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Professor Holger Maehle, Dr.med, Dr.med.habil., Ph.D.

Contact Professor Holger Maehle

Biography

Andreas-Holger Maehle was born on 9 April 1957 in Siegen, Germany. He studied Medicine at the University of Bonn (1976-83), was awarded a Dr. med. (Bonn, 1983), served as a military medical officer (1983-84) and was an assistant at the Institute for the History of Medicine, University of Göttingen (1984-1990). He received his habilitation and venia legendi in History of Medicine with the Medical Faculty, Göttingen (1990) and served as Lecturer in History of Medicine, University of Göttingen (1990-91). Moving to England, he was a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, University College London (1991-94) and a Wellcome Trust University Award Holder and Research Fellow at Durham University (1994-96). He received his Ph.D. from University College London in 1996 and went on to be Reader in History of Medicine, Durham University (1996-2000). Since 2000 he has been Professor of History of Medicine and Medical Ethics, Department of Philosophy, Durham University, and since 2001 in addition Director of the Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease, Wolfson Research Institute, Durham University. He serves on the advisory boards of the journals Medicine Studies and Gesnerus and is a member of the editorial boards of the journals Notes and Records of the Royal Society and Medical History. He is a Member of the American Association for the History of Medicine and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. He is the author of 4 monographs: 'Johann Jakob Wepfer (1620-1695) als Toxikologe' (Verlag Sauerlaender 1987), 'Kritik und Verteidigung des Tierversuchs: Die Anfaenge der Diskussion im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert' (Franz Steiner Verlag 1992), 'Drugs on Trial: Experimental Pharmacology and Therapeutic Innovation in the Eighteenth Century' (Rodopi 1999), and 'Doctors, Honour and the Law: Medical Ethics in Imperial Germany (Palgrave Macmillan 2009). With Cay Pruell and Robert Halliwell he co-authored 'A Short History of the Drug Receptor Concept' (Palgrave Macmillan 2009), and with Lutz Sauerteig he recently edited a special issue of Medical History (vol. 56/2, 2012) on Albert Moll.

His current research is on 19th- and 20th-century medical ethics, in particular medical confidentiality and patient privacy.

He would be happy to supervise new PhD students who would like to do research on topics in the history of medicine and medical ethics. 

Research Groups

Department of Philosophy

• History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine

Medicine, Pharmacy and Health, School of

• Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease

Research Projects

Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease

• Law and Ethics in the Issue of Medical Confidentiality in England and Germany, 1871-1933
• The Impact of the Receptor Concept

Research Interests

• Ethical issues in the history of medicine
• History of medicine and the life sciences
• History of pharmacology
• History of stem cell research

Teaching Areas

• Biomedical Ethics Past and Present (33 hours/year.)
• Ethics, Medicine & History (14 hours/year.)
• History & Theory of Medicine (22 hours/year.)

Selected Publications

Books: authored

• Pruell, C.-R., Maehle, A.-H. & Halliwell, R. F. (2009). A Short History of the Drug Receptor Concept. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Maehle, Andreas-Holger (2009). Doctors, Honour and the Law: Medical Ethics in Imperial Germany. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Books: edited

• Maehle AH & Geyer-Kordesch J (2002). Historical and Philosophical Perspectives on Biomedical Ethics. From Paternalism to Autonomy?. Ashgate Studies in Applied Ethics. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate.

Books: sections

• Maehle AH (2002). The Emergence of Medical Professional Ethics in Germany. In Historical and Philosophical Perspectives on Biomedical Ethics. From Paternalism to Autonomy?. Maehle AH & Geyer-Kordesch J Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate. 37-48.
• Maehle, AH (2001). Zwischen medizinischem Paternalismus und Patientenautonomie: Albert Molls ‘Aerztliche Ethik’ (1902) im historischen Kontext. In Medizingeschichte und Medizinethik. Kontroversen und Begruendungsansaetze 1900-1950. Frewer, A & Neumann, JN Frankfurt and New York: Campus Verlag. 44-56.

