1
|
Abstract
Primatologist who brought animals and humans "a little closer".
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Sarah F Brosnan
- Department of Psychology, Language Research Center, and Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Scalese F. An all-embracing science: The anthropological conception of Paolo Mantegazza. J Hist Behav Sci 2024; 60:e22309. [PMID: 38652566 DOI: 10.1002/jhbs.22309] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/26/2023] [Revised: 04/07/2024] [Accepted: 04/10/2024] [Indexed: 04/25/2024]
Abstract
This paper deals with the anthropological conception of the first modern Italian anthropologist, Paolo Mantegazza (1831-1910). We will begin by contextualizing the status of anthropology in Italy during the second half of the 19th century. Subsequently, we will delve into some of the inspirations that led the Italians to have such a multifaceted conception of the discipline. Next, we will outline the content of this approach and clarify the meaning of "omnicomprehensive science." From there, we will come to understand the reason for the variety of interests of the anthropologist, who aimed to study the human being in all aspects of life. We will then mention the moral objective present in his professional journey: through an understanding of the complexity of human life, the anthropologist wanted to contribute to the progress and well-being of society; in other words, to "living well."
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Fabio Scalese
- Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociología, Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, Madrid, Spain
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Bahrs O, Mayer CH. Psychobiographical reflections on Viktor von Weizsäcker within the cultural framework of salutogenesis and medical anthropology. Int Rev Psychiatry 2024; 36:129-142. [PMID: 38557345 DOI: 10.1080/09540261.2023.2244072] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/26/2023] [Accepted: 07/28/2023] [Indexed: 04/04/2024]
Abstract
This article explores the life of Viktor von Weizsäcker (VvW, 1886-1957), a German medical doctor, philosopher and founder of the Heidelberg School of Anthropological Medicine, from a psychobiographical and salutogenic perspective. The authors use salutogenesis and sense of coherence (SOC), and take crucial cultural, historical, and socio-structural frameworks into account to explore the life during the 19th and 20th Centuries in Germany. They present the exploration of a strong SOC in the life of VvW and show how SOC is created within the tight family bonds of the family clan, which has produced many extraordinary theologists, philosophers, scientists and politicians over six generations. In a complex, interconnected and holistic way, SOC is evident in von VvW's individual life, and is also shown to be a family resource. This article contributes to psychobiography in three ways: it develops the salutogenetic perspective in psychobiography, explores the life of VvW within a specific sociocultural context, and investigates the life from a salutogenetic and socio-cultural perspective. Finally, conclusions are drawn, and recommendations for theory and practice are given.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Ottomar Bahrs
- Institute of General Practice, University of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
| | - Claude-Hélène Mayer
- Department of Industrial Psychology and People Management, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Brigo F, Martini M. Franz Tappeiner (1816-1902): The physician who became headhunter. Portrait of a leading figure in 19th Century anthropology. J Med Biogr 2024; 32:32-35. [PMID: 34907834 DOI: 10.1177/09677720211065356] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
Franz Tappeiner (1816, Laas - 1902, Merano) was an Austrian physician and anthropologist. He studied at the universities of Prague, Padua and Vienna and in 1846 he moved to Merano. Tappeiner investigated the transmission of pulmonary tuberculosis in animal models and he dealt with public health. As an anatomist, he performed thousands of craniometrics measurements, creating a huge skull collection later donated to the Natural History Museum in Vienna. In 1878, Tappeiner turned to archeology and palaeoanthropology, with the aim of clarifying the origins of the Alpine population of Tyroleans. He was also active as a botanist.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Francesco Brigo
- Department of Neurology, Hospital of Merano (SABES-ASDAA), Merano, Italy
| | - Mariano Martini
- Department of Health Sciences, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Kröger P. [Race as Global Data Stream: Anthropological Research in 20th Century Hamburg as a Vantage Point for a Data History of Racialization]. NTM 2023; 31:387-420. [PMID: 38019282 PMCID: PMC10781799 DOI: 10.1007/s00048-023-00370-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 11/03/2023] [Indexed: 11/30/2023]
Abstract
This article explores anthropological research conducted in Hamburg during the 20th century and demonstrates how historically specific discourse networks (Aufschreibesysteme) shaped concepts of race and their subsequent use in politics. To this end, this study examines three paradigms within the history of German anthropology in terms of their underlying inscription technique: physical anthropology/loose-leaf collection, "Erblehre"/card index, and population genetics/electronic data processing. By outlining a data history of racialization, this article avoids the ontological pitfalls of recent debates about the category of race.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Philipp Kröger
- Fakultät I: Philosophische Fakultät, Historisches Seminar, Universität Siegen, Siegen, Deutschland.
| |
Collapse
|
6
|
Perkins-McVey M. Kant, intoxicated: the aesthetics of drunkenness, between moral duty and "active play". Hist Philos Life Sci 2022; 44:46. [PMID: 36112297 DOI: 10.1007/s40656-022-00530-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/21/2022] [Accepted: 08/25/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
This article examines Kant's overlooked concept of "active play," as opposed to "free play," in connection with the influence of the Brunonian system of medicine, both of which, I propose, are central to understanding the broader significance of intoxication in Kant's post-1795 work. Beginning with a discussion of the late-18th century German reception of Brunonian theory, the idea of vital stimulus, and their importance for Kant, I assess the distinction drawn between gluttony and intoxication in The Metaphysics of Morals and Anthropology from a Practical Point of View. Both are analysed in the context of the Brunonian system of medicine, having establishing Kant's commitment to the Brunonianism system, as corroborated by Wasianski. What emerges is a novel understanding of intoxication in the work of Immanuel Kant, which brings to light a previously unexamined dynamic between imagination, intoxication, and the aesthetic.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Matthew Perkins-McVey
- University of King's College/Dalhousie University, 6350 Coburg Rd, Halifax, NS B3H 2A1, Canada.
