Mona O'Brien

My research focuses on the social and medical histories of pandemic and epidemic diseases during the late medieval and early modern periods. A three-year doctoral scholarship from the Leverhulme Trust supported my PhD thesis (University of Glasgow, 2019): "Contagion, Morality, and Practicality: The French pox in Frankfurt am Main and Nuremberg, 1495-1700". Looking at municipal records, medical texts, and personal accounts, this project investigated how these communities reacted to and understood syphilis.

In 2019 I received the McCarthy Award for History of Medicine Research, Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, for my paper on Franzosenärzte (French pox doctors) in the city of Nuremberg. I am currently continuing my research on social and medical responses to pan/epidemic disease in Germany and the Franzosenärzte.