Month: January 2018

Jenner’s vaccination against smallpox and medical advances of the 18th century

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In 18th-century Europe, smallpox, commonly known as the “speckled monster”, affected all levels of society: from the elite to the poor. Jenner’s vaccination against smallpox radically changed public health in England and laid the foundations of modern immunology.

At age 13, Edward Jenner was apprenticed to a country surgeon and apothecary near Bristol. There, he learned that dairymaids never had smallpox after suffering from cowpox. Ten years later, whilst practicing medicine, he pondered the phenomenon of smallpox-resistant dairymaids and concluded that exposure to cowpox protected the dairymaids against smallpox and that this immunity could be transmitted from one person to another. He decided to investigate further. In May 1796, Jenner inoculated cowpox lesions from a sick dairymaid, and placed it in an 8-year-old boy. The boy fell sick but recovered after 10 days. Then, Jenner inoculated the boy with smallpox lesions and no smallpox developed. The boy was immune to smallpox.

After this major discovery, Jenner encouraged all people to get vaccinated and even built a hut beside his house to vaccinate the poor for free. His vaccination program was so significant to the public health initiative that poor law officials almost immediately adopted Jenner’s method to vaccinate the poor. “Pest houses” were often erected adjacent to the workhouses to contain the poor that were either afflicted by smallpox or had just received the vaccination. By 1800, most European countries adopted vaccination practices. Ultimately, Jenner’s push to vaccinate all people emphasized the need for more public health and social welfare initiatives in England.

 

Sources:

Stefan Riedel, “Edward Jenner and the history of smallpox and vaccination,” Proceedings (Baylor University Medical Center) 18 (January 2005): 21-25.

Higginbotham, Peter. “Loddon and Clavering, Norfolk.” Accessed January 21, 2018. http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Loddon/

Passage of the Slave Trade Act

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For roughly 200 years, from the middle of the 17th century to 1807, Britain was heavily involved in the trade of slaves from Africa to its colonies in the Caribbean and America. During this time, British slave traders transported approximately 3.1 million Africans to the Caribbean and Americas, 2.7 million of whom survived the gruesome middle passage. The 18th century abolition movement in Britain, a popular response to atrocities of the slave trade, was based on the same Enlightenment and Protestant principles that informed discussion of reform of the English poor laws.

The movement emerged in the 18th century with such early abolitionists as Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce, and Josiah Wedgewood, and gained momentum towards the end of the century. Many of those who supported the movement at its height were white women, including Mary Birkett, Hannah More and Mary Wollstonecraft, as well as many working and middle-class women. Olaudah Equiano, a former slave who had bought his freedom, published an autobiography which described the horrors he had endured as a slave. This autobiography brought more attention to the abolitionist movement, as did the involvement and contributions of other Africans.

The Abolition of Slave Trade Act was passed in 1807 and officially banned involvement of any British ship in the trade of slaves. Scholars argue British Enlightenment thought and Protestant religious values, by inspiring widespread critiques of slavery, drove the abolitionist movement in Britain. Quakers, Evangelists, and Rational Dissenters are cited as the most vocal religious groups in the movement.

Page, Anthony. “Rational Dissent, Enlightenment, and Abolition of the British Slave Trade.” The Historical Journal 54, no. 3 (2011): 741-72. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23017270.

“Abolition of Slavery.” The National Archives. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/slavery/. (Accessed January 20th, 2018)

Ali, Linda, and Siblon, John. “Abolition of the Slave Trade.” Black Presence: Asian and Black History in Britian, 1500-1850. The National Archives. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/rights/abolition.htm. (Accessed January 20th, 2018)

Discussion of Drama in the Delta

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The discussion on authenticity and accuracy in Drama in the Delta demonstrated how complex the issues of representation are in creating and designing video games and other digital media to capture historical memories. Drama in the Delta is a game wrought with racial tensions, making it that much more difficult to represent in a non-problematic way. The game uses real-world documents and images to explain the virtual world and the author of the article discussed how the prototype of the game came across as telling the reality versus allowing the player to experience and engage with it. In a scenario such as with this game, the world references a very traumatic time in our collective memory. Therefore, this game must be extra sensitive to how it represents this world.

