Contemporary philosophy of science places the origins of the predominant attributes of the term ‘... more Contemporary philosophy of science places the origins of the predominant attributes of the term ‘gene’ in the year 1900 when Gregor Mendel’s work was rediscovered. After that, his phrase of discrete units of heredity, which he had developed on purely statistical and formal grounds, was replaced by that of morphologically definable and experimentally verifiable factors on chromosomes. Yet it was the speculative biology of the second half of the 19th century that opened up the epistemic sphere for a new conception of heredity: heredity as the transmission of particulate, hereditable material units with a tendency for self-preservation. This approach helped the then young discipline of biology get geared towards pure science with the aim of dissociating its terminology, which was deduced a priori, from the preconceptions of natural philosophy. In the early 20th century, the era of classical genetics, experimental systems were developed which, by means of experiments on model organisms, defined the hereditary particles, which had been speculatively assumed and the terminology for which had been developed in strict argumentations in the 19th century, more precisely and, in the 1940s, associated them with nucleic acid: physically detectable, material units without any final causality. They were said to be stable and, at the same time, mutable as well as capable of self-reproductivity, self-selectivity and memory. The term ‚code mechanism‘ paraphrases this dimension formerly unknown to physics. DNA epitomizes the perfect biological principle. The gene is declared the reason for the spontaneity and the specificity of organic matter. Still this concept includes components that have been framed by the biology of the 19th century. The most recent conception of the gene is not free from teleological anthropomorphisms. The sheer physical automatism gives the picture of molecular initial conditions that would contain the causes for the outcome of the development of the organism with all its variability, conceptualized by the term memory.
From a historical perspective, SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 have simultaneously led to known and previ... more From a historical perspective, SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 have simultaneously led to known and previously unknown events as well. These seamlessly linked events can only be grasped with a new, integrative perspective of the relationship between culture and disease. Such a view requires a historiography that captures the full spectrum of an epidemic event, from the causes of emerging pathogens to their global spread and impact on different national, regional, and local communities. Integrative approaches to a global history of epidemics essentially include the following: –Understanding the dynamic relationship between nature and culture to empirically capture changes in local and regional biospheres and their interaction in global contexts. –Investigating the culturally determined scientific and social negotiation processes that lead to the naming, characterization and communication of initially unknown causes of disease in relation to the culturally determined countermeasures that beg...
In the late 1960s, social history developed into an imperative approach in general historiography... more In the late 1960s, social history developed into an imperative approach in general historiography in Germany. Since the mid‐1970s, also social history of medicine has been developed into a comprehensive research approach. But in the 1990s, all of a sudden, social history of medicine vanished. The constructivist history of science, the linguistic‐ constructivist theories in humanities and micro‐historiographical approaches from general history prevailed. After the first decade of the 21st century, the innovative highlights of these developments exceeded. Just at this point, it is appropriate to ask for the genuine and permanent role of a social history of medicine. Seen from the peculiarity of medicine the social history of medicine has a genuine field of topics in the social environment of disease and health. These topics have to be treated with their own approaches and methods, derived from its reference disciplines sociology and economics.
Die Medizin war von Beginn an in Bezugssysteme eingebunden, die als modern gelten — Wissenschaftl... more Die Medizin war von Beginn an in Bezugssysteme eingebunden, die als modern gelten — Wissenschaftlichkeit, Rationalitat, wissenschaftliches Naturverstandnis und technisches Naturverhaltnis. Dies ist das gangige Narrativ der Medizin. Es ist zugleich aber — wie nachfolgend zu diskutieren sein wird — das konstitutive Merkmal der Medizin gegenuber den vielfaltigen anderen Formen des Heilens, die in jeder Gesellschaft gegeben waren und nach wie vor gegeben sind. Allein deshalb ordnet sich die Medizin scheinbar problemlos in das Fortschrittsnarrativ der Moderne ein. Aber — und das bildet den Hintergrund der nachfolgenden Diskussion — die Natur und die menschlichen Vergesellschaftungs- und Vergemeinschaftungsformen einschlieslich der Medizin werden jeweils kulturadaquat gedeutet, dies allerdings auf der Grundlage jeweils gegebener biologischer und historischer Fakten: Natur und Kultur sind radikal zu historisieren (Breidbach 2011). Gleichwohl kann die Geschichte der Medizin des Okzidents kaum anders als eine Erfolgsgeschichte geschrieben werden.
... und des Krankenhaus-wesens (ua von Alfons Labisch, Axel Hinrich Murken, Manfred Stürzbecher, ... more ... und des Krankenhaus-wesens (ua von Alfons Labisch, Axel Hinrich Murken, Manfred Stürzbecher, Stephan Leibfried, Paul Weindling ... unten« - bis hin zur >oral history<, zur subjektiven Geschichtsschreibung und zur Geschichte des Patienten (ua von Esther Fischer-Homberger ...