| |
Collapse
|
7
|
Zhavoronkov A. Kant's pragmatic use of reason from a sociological point of view: Third way or methodological impasse? Stud Hist Philos Sci 2022; 94:1-7. [PMID: 35605317 DOI: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2022.05.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2021] [Revised: 05/02/2022] [Accepted: 05/06/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
The paper focuses on the relevance of Kant's anthropologically oriented idea of the pragmatic use of reason for specific theoretical approaches in sociology. As I show in the first part, Kant's explicit presence in 20th-century sociology does not refer much to his anthropology and specifically to its cornerstone - the pragmatic use of reason which establishes a subtle connection between the theoretical and practical functions of reason. As an instrument for gaining systematic knowledge about the social world and ourselves as beings both passively and actively involved in this process, Kant's pragmatic use of reason serves a specific form of the theoretical use of reason. At the same time, it embodies a kind of practical reasoning concerning the "general welfare" in the social sphere. Building on the key arguments in the first part, I then address the question of whether we can view Kant's pragmatic approach as a possible third way for sociology today, beyond the simplifying opposition of 'theoretical' normativity and 'realistic' empiricism, and whether this third way can help us in clearing specific sociological issues. Here, I focus on two examples, namely the use of Kant's notion of "unsocial sociability" in Ralf Dahrendorf's conflict theory and on the criticism of Kant's cosmopolitanism in Ulrich Beck's reformed sociology of cosmopolitanism.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Alexey Zhavoronkov
- Institute of Philosophy, Goethe University Frankfurt. 1 Norbert-Wollheim-Platz, 60629, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
| |
Collapse
|
8
|
Roque R. The Latin stranger-science, or l'anthropologie among the Lusitanians. Hist Sci 2022; 60:69-95. [PMID: 29682996 DOI: 10.1177/0073275318755291] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
This essay traces the connected histories of Portuguese and French anthropology in the late nineteenth century. By looking at a Portuguese scientific institution, the Carlos Ribeiro Society, it considers how French race science, known as anthropologie, was adopted and adapted across the European Latin world as a type of "stranger-science." That is: as an authoritative outsider scientific formation, installed into national terrain in accordance with insider strategies for turning foreign elements into native forms of scientific sovereignty and modernity. French anthropology's international diffusion becomes meaningful in the light of the Portuguese incorporating what was foreign and modern as a means to generate vitality, and authority endogenously in their own national context. Hence, addressing the circulation of stranger-sciences can pave the way for an original conceptualizing of the transnational life of race science across and even beyond the Latin world.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Ricardo Roque
- University of Lisbon, Institute of Social Sciences, Portugal
| |
Collapse
|
9
|
McMahon R. Resurecting raciology? Genetic ethnology and pre-1945 anthropological race classification. Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci 2020; 83:101242. [PMID: 32950126 DOI: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2019.101242] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/08/2017] [Revised: 08/18/2019] [Accepted: 12/15/2019] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
This article places the current high-profile and controversial scientific project that I call 'genetic ethnology' within the same two-century tradition of biologically classifying modern peoples as pre-1945 race anthropology. Similarities in how these two biological projects have combined political and scientific agendas raise questions about the liberalism of genetics and stimulate concerns that genetic constructions of human difference might revive a politics of hate, division and hierarchy. The present article however goes beyond existing work that links modern genetics with race anthropology. It systematically compares their many similar practices and organisational features, showing that both projects were political-scientific syntheses. Studying how the origins, geography, filiations, 'travels and encounters of our ancestors' affect 'current genetic variation', both seem to have responded to a continuous public demand for biologists to explain the histories of politically significant peoples and give them a scientific basis. I challenge habitual contrasts between apolitical scientific genetics and racist pseudoscience and use race anthropology as a parable for how, in the era of Brexit and Trump, right-wing identity politics might infect genetic ethnology. I argue however that although biology-based identities carry risks of essentialism and determinism, the practices and organisation of classification pose greater political dangers.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Richard McMahon
- Department of Political Science, University College London, 29-30 Tavistock Square, Kings Cross, London WC1H 9QU, UK.
| |
Collapse
|
10
|
Gresky J, Sokiranski R, Witzmann F, Petiti E. The oldest case of osteopetrosis in a human skeleton: exploring the history of rare diseases. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol 2020; 8:806-808. [PMID: 32946815 DOI: 10.1016/s2213-8587(20)30307-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/10/2020] [Revised: 08/10/2020] [Accepted: 08/11/2020] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Julia Gresky
- Department of Natural Sciences, Human Bioarchaeology, German Archaeological Institute, Berlin 14195, Germany.
