Investigating HIV/AIDs

We were sorry to note recently the death of Tony Coxon, who was the principal investigator of Project SIGMA, a major longitudinal study of gay men and HIV/Aids which informed government and World Health Organisation policies at the height of the epidemic. 

The Wellcome Library holds microfiche copies of the anonymised diaries of sexual behaviour kept by gay and bisexual men, 1987-1994, in connection with this study, along with some associated documentation. These were described at more length in the post announcing that the collection had been catalogued early last year. The importance of the diary method for obtaining information on actual practices of men having sex with men is described on the Project SIGMA website. This kind of detail is essential to developing strategies of education and prevention.

Alan Turing and the Ratio Club

Last week Alan Turing (1912-1954) was in the news when the government rejected an e-petition to grant him a posthumous pardon for his conviction for 'gross indecency' in 1952, as a result of which he was subjected to debilitating experimental hormonal 'treatment' and eventually committed suicide by cyanide.

Given Turing's fields of interest, mathematics and computational science, it might not be expected that there would be anything about him among the archival collections in the Wellcome Library: but in fact in the autumn of 1949 the neurophysiologist John A V Bates, whose papers we hold, invited him to join an interdisciplinary dining club, known as the Ratio Club, consisting half of biologists (mainly neurophysiologists) and half of engineers and mathematicians, all with a common interest in developments in cybernetics (Bates to Turing, 22 Sep 1949, GC/179/B.2).

Turing declared himself 'honoured' at the invitation, although, since he was based in Manchester and the club met in London, he was 'unlikely to be able to attend many meetings' (Turing to Bates, 9 Oct 1949, GC/179/B.3).

The Club files include a draft of Bates' letter to Turing's mother on hearing the news of his death:

Alan used to come to our meetings when he could. Whenever he spoke he added something original, and he did it with much humour and authority. We have altogether the happiest memories of his visits, and we are very upset that we shall not see him again.

I have been asked at the meeting this evening, to write and tell you of our feeling of great personal loss, and of our profound sympathy with yourself and the rest of his family in bearing the burden of this tragedy. (Bates to Mrs Turing, draft, 17 Jun 1954, GC/179/B.17)

There is a handwritten letter of response from Mrs Turing, expressing her belief that her son's death was due to 'misadventure' (E Sara Turing to Bates, 7 Jul 1954, GC/179/B.17), as well as a copy of the printed circular that she sent round, arguing that he had got the cyanide on his fingers whilst performing an experiment and transferred this accidentally to the apple he then ate (printed circular, Jun 1954, GC/179/B.24). She wrote subsequently to Bates asking if he, and any other friends and colleagues, could contribute any letters, information or anecdotes for the biography of Alan she was writing (E Sara Turing to Bates, 12 Nov 1956, GC/179/B.24).

Out in the World

Last Sunday saw the start of a new series on BBC Radio 3, Out in the World - A Global Gay History. Here's the details from the programme's website:

Richard Coles embarks on an excavation of same sex desire through the ages, starting with the modern construction of gay identity and its links with the ancient world.

Across four programmes and a range of investigations which reach from the UK to India, Egypt, Greece and Native America, Richard discovers a far more complex and nuanced story than one of darkness into light.

The first episode featured Coles visiting the Wellcome Library to speak to Senior Archivist Dr Lesley Hall, to discuss the work of pioneering sexologists from the late 19th century. Their dialogue partly focuses around Richard von Krafft-Ebing - whose papers are held here - and includes a discussion of the image that accompanies this post.

The first episode of Out in the World is available for listeners in the UK until Sunday 25th September, through the BBC iPlayer.

Image: Photograph of a man with a moustache dressed in women's clothing (PP/KEB/E/6)

Archives and Manuscripts cataloguing: January 2011

A new year, and more new material made available for research. During January, nearly four hundred new database records were created for archive material, one hundred and fifteen becoming visible online during that month. As the disparity in numbers indicates, much work went on behind the scenes on collections that are not yet ready for release but which will appear in their entirety in due course. (And, as has been noted before, outside the database retroconversion work continues on the catalogue of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists (SA/CSP).)

