The University of Cambridge will take members of the public back and forward in time next week to look at the life of Oliver Cromwell and the future of spinal cord repair during two free afternoon lectures.

On Tuesday, June 1, Professor James Fawcett will deliver a free lecture looking into the devastation caused by spinal cord injury – and how the latest research, including nerve fibre regeneration, may offer some hope to those affected.

On Friday June 4, Dr David Smith delivers a lecture examining the driving forces behind Cromwell – the man who signed the death warrant of a king, only to make himself Lord Protector.

Professor Fawcett’s lecture Repairing the damaged spinal cord – history and the future – will look at the huge advances made since the First World War, when most spinal injury patients died of complications.

That picture changed markedly in 1943 with the appointment of Ludwig Guttmann as director of Stoke Mandeville Hospital whose new methods of treating spinal injury allowed many to survive.

There are around 40,000 paralysed people around the UK in need of spinal cord repair. Although uncommon, 1000 people each year in the UK are paralysed. The most common age of injury is 20.

Professor Fawcett said: “Clinical trials of repair treatments are ongoing and there has been very encouraging scientific progress. Partial repair of the spinal cord can be achieved through nerve fibre regeneration and plasticity.

“Together, these various approaches are reaching the level of effectiveness where partial repair of the human spinal cord is within reach.”

Meanwhile, his head may be buried at Sidney Sussex College, but members of the public will have the opportunity to get inside Oliver Cromwell’s mind on June 4.

The talk will use extracts from Cromwell’s own letters and speeches to provide an overview of the motivation behind the decisions he made throughout his military and political careers.

Dr David Smith, a member of the University’s History Faculty, has published widely on Cromwell, Royalism and the English Civil War.

He said: “I’m going to focus on the beliefs that drove him to do the things he did. I’ll look at the question of his sincerity and how far he was driven by genuinely held principles – or a love of power.

“I’ll be using Cromwell’s letters which allow us to investigate his mindset through the medium of his own surviving words.”

Professor Fawcett’s lecture on spinal cord repair takes place at The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, on June 1, 2pm.

Dr Smith’s lecture on Cromwell takes place at the Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, on June 4, 2pm.

Free tickets are available from the Corn Exchange Box Office www.cornex.co.uk or 01223 357851.
 


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