| | | | - Florian Witzmann
- Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Berlin, Germany
| | - Emmanuele Petiti
- Department of Natural Sciences, Human Bioarchaeology, German Archaeological Institute, Berlin 14195, Germany
| |
Collapse
|
11
|
Abstract
The aging of the world's population is an unprecedented recent phenomenon in human history, as for millennia - at least from the Neolithic to the mid-18th century - the age structures of human populations have changed little. The question posed by this anthropological perspective seems at first sight quite simple: how did this aging come to be? We will see that from a demographic point of view, the answer seems trivial: a basic shift in population structure is at the origin. However, we will go further by exploring the historical and political conditions of this transition by mobilizing the Foucauldian notion of biopower. We argue that this notion has the heuristic advantage of linking several core processes at work in the demographic transition. Although our analysis focuses on France to illustrate the notion of biopower in Foucault's work, we also discuss several non-western societies to explain why demographic aging is inevitable across the globe due to biopower strategies and "dispositifs". This article also constitutes a reflexive analysis on our practices as gerontologists and on the widespread "successful aging" concept.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Enguerran Macia
- UMI 3189 Environnement, Santé, Sociétés (Université Cheikh Anta Diop/CNRS/Université de Bamako/CNRST Burkina-Faso), Faculté de Médecine - Secteur Nord, 51, Bd. Pierre Dramard, 13016 Marseille, France.
| | - Dominique Chevé
- UMR 7268 Anthropologie Bio-culturelle, Droit, Ethique et Santé (Aix-Marseille Université/CNRS/EFS), Faculté de Médecine - Secteur Nord, 51, Bd. Pierre Dramard, 13016 Marseille, France
| | - Joann M Montepare
- RoseMary B. Fuss Center for Research on Aging and Intergenerational Studies, Lasell College, 1844 Commonwealth Avenue, Newton, MA 02466, USA
| |
Collapse
|
12
|
현 재. Doctors Discussing "the Root of Koreans": Medical Genetics and the Korean Origin, 1975-1987. Uisahak 2019; 28:551-590. [PMID: 31495822 PMCID: PMC10568151 DOI: 10.13081/kjmh.2019.28.551] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/14/2019] [Revised: 06/06/2019] [Accepted: 08/09/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Anthropological genetics emerged as a new discipline to investigate the origin of human species in the second half of the twentieth century. Using the genetic database of blood groups and other protein polymorphisms, anthropological geneticists started redrawing the ancient migratory history of human populations. A peculiarity of the Korean experience is that clinical physicians were the first experts using genetic data to theorize the historical origin of the respective population. This paper examines how South Korean physicians produced the genetic knowledge and discourse of the Korean origin in the 1970s and 1980s. It argues that transnational scientific exchange led clinical researchers to engage in global anthropological studies. The paper focuses on two scientific cooperative cases in medical genetics at the time: the West German-South Korean pharmacogenetic research on the Korean population and the Asia-Oceania Histocompatibility Workshop. At the outset, physicians introduced medical genetics into their laboratory for clinical applications. Involved in cooperative projects on investigating anthropological implications of their clinical work, medical researchers came to use their genetic data for studying the Korean origin. In the process, physicians simply followed a nationalist narrative of the Korean origin rather than criticizing it. This was partially due to their lack of serious interest in anthropological work. Their explanations about the Korean origin would be considered "scientific" while hiding their embracing of the nationalist narrative.
Collapse
|
13
|
Keuller ATAM. Physiology studies and scientific exchange in the Anthropology Laboratory of the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro (1910s-1920s). Hist Philos Life Sci 2019; 41:22. [PMID: 31025224 DOI: 10.1007/s40656-019-0261-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2018] [Accepted: 04/17/2019] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
The main purpose of this study is the scientific practice of Edgard Roquette-Pinto at the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro during the 1910's and 1920's in the XXth Century. The article examines the relationship between laboratory science and nation building. Driven by Physicians-Anthropologists like Edgard Roquette-Pinto among others, the investigations performed at the Anthropology Laboratory there reveal the dynamic of the borders between Laboratory and Field Sciences, and the new biological parameters adopted at that time. The investigative agenda involved plants, animals and human bodies, and it was related to the current Anthropology concept aligned with the debate of Nation construction. The physiological studies amplified the scientific exchange with different institutions, emphasizing cultural exchange between Brazil and Paraguay, and the role played by Edgard Roquette-Pinto there as he inaugurated the Physiological course at Faculty of Medicine at University of Asunción.
Collapse
|
14
|
Rudling PA. Eugenics and racial anthropology in the Ukrainian radical nationalist tradition. Sci Context 2019; 32:67-91. [PMID: 31124775 DOI: 10.1017/s0269889719000048] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
ArgumentEugenics and race played significant roles in Ukrainian interwar nationalism, yet remain largely unstudied. The Ukrainian nationalists' understanding of the racial makeup of their imagined community was contradictory as they struggled to reconcile their desire for racial "purity" with the realities of significant variations between the populations inhabiting the enormous territories which they sought to include in their intended state project. The "turn to the right" over the 1930s placed an increased onus on race, and eugenics came to occupy an increasingly prominent place in Ukrainian radical nationalism from around 1936. In 1941, the leading Ukrainian far-right organization, the OUN had developed a project for eugenic engineering, for their aborted state, declared in L'viv on June 30, 1941. Racial conceptualizations of the Ukrainian community figured prominently well into the Cold War era, gaining a new actuality and meaning in an émigré community dispersed across several countries.
