Envisioning Migraine and the Migraineur , c. 1873 2004. (360G-Wellcome-091650_Z_10_Z)

This research is based on in-depth analysis of diverse archives and published sources relating to migraine in key periods between 1873 - 2004. The project incorporates public engagement, will generate three research articles, and culminate in an accessible book of interest to an audience of historians, medical professionals and migraineurs . In one sense this is a classic medical history: grounded in archival historical analysis, it will trace a disorder whose history is often currently unde rstood only in terms of retrospective neurological diagnosis of famous sufferers. However, by applying methodological insights from medical history, as well as sociology of health and phenomenology, the project s goal is much more than a corrective biography of a disease. Migraine straddles an unstable division between acute and chronic disorder: this project will reveal that its history encompasses important switches in class and gender; plays an important role in contemporary pharmaceutical history, and has a significant contribution to make to our historical understanding of chronic diseases and their sufferers as they come to dominate the health agenda.