From: Jocelyn <secretary@amhs.co.nz>
Subject: 2 July 2025 Meeting Reminder. Note venue change
Date: 28 June 2025 at 11:58:54 AM NZST
To: <judy.murphy@auckland.ac.nz>
Reply-To: Jocelyn <secretary@amhs.co.nz>

View this email in your browser 	

	

	
 AUCKLAND MEDICAL HISTORY SOCIETY 
NEWSLETTER - July 2025	

	
	
Dear Members	

AUCKLAND MEDICAL HISTORY SOCIETY
__________________________________________________________________________________
 
MEETING REMINDER - 
Wednesday 2 July 2025 at 7 pm
Venue: Change of venue for this meeting
Clinical Education Centre on Level 5 in the Main hospital building.
              Enter from level 4 - the street level, go up the escalator and turn LEFT and then the Clinical Education Centre (CEC) is just down the corridor, again, on the left
Opens 6.15 pm, tea and coffee
 
See next page for abstracts and brief biographical details
See the Auckland Medical History Society website for latest news, links to the 2025 programme https://www.amhs.co.nz/

Donations to the Society are invited and can be made on the night or preferably on-line
Bank account: 02 0160 0237509 00
 
Dr Robert Bartholomew
Talk Title & Summary
Sex, Bugs & Sonic Attacks: How Bad Science & Mating Insects Created an International Incident with Cuba
 It has to be one of the most extraordinary cases in the history of science. Starting in 2016, American diplomats and spies in Cuba began falling sick after hearing mysterious sounds, which were attributed to a secret weapon that was being used to harass them. An analysis of 8 recordings later revealed that the sounds were actually the mating call of the Indies short-tailed cricket, and that the ‘attacks’ were a case of mass suggestion.  
 
Dr Robert Bartholomew is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland. He has published several books debunking topics on the margins of science including claims surrounding alien abductions, haunted houses, and cryptozoology. Having investigated such cases as ‘The Amityville Horror’ and ‘The Conjuring,’ he observes that “people often ask me if I believe?  My response is always the same – It’s not a question of belief, it’s a question of evidence – and the evidence is not there.” In 2020 he co-authored a book on the myth of ‘Havana Syndrome’ with UCLA Neurologist Robert Baloh. In 2024 he provided testimony to the Congressional Subcommittee on Counterterrorism where he outlined the psychology behind ‘Havana Syndrome.’
A medical sociologist and investigative journalist, he has written a series of books on the racial segregation of Māori in New Zealand including No Maori Allowed (2020) which became the basis of a TV documentary. He is also known for his work on social panics and outbreaks of mass psychogenic illness. Robert has solved an outbreak of mysterious symptoms at Melbourne Airport on February 21, 2005 which sickened 57 people, and the spread of vocal tics among 18 students in Danvers, Massachusetts during 2012-13. His findings were published in the Medical Journal of Australia and The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine respectively. His books include The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior, A Colorful History of Popular Delusions, and American Intolerance: Our Dark History of Demonizing Immigrants. His latest book is Social Panics & Phantom Attackers: A Study of Imaginary Assailants (with Paul Weatherhead), and The Science of the Maori Lunar Calendar: Separating Fact from Folklore.
__________________________________________________________
The University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau Medical Students 
 
Medical Humanities Projects: 
Two students will present
Sudikshya Parajuli           – “History of Anesthesia”
Charlotte Tukiri                – “History of the Ketogenic Diet” 	

	

	
Copyright © 2025 Auckland Medication History Society, All rights reserved.
Our mailing address is:
secretary@amhs.co.nz

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.	

	

This email was sent to judy.murphy@auckland.ac.nz 
why did I get this?    unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences 
Auckland Medical History Society · Ernest & Marion Davis Library, Building 43, Auckland City Hospital · 2 Park Road, Grafton · Auckland, AKL 1023 · New Zealand