Edited works: journals

• Maehle, Andreas-Holger & Sauerteig, Lutz (2012). Sexology, Medical Ethics and Occultism: Albert Moll in Context. Medical History, 56 (2): Cambridge University Press.

Essays in edited volumes

• Maehle, Andreas-Holger. (2011). Medical Ethics and the Law. In The Oxford Handbook of the History of Medicine. Jackson, Mark. Oxford University Press. 543-560.
• Maehle, A H (2010). Eine Kultur der Ehre: Ärztliche Berufsethik im Deutschen Kaiserreich zwischen Moral und Recht. In Ärztliches Ethos im Kontext: Historische, phänomenologische und didaktische Analysen. Bruchhausen, W & Hofer, H G Bonn: Bonn University Press. 59-73.
• Maehle, Andreas-Holger. & Troehler, Ulrich. (2009). The Discourses of Practitioners in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Germany. In The Cambridge World History of Medical Ethics. Baker, Robert B. & McCullough, Laurence B. Cambridge University Press. 432-438.
• Maehle, Andreas-Holger. (2009). The Ethics of Experimenting on Animal Subjects. In The Cambridge World History of Medical Ethics. Baker, Robert B. & McCullough, Laurence B. Cambridge University Press. 552-557.

Journal papers: academic

• Maehle, Andreas-Holger (2014). The powers of suggestion: Albert Moll and the debate on hypnosis. History of Psychiatry 25(1): 3-19.
• Maehle, Andreas-Holger (2013). Four early clinical studies to assess the effects of Peruvian bark. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 106(4): 150-155.
• Maehle, Andreas-Holger (2012). 'God's Ethicist': Albert Moll and His Medical Ethics in Theory and Practice. Medical History 56(2): 217-236.
• Maehle, Andreas-Holger. (2011). Ambiguous cells: the emergence of the stem cell concept in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Notes and Records of the Royal Society 65(4): 359-378.
• Maehle, AH (2011). Doctors in Court, Honour, and Professional Ethics: Two Scandals in Imperial Germany. Gesnerus 68(1): 61-79.
• Maehle, A H (2010). 'Patient trade' in Germany: an ethical issue at the practitioner-clinician interface in 1909 and 2009. Medical Humanities 36(2): 84-87.
• Maehle, Andreas-Holger & Pranghofer, Sebastian (2010). Medical confidentiality in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: an Anglo-German comparison. Medizinhistorisches Journal 45(2): 189-221.
• Maehle, AH (2009). A binding question: the evolution of the receptor concept. Endeavour 33(4): 134-139.
• Pranghofer, S. & Maehle, A.-H. (2006). Limits of professional secrecy: medical confidentiality in England and Germany in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 31(3): 231-244.
• Maehle AH (2005). The Quantification and Differentiation of the Drug Receptor Theory, c. 1910-1960. Annals of Science 62(4): 479-500.
• Maehle AH (2004). 'Receptive Substances': John Newport Langley (1852-1925) and his Path to a Receptor Theory of Drug Action *. Medical History 48(2): 153-174.
• Maehle AH (2004). Historische Grundlagen des Rezeptor-Konzepts in der Pharmakologie *. Gesnerus Swiss Journal of the History of Medicine and Sciences 61(1 / 2): 57-76.
• Maehle, AH (2003). Aerztlicher Eingriff und Koerperverletzung: Zu den historisch-rechtlichen Wurzelln des Informed Consent in der Chirurgie, 1892-1940. Wuerzburger medizinhistorische Mitteilungen 22: 178-187.
• Pruell, CR, Maehle, AH & Halliwell, RF (2003). Drugs and Cells – Pioneering the Concept of Receptors. Pharmacy in History 45(1): 18-30.
• Maehle, AH (2003). Protecting Patient Privacy or Serving Public Interests? Challenges to Medical Confidentiality in Imperial Germany. Social History of Medicine 16(3): 383-401.
• Maehle, AH, Pruell, CR & Halliwell, RF (2002). The Emergence of the Drug Receptor Theory. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 1(8): 637-641.

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Selected Grants