Collapse
|
15
|
Dean MC. Anders Retzius and the Dental Histologists of the Mid-Nineteenth Century: Their Contribution to Comparative Anatomy, Histology and Anthropology. J Hist Dent 2019; 67:58-97. [PMID: 32189624] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Anatomy, comparative anatomy and embryology are fundamental to taxonomy and evolutionary biology. In the mid-nineteenth century many anatomists and zoologists made major contributions to more than one of these disciplines and a surprising number of them were also histologists. Historical accounts of discoveries and developments in anatomy, and in particular dental histology, rarely consider broader contributions and have tended to be concerned with establishing historical priority about who discovered or described what first. The period 1830 to 1840 saw new developments in light microscopy that enabled studies of histology, cellular pathology and embryology. It also saw a shift away from older ideas such as Naturphilosophie and vitalism towards a more rigorous experimental approach to scientific investigation. Many scientists with diverse research interests were working in parallel on comparative dental histology and were in many cases largely unaware of each other's work. One researcher, Anders Retzius, travelled widely across Europe, corresponded regularly with his scientific colleagues and, probably unbeknownst to himself in his own lifetime, made a lasting contribution to dental histology. Anders Retzius was a clinician, an anatomist, a comparative anatomist, a histologist and latterly an anthropologist. His life and career spanned the whole of this fast-moving period in the history of anatomy and histology.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- M Christopher Dean
- Professor Emeritus, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology University College London, WC1E 6BT, UK Calleva Dental Histologist, Centre for Human Evolution Research, Earth Sciences Natural History Museum, London, SW7 5BD, UK
| |
Collapse
|
16
|
Gaines AD. The Heart of the Meaning: Honoring the Work of Byron J. Good. Cult Med Psychiatry 2018; 42:740-754. [PMID: 30465230 DOI: 10.1007/s11013-018-9610-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
|
17
|
Licata M, Larentis O, Tesi C, Iorio S. Multiple Abnormalities in the Skull of a Prostitute. An Autopsy Report (1900). Acta Med Acad 2018; 47:204-208. [PMID: 30585073 DOI: 10.5644/ama2006-124.233] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/07/2018] [Accepted: 09/18/2018] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
OBJECTIVE The study presents and comments on the publication of an autopsy report. CASE REPORT In 1900 De Blasio published an article entitled "Multiple abnormalities in a prostitute's skull" in the "Journal of Psychiatry, Criminal Anthropology and related sciences". In this work De Blasio related anomalies at the cranial level to the presence of mental pathologies. The skull belonged to a 24-year-old prostitute who died of syphilitic hepatitis. In his article, De Blasio described the life of the woman, after which he gave a macroscopic description of the skull. De Blasio believed that the subject's amoral behavior was caused by the anomalous shape of the subject's skull. CONCLUSION From the study, it is evident that the school of criminal anthropology influenced De Blasio's autopsy medical practice, and it is interesting to note the interpretation of anthropologists of the time who tried to describe the link between physical and behavioral anomalies.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Marta Licata
- Centre of Research in Osteoarchaeology and Paleopathology, Department of Biotechnology and Life Sciences, University of Insubria, Varese, Italy.
| | - Omar Larentis
- Centre of Research in Osteoarchaeology and Paleopathology, Department of Biotechnology and Life Sciences, University of Insubria, Varese, Italy
| | - Chiara Tesi
- Division of Paleopathology, Department of Translational Research and New Technologies in Medicine and Surgery, University of Pisa, Italy
| | - Silvia Iorio
- Department of Molecular Medicine, Unit of History of Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
| |
Collapse
|
18
|
Licata M, Ciliberti R, Iorio S. Can artificially deforming skulls cause "defects of intelligence"? The observations of a positivist anthropologist on an artificially deformed skull discovered in Naples. Neurol Sci 2018; 39:1985-1987. [PMID: 30155653 DOI: 10.1007/s10072-018-3553-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/12/2018] [Accepted: 08/23/2018] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
We discuss a particular case of an artificially deformed skull discovered in Naples in 1892 and published in the Italian Journal of Natural Sciences by the anthropologist Abele De Blasio. To comprehend the observations of the researcher about the "defects of intelligence" caused by the artificial deformation of the skull, we will also analyze other articles in which De Blasio presented the deformed skulls of ancient Peruvian mummies.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Marta Licata
- Centre of Research in Osteoarchaeology and Paleopathology, Department of Biotechnology and Life Sciences, University of Insubria, O. Rossi, 9, 21100, Varese, Italy.
| | - Rosagemma Ciliberti
- Section of Forensic Medicine and Bioethics, Department of Health Sciences, University of Genoa, Via De Toni 12, 16132, Genoa, Italy
| | - Silvia Iorio
- Department of Molecular Medicine, Unit of History of Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
| |
Collapse
|
19
|
Gaines AD. Sorcery and Science: Honoring the Work of Shirley Lindenbaum. Cult Med Psychiatry 2017; 41:473-479. [PMID: 29094236 DOI: 10.1007/s11013-017-9556-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
|
20
|
Bargheer S. ANTHROPOLOGY AT WAR: ROBERT H. LOWIE AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE CULTURE CONCEPT, 1904 to 1954. J Hist Behav Sci 2017; 53:133-154. [PMID: 28199024 DOI: 10.1002/jhbs.21845] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
The concept of culture used in American anthropology has fundamentally transformed throughout the first half of the twentieth century. The changing resonance of the work of Robert H. Lowie offers revealing insights into this development. Lowie was part of the first generation of students of Franz Boas that highlighted the importance of individual variation for the study of both primitive and civilized societies. Yet, its initial resonance notwithstanding, the culture concept that prevailed in the discipline went into a different direction as the result of anthropologists' involvement in the war effort. It was advanced by the second generation of Boas' students such as Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, who stressed the homogeneity of cultures. The contrast highlights the diversity of approaches available within anthropology in the first half of the century and the crucial impact of World War II in determining which of these possibilities became institutionalized in the decades after the war.
