Courtyard of the surgical clinic of the Binnengasthuis - Amsterdam City Archives
Courtyard of the surgical clinic of the Binnengasthuis - Amsterdam City Archives

Nadeche Diepgrond wins Holland Historical Journal's Thesis prize 2021

On 30 December it was announced that Nadeche Diepgrond has won the Holland Historisch Tijdschrift (Holland Historical Journal's) Thesis Award 2021. This year 21 theses were submitted. Since 2007, Holland has awarded a thesis prize to the best historical thesis on the history of North or South Holland.

Diepgrond wrote her thesis, A gateway to death and a residence for 'unfortunates'? A study into the patients and mortality in the Amsterdam Binnengasthuis in the second half of the nineteenth century, under the supervision of Angélique Janssens. In her research, Diepgrond focuses on patients in the Amsterdam Binnengasthuis in the second half of the nineteenth century.

The jury describes Diepgrond's thesis as a valuable addition to historiography: 'It is a comprehensive study based on a large amount of source material, in which patient registers in particular are analysed in a professional manner. The focus is on the patients and not on the institutions or famous medical names. There may have been more and more research into hospices in recent years, but a study as extensive as Diepgrond's has never been carried out in the Netherlands before.' The jury was impressed by this thesis with its renewed approach and use of sources. The jury even called it 'almost dissertation-worthy'. The jury report (in Dutch) can be read here.

Nadeche Diepgrond is currently a junior researcher involved in the Amsterdam research project on causes of death. She researches the process of medicalisation of the Amsterdam Binnengasthuis and Buitengasthuis from 1800 onwards using registers of admission and discharge of patients, and investigates the presence of comparable sources for other cities. Nadeche is also working on a PhD proposal entitled 'Gateway to death and abode for the unfortunate? Investigating Medicalisation, Morbidity and Mortality in the Netherlands, 1800-1900'.

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