Monday 2 November 2026, 5 pm to 9 pm, Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney, or online.
The Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science warmly invites you to the 2026 Dyason Lecture, Medicine without Physicians: Do-it-Yourself Doctoring in the Dutch East Indies, presented by Professor Hans Pols.
Abstract: Research in the history and sociology of medicine, in particular research focusing on therapeutics and the sick role, has focused on the doctor-patient relationship as the primary unit of analysis. When Roy Porter sought to introduce approaches based on social history by emphasising the need to investigate the history of medicine “from below”, he continued to focus on the doctor-patient relationship. In this presentation on health behaviours in the Dutch East Indies, I start with the observation that most of it was conducted without the presence of a physician. This resulted from the scarcity of physicians in the Dutch East Indies and the long distances people needed to travel to consult them. Instead, the medical marketplace offered a great number of medications and remedies that were available though mail-orders. These products included traditional Indonesian herbal medicine, patent medicines, a small number of “orthodox” medicines, and the offerings of Chinese-Indonesian pharmacies.
About the speaker: Professor Hans Pols works on the history, sociology, and anthropology of psychiatry and mental health. He is currently leading a major ARC-funded research project on the history of community mental health in Australia. His earlier work on the history of colonial and postcolonial medicine in the Dutch East Indies and Indonesia culminated in his monograph Nurturing Indonesia.
Alongside his historical research, Hans is involved in several projects aimed at improving mental health services in Australia and Indonesia. He has a particular interest in the participation of consumers of mental health care in service design and delivery, and in the role of consumer organisations.
Hans holds a BA(Hon) in psychology from the University of Groningen, an MA in psychology from York University (Canada), and a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, completed through the Department of History and Sociology of Science. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (FAHA), the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (FASSA), and the Royal Society of New South Wales (FRSN).
For Hans’s own account of how he came to the history of psychiatry, see this blog post.
Register here: https://events.humanitix.com/2026-aahpsss-dyason-lecture-medicine-without-physicians