Collapse
|
21
|
Kerr A. From Savagery to Sovereignty: Identity, Politics, and International Expositions of Argentine Anthropology (1878–1892). Isis 2017; 108:62-81. [PMID: 29897697 DOI: 10.1086/691395] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
In the late nineteenth century, Argentine intellectual elites turned to world’s fairs as a place to contest myths of Latin American racial inferiority and produce counternarratives of Argentine whiteness and modernity. This essay examines Argentine anthropological displays at three expositions between 1878 and 1892 to elucidate the mechanisms and reception of these projects. Florentino Ameghino, Francisco Moreno, and others worked deliberately and in conjunction with political authorities to erase the indigenous tribes from the national identity, even while using their bodies and products to create prehistory and garner intellectual legitimacy. Comparison of the three fairs also demonstrates how the representation of Amer-Indians and their artifacts shifted in accordance with local political needs and evolving international theories of anthropogenesis. The resulting analysis argues for the importance of considering the former colonies of the Global South in understanding the development of pre-twentieth-century anthropology and world’s fairs, particularly when separating them from their imperial context.
Collapse
|
22
|
Sander S, Levitt C, McMaughlin N. BEYOND FIELDS, NETWORKS, AND FAME: LAWRENCE KRADER AS AN "OUTSIDER" INTELLECTUAL. J Hist Behav Sci 2017; 53:155-175. [PMID: 28199025 DOI: 10.1002/jhbs.21846] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
This paper investigates the intellectual biography of the American philosopher and anthropologist Lawrence Krader (1919-1998) as a contribution to the sociology of intellectuals and history of ideas. We trace Krader's career trajectory to his intellectual self-concept, his scholarly and political worldviews, and his financial independence. Krader entertained a self-concept of a lone pioneer that led him to reject the competition for attention as highlighted in the current literature, dominated as it is by an emphasis on field, habitus, the accumulation and reproduction of power, and symbolic capital. His self-concept and his happier financial circumstance kept him relatively aloof from key intellectual networks and narrow institutional constraints. Our paper seeks to combine the new sociology of ideas with its focus on institutions and networks with traditional Wissenssoziologie that emphasized the role of class, status, and worldviews to explain the rise and fall of theories and thinkers.
Collapse
|
23
|
Farber PL. Dobzhansky and Montagu's Debate on Race: The Aftermath. J Hist Biol 2016; 49:625-639. [PMID: 26463495 DOI: 10.1007/s10739-015-9428-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
Dobzhansky and Montagu debated the use and validity of the term "race" over a period of decades. They failed to reach an agreement, and the "debate" has continued to the present. The ms contains an account of the debate to the present. This essay is part of a Special Issue, Revisiting Garland Allen's Views on the History of the Life Sciences in the Twentieth Century.
Collapse
|
24
|
Giménez-Roldán S. Paul Broca's search for Basque skulls: The full story. J Hist Neurosci 2016; 25:371-385. [PMID: 27684552 DOI: 10.1080/0964704x.2014.886811] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
Paul Broca surmised that the short and broad-brachycephalic-skulls of the earliest European settlers had become longer and narrower-dolichocephalic-in modern populations due to the blending of different races. Swedish anatomist Anders Retzius had two brachycephalic skulls said to be from contemporary Basque individuals, a claim suited to test Broca's hypothesis. Broca worked with fellow anatomist and surgeon Pedro González Velasco, the founding father of Spanish anthropology, to gather a large number of Basque skulls. In its time, this was the most fascinating collection owned by the Anthropological Society of Paris. This article explains how Broca and Velasco were able to gather such a sizeable array of specimens, which they had collected at a location known at first by the code name of "Z." Although Broca finally concluded that the origin of the Retzius skulls could not be determined, his research was to spark anthropologists' interest in the language and origins of the Basque people.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Santiago Giménez-Roldán
- a Department of Neurology , Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón , Madrid , Spain
| |
Collapse
|
25
|
Link A. DOCUMENTING HUMAN NATURE: E. RICHARD SORENSON AND THE NATIONAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL FILM CENTER, 1965-1980. J Hist Behav Sci 2016; 52:371-391. [PMID: 27574740 DOI: 10.1002/jhbs.21813] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
This article analyzes the development of the National Anthropological Film Center as an outgrowth of the Smithsonian's efforts to promote a multidisciplinary program in "urgent anthropology" during the 1960s and 1970s. It considers how film came to be seen as an ideal tool for the documentation and preservation of a wide range of human data applicable to both the behavioral and life sciences. In doing so, it argues that the intellectual and institutional climate facilitated by the Smithsonian's museum structure during this period contributed to the Center's initial establishment as well its eventual decline. Additionally, this piece speaks to the continued relevance of ethnographic film archives for future scientific investigations within and beyond the human sciences.
Collapse
|
26
|
del Pozo A. [Divine cadavers: gender, medical discourse, and anatomical collections in the legend of Pedro González de Velasco]. Dynamis 2016; 36:73-6. [PMID: 27363245] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
This paper examines the relationship between the public image of Pedro Gonzólez de Velasco (1815-1882), famous for his anatomical collections and his Anthropological Museum, founded in 1875 in Madrid, and the popular legend related to the death, embalming and exhumation of his daughter Concepción. The doctor who is committed to the nation becomes a mad scientist, and his official biography is transformed into an urban legend. Beyond the merely anecdotal, I show how the aesthetics associated with female corpses and artificial women organize cultural imaginaries, bringing together medical discourses and literary and artistic representations.