Science aims at generalised knowledge about human beings. Medical action, by contrast, is directe... more Science aims at generalised knowledge about human beings. Medical action, by contrast, is directed towards individuals and their subjectivity. Thus, in the doctor-patient encounter the scientific object-orientation of medical science turns into the subject-orientation of medical practice. This means that modern medicine can essentially be explained through the social sciences and the arts and humanities. Among these approaches, historiography explores the aspect of action in time. The historiography of medicine therefore aims genuinely at the specific aspect of medical action under its conditions in time. In its current transition from the natural sciences to the life sciences, medicine meets its boundaries not only in science and practice, but also in the individual person and in the social world. It is of utmost importance, for medicine as well as for society, to analyse the historicity of medical knowledge and action by historiographical methods. The results of historiographical ...
... it became necessary to secure permanently a labour reserve of sufficient quality and numbers.... more ... it became necessary to secure permanently a labour reserve of sufficient quality and numbers. ... extra benefits, factory and work rules, group pressure and collective consciousness were other ... The reason why the working classes became integrated into industrial life was that the ...
Sind wir auf dem Weg zu einer molecular historiography, zu einer molekularen Geschichtsschreibung... more Sind wir auf dem Weg zu einer molecular historiography, zu einer molekularen Geschichtsschreibung? Dass sich diese Frage überhaupt stellt, hängt mit den faszinierenden Ergebnissen zusammen, die die Archäologie mit modernsten natur-und lebenswissenschaftlichen bzw. molekularbio-K
For a long time, only two phases of the life cycle of the agents of malaria parasites were known:... more For a long time, only two phases of the life cycle of the agents of malaria parasites were known: the cycle inside the mosquito body and the cycle in the red blood cells of humans as intermediate hosts. A possible tissue development cycle inside humans, however, had already been proposed before 1900. In general, Pieter Klaesz Pel is considered the first scientist who has described such a tissue cycle. However, a closer look at Pel&amp;amp;#39;s work shows that he still followed an old (conservative) way of thinking, since he still referred to &amp;amp;quot;malaria poison and malaria miasma.&amp;amp;quot; Thus, the first idea of a possible tissue cycle must be searched in the work of earlier scientists. Referring to their observations on malaria, Vassilij Danilevsky, Arman Ruffer, Camillo Golgi and Battista Grassi suspected developing parasites in internal organs, before they can be found in the bloodstream.
Contemporary philosophy of science places the origins of the predominant attributes of the term ‘... more Contemporary philosophy of science places the origins of the predominant attributes of the term ‘gene’ in the year 1900 when Gregor Mendel’s work was rediscovered. After that, his phrase of discrete units of heredity, which he had developed on purely statistical and formal grounds, was replaced by that of morphologically definable and experimentally verifiable factors on chromosomes. Yet it was the speculative biology of the second half of the 19th century that opened up the epistemic sphere for a new conception of heredity: heredity as the transmission of particulate, hereditable material units with a tendency for self-preservation. This approach helped the then young discipline of biology get geared towards pure science with the aim of dissociating its terminology, which was deduced a priori, from the preconceptions of natural philosophy. In the early 20th century, the era of classical genetics, experimental systems were developed which, by means of experiments on model organisms, defined the hereditary particles, which had been speculatively assumed and the terminology for which had been developed in strict argumentations in the 19th century, more precisely and, in the 1940s, associated them with nucleic acid: physically detectable, material units without any final causality. They were said to be stable and, at the same time, mutable as well as capable of self-reproductivity, self-selectivity and memory. The term ‚code mechanism‘ paraphrases this dimension formerly unknown to physics. DNA epitomizes the perfect biological principle. The gene is declared the reason for the spontaneity and the specificity of organic matter. Still this concept includes components that have been framed by the biology of the 19th century. The most recent conception of the gene is not free from teleological anthropomorphisms. The sheer physical automatism gives the picture of molecular initial conditions that would contain the causes for the outcome of the development of the organism with all its variability, conceptualized by the term memory.
From a historical perspective, SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 have simultaneously led to known and previ... more From a historical perspective, SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 have simultaneously led to known and previously unknown events as well. These seamlessly linked events can only be grasped with a new, integrative perspective of the relationship between culture and disease. Such a view requires a historiography that captures the full spectrum of an epidemic event, from the causes of emerging pathogens to their global spread and impact on different national, regional, and local communities. Integrative approaches to a global history of epidemics essentially include the following: –Understanding the dynamic relationship between nature and culture to empirically capture changes in local and regional biospheres and their interaction in global contexts. –Investigating the culturally determined scientific and social negotiation processes that lead to the naming, characterization and communication of initially unknown causes of disease in relation to the culturally determined countermeasures that beg...