Although the design of the prototype is more “telling” than “experiencing”, “telling” allows for greater control and accuracy in the representation of the time period. However, you then lose the greater emotional connection to the game and that moment in history. Just as with historical fiction in literature, we cannot take the narrative of the game as a completely accurate representation of the past. In video games it is important to represent the time period as accurately as possible and with as little bias as possible, but allowing the narrative to depart from exact reality can foster deeper understandings of the systems of racism during that era. The important thing to note is that these games must not claim to be completely historically accurate, but rather a single informed perspective on the time period. These games are important in forming emotional and deep connections to history.

 

Response to “Discussion: Historical Accuracy and Historical Video Games?”

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In my classes so far, I’ve had many discussions over the “historical accuracy” of a variety of mediums, spanning from the musical Hamilton in a history class, to the movie Gladiator and other movies and TV shows based on the Romans in a classics course. There’s a reason my professors created space in their very limited time frame  to touch on modern depictions of the past. While a “fun” assignment, it also lead to engaging discussions on modern portrayals of historical events, the historical narrative it follows and/or undermines, and benefits and drawbacks of having something not entirely historically accurate consumed by a wider audience who is not necessarily aware of how accurate it is or isn’t.

One of the takeaway from these discussions tends to be that regardless of historical accuracy, the story is still valuable to the public because it engages people, leaving those who want to learn more a reference point to see what things are historically plausible and what was artistic liberty etc. It’s foolish and a bit patronizing to assume that the audience to these stories aren’t aware that liberties were very likely taken. It’s historical fiction, as you say, and games and/or narratives that approach their historical setting should be regarded as such.

Historically Authentic Ethics in Video Games

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An enormous challenge in creating a historically authentic video game is simulating the contemporary ethics and value system. When the game is set in a historically traumatic situation, the stakes are even higher. A conscientious developer must represent a person’s available choices and their consequences, forcing the player to use an unfamiliar ethics system. Yet, the developer must preserve the player-character’s agency to engage the player.

 

The ethics system is foregrounded in Crusader Kings II, as reviewer Peter Christiansen notes. I was particularly fascinated by the nuanced way the developers incorporated the seven sins and virtues, enriching the immersive experience and educational value. However, you play a head of household: the epitome of traditional history. What might happen if developers explored history from below? How would a peasant’s available choices fit into the game’s ethical framework?

 

Verdun and Drama in the Delta focus on less enfranchised characters. In Verdun, a World War I soldier dies for rushing out of the trenches alone and, conversely, a squad does better after playing together for longer. This teaches the player to work together and shun personal glory, as trench warfare did. According to Mark Sample’s review, Drama in the Delta restricts the player’s path, but the historical situation provides ample opportunities to simulate agency within a restrictive society. Hopefully these developers rise to the imaginative challenge of refining the games’ ethics systems as much as Crusader Kings II in order to deepen players’ experience of being a traditionally disenfranchised actor.

Expectations of Historical Games

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In many RPG’s I’ve played, actions taken by players can and will often times influence the way in which players will experience the game. Often times the outcome may be the similar or even the same, but the players path towards that eventual ending, will be different. One thing that I will say is that video games often do provide a great insight to tone, mood, and nature of historical events. Often times game developers care deeply about the way in which the game develops its storyline as well as the way in which the players interact with the game. In the case of historical video games, developers have to balance between an accurate historical narrative and an appealing game in which players enjoy the content of the game and are willing to make the purchase. In the industry developers are expected to create an immersive, user friendly game that appeals to a variety of gamers and to expect a video game to contain 100% historical accuracy is not very fair. Other mediums such as literature or historical films should be expected to contain historical accuracy, but perhaps not video games. Of course, relative accuracy is still important as a historical video game should contain much of the authentic history McCall and Chapman discuss.

Considerations for Historic Games

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This post is in response to McCall and Chapman’s blog post.