Collapse
|
27
|
Seemann S. [The Base of the Skull. Rudolf Virchow between Pathology and Anthropology]. Medizinhist J 2016; 51:92-123. [PMID: 27476256] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
Throughout his scientific career, the pathologist and anthropologist Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902) examined countless skulls, gradually changing his perspective on this object of research. Initially, he was mainly concerned with pathologically deformed skulls. From the 1850s onwards, he gradually developed a more anthropological approach, and anthropology increasingly came to dominate his scientific interest. This article shows how different influences became central for the establishment of his specific and dynamic model of the human skull development and its successful application in anthropology. Crucial for this process were Virchow's collaboration with his teacher Robert Froriep (1804-1861) in the department of pathology of the Charité, his research on cretinism and rickets, as well as his description of the base of the skull as the center of skull development. His research work was attended by and showed a reciprocal interaction with the buildup of large skull collections. This article uses Virchow's original publications on skull pathology as well as his still preserved skull specimens from the collection of the Berlin Museum of Medical History at the Charité for an integrated text and object based analysis.
Collapse
|
28
|
Rosen RM. Towards a Hippocratic Anthropology: On Ancient Medicine and the Origins of Humans. Stud Anc Med 2016; 46:242-257. [PMID: 26731811 DOI: 10.1163/9789004307407_013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
|
29
|
Watts G. Salmaan Keshavjee: tackling tuberculosis (without rocket science). Lancet 2015; 386:2247. [PMID: 26515681 DOI: 10.1016/s0140-6736(15)00466-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
|
30
|
Abstract
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Italian psychiatry was characterized by its emphasis on an organic explanation of mental illness. 'Cerebral mythology' was a major influence in Italy, at least until the second half of the twentieth century, often at the expense of the development of psychology. In this context, a few psychiatrists adopted a different epistemological perspective, based on a more 'integrative' view of their discipline. In particular, Gaetano Perusini stands out. He promoted the concept of psychiatry as a science which embraced many different fields, thus emphasizing the theme of pluralism, which is still debated today in the philosophy of science and psychiatric practice.
Collapse
|
31
|
Kuhar M, Fatović-Ferenčić S. [Anthropology of the individual, sex, and race in the works of Fran Gundrum Oriovčanin (1856-1919)]. Acta Med Hist Adriat 2015; 13 Suppl 1:79-96. [PMID: 27639045] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
By analysing his unpublished and published works, we have identified anthropological elements in the studies of Croatian physician Fran Gundrum Oriovčanin (1856-1919) that distinguish him as one of the rare researchers in Croatia who attempted to synthesize cultural and biological anthropology. Gundrum collected comparative data on biological characteristics of various ethnic groups, searched for a connection between biological structures and cultural development, and assessed certain social facts and customs from the perspective of medical teleology. This article presents the four most frequent anthropological issues raised in his work: anatomy and physiology of individuals, ethnic groups and "races"; attitudes on prostitution; Jews as a model of alcohol abstinence; and the "degeneration" of Western culture/civilisation. In spite of pronounced linear evolutionism, his work compares social and medical practices between Western and non-Western nations.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Martin Kuhar
- Odsjek za povijest medicinskih znanosti. Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, Gundulićeva 24/III, 10000 Zagreb.
| | | |
Collapse
|
32
|
Abstract
Anthropological inquiry has often been considered an agent of intellectual secularization. Not least is this so in the sphere of religion, where anthropological accounts have often been taken to represent the triumph of naturalism. This metanarrative, however, fails to recognize that naturalistic explanations could sometimes be espoused for religious purposes and in defence of confessional creeds. This essay examines two late nineteenth-century figures--Alexander Winchell in the United States and William Robertson Smith in Britain--who found in anthropological analysis resources to bolster rather than undermine faith. In both cases these individuals found themselves on the receiving end of ecclesiastical censure and were dismissed from their positions at church-governed institutions. But their motivation was to vindicate divine revelation, in Winchell's case from the physical anthropology of human origins and in Smith's from the cultural anthropology of Semitic ritual.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- David N Livingstone
- *School of Geography,Archaeology and Palaeoecology,Queen's University Belfast,Belfast,BT7 1NN,Northern Ireland.
| |
Collapse
|
33
|
|
34
|
[Personalities in medical history. Pierre Paul Broca]. Praxis (Bern 1994) 2015; 104:653. [PMID: 26098247 DOI: 10.1024/1661-8157/a002034] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/04/2023]
|
35
|
Roos RP. D. CARLETON GAJDUSEK. Proc Am Philos Soc 2015; 159:97-106. [PMID: 27011963] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [MESH Headings] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
|
36
|
Torres Colón GA, Hobbs CA. The Intertwining of Culture and Nature: Franz Boas, John Dewey, and Deweyan Strands of American Anthropology. J Hist Ideas 2015; 76:139-162. [PMID: 26462383 DOI: 10.1353/jhi.2015.0002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
|
37
|
Corradini E. [BIRTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE ANATOMICAL MUSEUMS OF MODENA BETWEEN XVIII AND XIX CENTURY. THE OBSTETRIC MUSEUM, THE ANATOMICAL MUSEUM, THE ETHNOGRAPHIC ANTHROPOLOGIC MUSEUM]. Med Secoli 2015; 27:441-479. [PMID: 26946596] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
The interest for the study of Anatomy in Modena was particularly developed since the second half of eighteenth century, when the Duke Francesco III of Este promoted the reformation of the University and Antonio Scarpa was called from Padua to teach Anatomy. Scarpa promoted the building of the Anatomical Theatre, near the Grande Spedale, that was inaugurated in 1776. On the same year, the School of Obstetrics opened and determined the constitution of a first Cabinet or Obstetric Museum in a room next to the Theatre. After the Restoration, between 1817 and 1818, the Archduke Francesco IV of Austria Este promoted the realization of an Anatomical Museum: a big organized room in a new floor built on the Theatre. Two more rooms were added in, 1839 and a fourth one in 1853, under the direction of Paolo Gaddi. Furthermore Gaddi's interest for ethnographic studies determined the opening of the Ethnographic Anthropological Museum in 1866.