In the late 1960s, social history developed into an imperative approach in general historiography... more In the late 1960s, social history developed into an imperative approach in general historiography in Germany. Since the mid‐1970s, also social history of medicine has been developed into a comprehensive research approach. But in the 1990s, all of a sudden, social history of medicine vanished. The constructivist history of science, the linguistic‐ constructivist theories in humanities and micro‐historiographical approaches from general history prevailed. After the first decade of the 21st century, the innovative highlights of these developments exceeded. Just at this point, it is appropriate to ask for the genuine and permanent role of a social history of medicine. Seen from the peculiarity of medicine the social history of medicine has a genuine field of topics in the social environment of disease and health. These topics have to be treated with their own approaches and methods, derived from its reference disciplines sociology and economics.
Die Medizin war von Beginn an in Bezugssysteme eingebunden, die als modern gelten — Wissenschaftl... more Die Medizin war von Beginn an in Bezugssysteme eingebunden, die als modern gelten — Wissenschaftlichkeit, Rationalitat, wissenschaftliches Naturverstandnis und technisches Naturverhaltnis. Dies ist das gangige Narrativ der Medizin. Es ist zugleich aber — wie nachfolgend zu diskutieren sein wird — das konstitutive Merkmal der Medizin gegenuber den vielfaltigen anderen Formen des Heilens, die in jeder Gesellschaft gegeben waren und nach wie vor gegeben sind. Allein deshalb ordnet sich die Medizin scheinbar problemlos in das Fortschrittsnarrativ der Moderne ein. Aber — und das bildet den Hintergrund der nachfolgenden Diskussion — die Natur und die menschlichen Vergesellschaftungs- und Vergemeinschaftungsformen einschlieslich der Medizin werden jeweils kulturadaquat gedeutet, dies allerdings auf der Grundlage jeweils gegebener biologischer und historischer Fakten: Natur und Kultur sind radikal zu historisieren (Breidbach 2011). Gleichwohl kann die Geschichte der Medizin des Okzidents kaum anders als eine Erfolgsgeschichte geschrieben werden.
... und des Krankenhaus-wesens (ua von Alfons Labisch, Axel Hinrich Murken, Manfred Stürzbecher, ... more ... und des Krankenhaus-wesens (ua von Alfons Labisch, Axel Hinrich Murken, Manfred Stürzbecher, Stephan Leibfried, Paul Weindling ... unten« - bis hin zur >oral history<, zur subjektiven Geschichtsschreibung und zur Geschichte des Patienten (ua von Esther Fischer-Homberger ...
Science aims at generalised knowledge about human beings. Medical action, by contrast, is directe... more Science aims at generalised knowledge about human beings. Medical action, by contrast, is directed towards individuals and their subjectivity. Thus, in the doctor-patient encounter the scientific object-orientation of medical science turns into the subject-orientation of medical practice. This means that modern medicine can essentially be explained through the social sciences and the arts and humanities. Among these approaches, historiography explores the aspect of action in time. The historiography of medicine therefore aims genuinely at the specific aspect of medical action under its conditions in time. In its current transition from the natural sciences to the life sciences, medicine meets its boundaries not only in science and practice, but also in the individual person and in the social world. It is of utmost importance, for medicine as well as for society, to analyse the historicity of medical knowledge and action by historiographical methods. The results of historiographical ...
... it became necessary to secure permanently a labour reserve of sufficient quality and numbers.... more ... it became necessary to secure permanently a labour reserve of sufficient quality and numbers. ... extra benefits, factory and work rules, group pressure and collective consciousness were other ... The reason why the working classes became integrated into industrial life was that the ...
Sind wir auf dem Weg zu einer molecular historiography, zu einer molekularen Geschichtsschreibung... more Sind wir auf dem Weg zu einer molecular historiography, zu einer molekularen Geschichtsschreibung? Dass sich diese Frage überhaupt stellt, hängt mit den faszinierenden Ergebnissen zusammen, die die Archäologie mit modernsten natur-und lebenswissenschaftlichen bzw. molekularbio-K
For a long time, only two phases of the life cycle of the agents of malaria parasites were known:... more For a long time, only two phases of the life cycle of the agents of malaria parasites were known: the cycle inside the mosquito body and the cycle in the red blood cells of humans as intermediate hosts. A possible tissue development cycle inside humans, however, had already been proposed before 1900. In general, Pieter Klaesz Pel is considered the first scientist who has described such a tissue cycle. However, a closer look at Pel&amp;amp;#39;s work shows that he still followed an old (conservative) way of thinking, since he still referred to &amp;amp;quot;malaria poison and malaria miasma.&amp;amp;quot; Thus, the first idea of a possible tissue cycle must be searched in the work of earlier scientists. Referring to their observations on malaria, Vassilij Danilevsky, Arman Ruffer, Camillo Golgi and Battista Grassi suspected developing parasites in internal organs, before they can be found in the bloodstream.
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