Chemonotes

By Harry M. Marks

Professor Harry M. Marks, faculty member in the Department of History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University since 1989, died on 25 January 2011, aged 64. He served on the editorial board of Social History of Medicine and was a generous and exacting reviewer for the journal. As a memorial to Pr. Marks, some of his extraordinary personal reflections during his time as an outpatient undergoing treatment for prostate cancer were collated. He periodically emailed these musings to family members, friends and colleagues. At a memorial celebration held in Baltimore in February 2011, Gert Brieger observed that Harry Marks lived his life as if in a ‘perpetual teaching moment’. These emails stand in testament not only to that, but also to Marks’ rapacious intellectual curiosity, rasping critique, sense of humour, and, not least, remarkable fortitude.

Read his reflections here.