I agree with the sentiments raised by McCall and Chapman, namely that video games cannot be “historically accurate” or “historically authentic” but can still be valuable by creating discussion around the historic events they depict as well as their representations of history. These arguments make sense given the examples of games McCall and Chapman mention (Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty, and Civilization), but I think that by graying the lines between games and simulations we can come to a better historical experience. The primary purpose of AAA games is not to provide an immersive historical experience but rather to provide entertainment. Thus, whenever a design decision comes up in which developers must decide between historical accuracy and playability, they will tend to choose the later. McCall and Chapman mention that the more freedom the player has, the less constrained the game must be and so the harder it is to ensure historical accuracy. I want to push back on this a bit by posing the scenario of a historic open-world game. A game of this type would allow the player to perform almost any action. This would allow players to feel immersed in history while still providing the level of interactivity they desire. Think of it as many simulations packaged together which the player can explore freely. Each simulation can have a semi-rigid structure and limited options to increase historical accuracy and authenticity, yet the player still has freedom and choice.

Advantages in Understanding History Through Video Games

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I definitely agree with the majority of the thoughts and ideas stated in “Discussion: Historical Accuracy and Historical Video Games?.” I don’t think that a video game can be completely historically accurate in the sense that it represents events exactly as they happened in the right chronology.

I do believe, however, that video games may, in some cases, be great tools that can enhance one’s understanding of the past. I also think that for some people it can be an even better tool than textbooks, historical artifacts, etc., due to the fact that some people really just don’t like to read things about the past off of a page from a textbook. For these people, playing a video game with some sort of historical accuracy in which the player has some sort of agency can be much more engaging and a much better tool.

Video games can also provide a better contextualization, as a video game has the potential to provide a complete visualization of the world and setting in which the history took place. While this visualization may not be completely accurate, it provides a sense of completeness and allows the players to think about the world in different ways. By also playing an active role in the events of a game, people can almost place themselves in the world created by the video game and try to feel and understand what life may have been like in such a setting.

Response to McCall and Chapman: Importance of the Environment in Historical Video Games

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I agree with the article’s point that historical video games, by definition, diverge from true, completely accurate history. In order for the people who are playing the video games to feel immersed, there must be some cause and effect element of the player’s choices. These choices, when implemented in narrations or simulations of actual historical events, cannot be 100% accurate because the choices often take the history off the factual path.

However, I think that historical video games present a massive advantage in terms of teaching people how to understand the mood and tone of an age in history. After playing games like “Assassin’s Creed,” my biggest take away was not any of the historical events that may or may not have been perfectly accurate, but it was the tone of the age. The weapons, enemies, town’s, and even the common folk walking around all helped immerse me into the game and taught me a little bit about how life was vastly different in the past than it is now. In the article, Adam talks about the environment of the game having a lot of information in them, and I completely agree. I think that is one part of historical video games that may be overlooked.

Sure, precise facts about historical events are important, but perhaps they are better suited for a different media outlet where player choice is not as integral, and we can still learn a lot from historical games.

The Educational Value of Historically Authentic, Not Necessarily Accurate, Narratives

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I agree with much of McCall and Chapman’s argument for the value of historically authentic narrative as an educational tool to explore how and why historical events happened. Narrative-based learning through such platforms as video games can assist the big picture gathered from s or the facts/context from historical texts, and combined can create a more complete picture. However, I think that there is there is still a bias against video games as an educational game. For example, if someone were to tell me about a historical event and cite a video game as their source, I would think it was unusual and that the information may not be as credible as if they had cited information from a traditional History class. However, that may also be indicative of my personal bias or a byproduct of many of the criticisms of historical video games.

Reading this article raised two questions that I as someone who has never played any of the games that the article references or encountered much of the video game industry struggle to discern the answers to: could critics’/people’s expectation for complete accuracy in video games responds to come from the immersive nature of these games (or video games in general) as compared to other forms of entertainment media? Does the target market of a given game alter the way that developers shape their narratives or how a player perceives historical events (e.g. stressing battles/conflict points for a war game vs. a less battle-oriented historical game?)?