About

Professor Vivian Nutton is a medical historian, specialising in the history of the classical tradition in medicine, from antiquity to the present. He is perhaps best known as a historian of the life, works and influence of Galen of Pergamum (129-ca. 216), but his research interests extend into broader areas of the history of medicine, and of the classical tradition in Europe and the Islamic world. Much of his recent work has also focused on the history of anatomy in the sixteenth century

He can be contacted at vivian@nutton.org.uk

Vivian studied classics at Selwyn College, Cambridge, progressing from his BA, MA and PhD to posts as Research Fellow, Lecturer, Director of Studies in Classics, before serving as Dean of the college. In 1977 he joined the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, where he became Professor of the History of Medicine in 1993. Between 1996 and 2000, he was the Head of Academic Unit of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine and, simultaneously, of the Sub-Department of the History of Medicine at UCL. Following his retirement in 2009, Vivian has continued to research and publish actively , From  2011 to 2013 he was an Honorary Professor in the Department of History, Department of Classics and Ancient History, with the Centre for the History of Medicine at the University of Warwick, and from 2013-2014 Professor of Classics (p/t). Since 2015 he has been Professor of the History of Medicine at the I. M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University.

His academic honours include:

Correspondant étranger, Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 2016

Honorary Fellow, Faculty of the History of Medicine and Pharmacy, Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, 2014

Honorary Fellow, Selwyn College, Cambridge, 2009
Fellow of the British Academy 2008
Hooker Distinguished Visiting Professor, McMaster University, 2007
Fellow, Studio Firmano per la Storia della Medicina, 2003
Member, Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (now Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften), 2002
Fellow, The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 2000
Member of the Academia Europaea, 2000
Honorary Fellow, The Royal College of Physicians of London, 1999
Visiting Professor, Russian Peoples' Friendship University, Moscow, 1998
Visiting Professor, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1998
Member, Académie internationale d'Histoire des Sciences, 1993
Corresponding Member, International Academy of the History of Medicine, 1985
Corresponding member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Medizin, Naturwissenschaften und Technik, 1983


He received a Médaille d'honneur from the University of Tours, in 1987, for his work on renaissance medicine; from the Pieter van Foreest Stichting, in 1997, for his services to Dutch medical history; and from the city of Forlì, in 2006, for his work on Girolamo Mercuriale.
Updated 23/10/2016