Collapse
|
38
|
De Marino MC, Schiena G. [ETTORE BIOCCA, THE MAN AND HIS ARCHIVE (1932-2001)]. Med Secoli 2015; 27:199-214. [PMID: 26946817] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
Ettore Biocca's archive reflects the liveliness of scientific interests and the extreme political and social sensibility that distinguished the personality to confirin the image, still alive in the memories of those who knew him, of a free spirit, impulsive, independent; a character incapable of compromise, always ready to hear his voice everywhere warned the environment threatened or violated human rights. His archive provides interesting ideas for historical research, especially the study of Parasitology in Italy and world.
Collapse
|
39
|
Tracy SW. Henrika "Riki" Kuklick, 1942-2013. Isis 2014; 105:815-818. [PMID: 25665388 DOI: 10.1086/679428] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/04/2023]
|
40
|
Okada M. DR. YUKINARI KOUHARA (1928-2014): A GIANT OF THE CURIOSITY. J Hum Ergol (Tokyo) 2014; 43:67-68. [PMID: 26630826] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [MESH Headings] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
|
41
|
Abstract
Scholars interested in the history of racial science continue to puzzle over the ways in which such ideas endure. This essay takes up a variant on this theme by considering how critiques of ideas about racial purity and hierarchies, expressed at the Universal Races Congress of 1911, were part of a larger intellectual project that simultaneously under- mined ideas of fixed racial types and bolstered identity categories defined in racial terms. Efforts to destabilize racial science in the early decades of the twentieth century often went hand in glove with burgeoning critiques of "white" and European domination in different parts of the world. This essay shines the spotlight on the paradoxical nature of these processes. While anthropologists helped to spearhead attempts to deconstruct mainstream pillars of racial science, they also left the door open for its reconstitution by refusing to reject classificatory schemes by group. And though global conversations about race and science tended to generate more cosmopolitan and egalitarian views, the very act of bringing together people from different places had the unintended effect of reinforcing racial identities and idioms, especially in the context of challenges to colonial rule. Finally, even as state building within empires ensured that racial taxonomies proliferated on the ground, imperial bureaucrats often avoided promoting racial science and research because such endeavors were a divisive force in transnational management.
Collapse
|
42
|
[Personalities in the history of medicine]. Praxis (Bern 1994) 2014; 103:1417. [PMID: 25391753 DOI: 10.1024/1661-8157/a001840] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/04/2023]
|
43
|
Cimino G, Foschi R. Northerners versus southerners: Italian anthropology and psychology faced with the "southern question". Hist Psychol 2014; 17:282-295. [PMID: 24884999 DOI: 10.1037/a0036547] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/03/2023]
Abstract
Following the Unification of Italy (1861), when confronted with the underdevelopment problems of the south that had given rise to the so-called "southern question," some Italian anthropologists and psychologists began to study the populations of the south from the psycho-anthropological point of view. These scientists, at times subject to preconceived ideas toward the southerners, conveyed observations and descriptions of the southern character traits that, in general, were considered different, in a negative sense, with respect to those of the northern peoples. To explain such diversity in the "psychological" characteristics between the north and south of the country (presumed cause also of the south's backwardness), various hypotheses were advanced related to the kind of heredity theory adopted, which could be of, more or less, an "innatist" or "transformist" or "environmentalist" kind. The distinction proposed in this article between at least 2 different "hereditarian" theories formulated by the Italian scientists, and the confrontation of these theories with the hypotheses expressed by the "southernist" sociologists, contrary to the idea of "racial varieties" present in the Italian population, allows one to understand in what way and in what sense, at the threshold of the 20th century, there arose the ideology of "Nordicism" and the roots of racism were planted.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Guido Cimino
- Dipartimento di Psicologia dei Processi di Sviluppo e Socializzazione, Sapienza Università di Roma
| | - Renato Foschi
- Dipartimento di Psicologia Dinamica e Clinica, Sapienza Università di Roma
| |
Collapse
|
44
|
de Figueiredo RÉD. [Caring for the health of your neighbor: the work of anthropologist Charles Wagley with the Serviço Especial de Saúde Pública]. Hist Cienc Saude Manguinhos 2014; 21:1417-1436. [PMID: 25099224 DOI: 10.1590/s0104-59702014005000016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/01/2012] [Accepted: 06/01/2012] [Indexed: 06/03/2023]
Abstract
The article focuses on the work of Charles Wagley as a top staff member with Serviço Especial de Saúde Pública (Special Public Health Service), a US-Brazil cooperation program established during World War II. Taking into consideration Wagley's experience with migration policy under Brazil's Rubber Program, as well as the context of development promotion and the issues then on the anthropological agenda, the article explores Wagley's community study of the Amazon town he visited while on SESP missions, published in the book Uma comunidade amazônica (Amazon Town). Encountering a reality that he believed emblematic of underdevelopment, Wagley was led to reflect on social change and the role of science.
