. This paper is explores the field experiments which occurred in these 'timeless spaces'. It considers how scientists understood these natural spaces as suitably 'timeless' for studying circadian rhythms and what their experimental practices can tell us about contemporary physiological notions of biological time, especially its relationship to 'environmentality' (Formosinho et al. in Stud History Philos Sci 91:148-158, 2022). In so doing, this paper adds to a growing literature on the interrelationship of field sites by demonstrating the ways that caves and the Arctic were connected by rhythms scientists. Finally, it will explore how the use of these particular spaces were not just scientific but also political - leveraging growing Cold War anxieties about nuclear fallout and the space race to bring greater prestige and funding to the study of circadian rhythms in its early years.

Rhythmic history: Towards a new research agenda for the history of health and medicine.

Rhythm characterizes life on Earth. Daily physiological rhythms of eating and fasting, sleeping and waking, moving and resting, are common to almost all life forms which evolved under the solar light-dark cycle. Despite their ubiquity, historians of health and medicine have yet to grapple with the lived experiences of these daily rhythms in the past. This paper presents a potential new research agenda in 'rhythmic history' that understands rhythmicity as something which lies between biology and culture. Thinking with rhythms offers exciting opportunities to unite previously disparate historical studies of daily rhythms like eating and sleeping and opens up a new way to view the enmeshed connections between body and environment. In this paper, I take inspiration from the scientific concept of the 'zeitgeber' ('time giver'), coined by the German chronobiologist Jürgen Aschoff, to frame a review of current literature relating to rhythms and explore Henry Lefebvre's notion of 'rhythmanalysis' as a methodological tool for historians undertaking 'rhythmic histories'.

'The Waste of Daylight': Rhythmicity, Workers' Health and Britain's Edwardian Daylight Saving Time Bills.

This article explores an interesting episode in the history of time, health, and modernity: Britain's 1908 and 1909 Daylight Saving Time (DST) Bills. While the original DST scheme was unsuccessful, the discussions surrounding its implementation reveal tensions central to early twentieth century modernity, namely between industrial time and 'natural' bodily rhythms. This article argues that DST was essentially a public health measure aimed at improving the conditions of indoor workers like shop girls and clerks through government regulation of the private time of the labouring classes. Drawing on the extensive evidence provided to two House of Commons Special Committees, this article reveals how DST debates drew together contemporary discussions around sunlight therapy, night work, and the importance of regular sleeping and eating to tackle Britain's endemic urban diseases like consumption and anaemia. I suggest that the idea of bodily rhythms was increasingly important in medical thinking in this period and that the study of rhythmicity points to the potential for incorporating temporality as an analytical category in medical history.

"Visceral Consciousness": The Gut-Brain Axis in Sleep and Sleeplessness in Britain and America, 1850-1914.

Sleeplessness was a quotidian yet challenging problem for medical practitioners in Britain and America in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While physiologists endeavored to unravel the secrets of sleep by examining the brain, in the clinic doctors looked to the gut as a site through which sleeplessness was both caused and cured. This article explores the gut-brain axis in medical literature on sleep and sleep loss in this period. It argues that despite the lack of a coherent understanding of the gut-brain connection, the digestive system was central to how physiologists and clinicians approached sleeplessness. It employs Victorian physician Joseph Mortimer Granville's (1833-1900) concept of "visceral consciousness" to better understand the varied and often contradictory explanatory constellations that emerged to elucidate the role of digestion in sleeplessness.

Sir Patrick Manson at home: 21 Queen Anne Street as a hybrid space.

Colonial physician and father of tropical medicine Sir Patrick Manson (1844-1922) is most closely associated with his research in China or teaching at the London School of Tropical Medicine, which he founded in 1899. This paper reconsiders Manson's life and work through a new spatial lens - that of his home at 21 Queen Anne Street. Drawing on glimpses of Manson's London house from his biographies and surviving archives, 21 Queen Anne Street is presented as a hybrid space - drawing together scientific, clinical and social networks and activities. Taking the form of a tour, this paper interrogates the internal divisions of the five-story building - focusing in particular on Manson's home laboratory, the 'muck room', and his consulting room. It explores how boundaries between spaces within the house were managed but also transgressed by Manson and his imperial family. It suggests the need to think more broadly about the spatial contexts of medical practice and research in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.