Two complete collections were made available this month (and described in a recent blog post): they comprise data gathered by ESDS [Economic and Social Data Service] Qualidata at the University of Essex, which acquires digital data created during the course of qualitative research across a wide range of social science disciplines.

'AIDS-relevant cognitions in Dundee and Kirkaldy' (GC/252), consisting of transcripts and tapes of interviews with children and students in those towns, 1988-1990, to elicit their understanding of AIDS and their attitudes towards it.

'Project SIGMA (Socio-sexual Investigations of Gay Men and Aids)' (GC/260), meanwhile, is mostly made up of microfiche copies of anonymised diaries in which gay and bisexual men recorded their sexual behaviour during 1987-1994. The diarists recorded any sexual activities every day for a month – details including partner/s involved, day, time and setting, and the precise details of what happened to whom in what order.

Both these collections of course document material that is potentially highly controversial. Controversy stalks another figure in this month’s statistics: MS.8758 comprises a letter by Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (1721-1765), ordering the release of funds to an army surgeon under Cumberland’s command in the Low Countries. “Butcher” Cumberland, second son of George II, is of course still a highly controversial figure for his role in the 1745-6 Jacobite rising, in which the Jacobites were killed in huge numbers at the Battle of Culloden and captured stragglers were subjected by Cumberland to “military execution” or extra-judicial shooting.

Maybe our most significant cataloguing highlight, however, is one that is still invisible: the final tranche of our catalogue of the papers of Francis Crick (PP/CRI) will be released in the next month and considerable work is going on behind the scenes to prepare this, both physically (boxing up the material in appropriate, acid-free containers) and intellectually (over 900 database records requiring fine-tuning). There will be more to report on this in the next cataloguing summary, a month from now.

Image: a detail from MS.8758, showing the flowing hand of an Army clerk and the slightly less fluent signature of the Duke of Cumberland.

Investigating responses to AIDS in the late 1980s

Two small archive collections that have just been made available provide rather different insights as to the impact of the AIDS/HIV epidemic on different populations in the UK by the end of the 1980s, the decade in which it first became perceived as a problem and pervasively associated with gay men. These collections were both received from ESDS [Economic and Social Data Service] Qualidata at the University of Essex, which acquires digital data created during the course of qualitative research across a wide range of social science disciplines, and passed on the non-digital materials generated by these projects to the Wellcome Library.

GC/252, 'AIDS-relevant cognitions in Dundee and Kirkaldy', consists of transcripts and some tapes of semi-structured anonymised interviews conducted with school children and university students in those towns, 1988-1990. These were intended to elicit their understanding of AIDS and their attitudes towards it.

GC/260, 'Project SIGMA (Socio-sexual Investigations of Gay Men and Aids)', consists of microfiche copies of anonymised diaries (only age and occupation were recorded) of sexual behaviour kept by gay and bisexual men, in connection with this longitudinal survey conducted 1987-1994, along with some associated documentation. The diaries were developed as a method within Project SIGMA (which was supported by grants from the Medical Research Council, the Economic and Social Research Council, and the Department of Health) to provide unique and detailed information about gay and bisexual men's sexual activity and the contexts within which it occurred. Diary keepers were asked to keep a diary on a daily basis for the period of a month, referring not only to the partner/s involved but also to the day, time and setting in which the sexual activity occurred. The data give information on the sequence in which things happened, on the roles (solo/active/passive/mutual) taken. If ejaculation occurred, its destination (in/on a partner, into a condom) was also noted. Any use of toys, "poppers", drugs etc. were recorded in the context in which they were used. Recall biases were lessened because diaries were filled out on a daily basis. Further information of Project Sigma and the sexual diaries as a research method can be found at its website.

These collections add to the already significant holdings in the Wellcome Library relating to AIDS/HIV and the medical and social responses. There is a substantial collection of AIDS ephemera, and a very large collection of public health posters from all over the world, most of which have been digitised and can be seen in Wellcome Images