Collapse
|
45
|
de Chadarevian S. Chromosome surveys of human populations: between epidemiology and anthropology. Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci 2014; 47 Pt A:87-96. [PMID: 24954363 DOI: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2014.05.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/03/2023]
Abstract
It is commonly held that after 1945 human genetics turned medical and focussed on the individual rather than on the study of human populations that had become discredited. However, a closer look at the research practices at the time quickly reveals that human population studies, using old and new tools, prospered in this period. The essay focuses on the rise of chromosome analysis as a new tool for the study of human populations. It reviews a broad array of population studies ranging from newborn screening programmes to studies of isolated or 'primitive' people. Throughout, it highlights the continuing role of concerns and opportunities raised by the propagation of atomic energy for civilian and military uses, the collection of large data bases and computers, and the role of international organisations like the World Health Organisation and the International Biological Programme in shaping research agendas and carving out a space for human heredity in the postwar era.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Soraya de Chadarevian
- University of California Los Angeles, Department of History and Institute for Society and Genetics, 6265 Bunche Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1473, USA.
| |
Collapse
|
46
|
Abstract
The essays in this issue look at the contested history of human heredity after 1945 from a new analytical angle, that of populations and the ways in which they were constructed and studied. One consequence of this approach is that we do not limit our attention to the disciplinary study of genetics. After the Second World War, populations became a central topic for an array of fields, including demography, anthropology, epidemiology, and public health. Human heredity had a role in all of these: demographers carried out mental surveys in efforts to distinguish hereditary from environmental factors, doctors screened newborns and tested pregnant women for chromosome disorders; anthropologists collected blood from remote locations to gain insights into the evolutionary history of human populations; geneticists monitored people exposed to radiation. Through this work, populations were labelled as clinical, normal, primitive, pure, vulnerable or exotic. We ask: how were populations chosen, who qualified as members, and how was the study of human heredity shaped by technical, institutional and geopolitical conditions? By following the practical and conceptual work to define populations as objects of research, the essays trace the circulation of practices across different fields and contexts, bringing into view new actors, institutions, and geographies. By doing so the collection shows how human heredity research was linked to the broader politics of the postwar world, one profoundly conditioned by Cold War tensions, by nationalist concerns, by colonial and post-colonial struggles, by modernisation projects and by a new internationalism.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Jenny Bangham
- Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Boltzmannstraße 22, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
| | - Soraya de Chadarevian
- University of California Los Angeles, Department of History and Institute for Society and Genetics, 6265 Bunche Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1473, USA
| |
Collapse
|
47
|
Louryan S. ["Human races": history of a dangerous illusion]. Rev Med Brux 2014; 35:179-183. [PMID: 25102586] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/03/2023]
Abstract
The multiplication of offences prompted by racism and the increase of complaints for racism leads us to consider the illusory concept of "human races". This idea crossed the history, and was reinforced by the discovery of remote tribes and human fossils, and by the development of sociobiology and quantitative psychology. Deprived of scientific base, the theory of the "races" must bow before the notions of genetic variation and unicity of mankind.
Collapse
MESH Headings
- Ancient Lands
- Animals
- Anthropology/history
- Biological Evolution
- Civil Rights/history
- Europe
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- History, 15th Century
- History, 16th Century
- History, 17th Century
- History, 18th Century
- History, 19th Century
- History, 20th Century
- History, 21st Century
- History, Ancient
- History, Medieval
- Humans
- Natural History/history
- Psychology/history
- Racial Groups/history
- Racism/history
- Roman World
- Selection, Genetic
- Social Problems/history
- Sociobiology/history
- United Kingdom
- United States
Collapse
|
48
|
Rivallan A. [Georges Devereux]. Soins Psychiatr 2014:45-46. [PMID: 24741831] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [MESH Headings] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/03/2023]
|
49
|
Rudling PA. Eugenics and racial biology in Sweden and the USSR: contacts across the Baltic Sea. Can Bull Med Hist 2014; 31:41-75. [PMID: 24909018 DOI: 10.3138/cbmh.31.1.41] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/03/2023]
Abstract
The 1920s saw a significant exchange between eugenicists in Sweden and the young Soviet state. Sweden did not take part in World War I, and during the years following immediately upon the Versailles peace treaty, Swedish scholars came to serve as an intermediary link between, on the one hand, Soviet Russia and Weimar Germany, and, on the other hand, Western powers. Swedish eugenicists organized conferences, lecture tours, visits, scholarly exchanges, and transfers and translation of eugenic research. Herman Lundborg, the director of the world's first State Institute of Racial Biology, was an old-fashioned, deeply conservative, and anti-communist "scientific" racist, who somewhat paradoxically came to serve as something of a Western liaison for Soviet eugenicists. Whereas the contacts were disrupted in 1930, Swedish eugenicists had a lasting impact on Soviet physical anthropologists, who cited their works well into the 1970s, long after they had been discredited in Sweden.
Collapse
|
50
|
Parquet RA. [Rudolf Carl Virchow]. Acta Gastroenterol Latinoam 2014; 44:202. [PMID: 26742287] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [MESH Headings] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
|