Illicit and Unnatural Practices

Roger Davidson is Emeritus Professor of Social History at the University of Edinburgh. He has published widely on the history of medical and governmental responses to sexual issues. He is the author of Dangerous Liaisons: A Social History of Venereal Disease in Twentieth-Century Scotland (2000) and co-author of The Sexual State: Sexuality and Scottish Governance 1950−80 (2012).

• List of Figures; List of Tables; Acknowledgements; Abbreviations1. Introduction2. ‘Venereal Trouble’: The Case of ‘Professor’ Abraham Eastburn3. ‘This Pernicious Delusion’: Law, Medicine and Child Sexual Abuse4. ‘Unnatural Carnal Connection’: Bestiality and the Law in Early-Twentieth-Century Scotland5. ‘There’s the Man who Shifts the Babies’: Abortion in the Scottish High Court, 1900−306. ‘An Open and Notorious House of Lewdness’: Dora Noyce and the Danube Street Brothel7. Cure or Confinement?: Law, Medicine and the Treatment of Homosexual Offenders in Scotland, 1950−808. ‘Liable or Likely to Deprave and Corrupt the Morals of the Lieges’: Sex Shops and Moral Panic in Late-Twentieth-Century Scotland9. ‘Culpable and Reckless Conduct’: Criminalising the Transmission of HIV in Scotland, 1983−201410. ConclusionSources and Select Bibliography; Index

Throughout this book, Roger Davidson brings to his sources the forensic attentions of a social historian at the peak of his powers. And although it could hardly be considered gentle fireside reading, Illicit and Unnatural Practices comprises a valuable resource for legal and medical scholars studying Scotland, and those investigating the policing of dangerous sexualities in twentieth century Europe.