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Medical History Apr 2017This paper explores the social, medical, institutional and enumerative histories of blindness in British India from 1850 to 1950. It begins by tracing the contours and...
This paper explores the social, medical, institutional and enumerative histories of blindness in British India from 1850 to 1950. It begins by tracing the contours and causes of blindness using census records, and then outlines how colonial physicians and observers ascribed both infectious aetiologies and social pathologies to blindness. Blindness was often interpreted as the inevitable consequence of South Asian ignorance, superstition and backwardness. This paper also explores the social worlds of the Blind, with a particular focus on the figure of the blind beggar. This paper further interrogates missionary discourse on 'Indian' blindness and outlines how blindness was a metaphor for the perceived civilisational inferiority and religious failings of South Asian peoples. This paper also describes the introduction of institutions for the Blind in addition to the introduction of Braille and Moon technologies.
Topics: Blindness; History, 19th Century; History, 20th Century; Humans; India; United Kingdom
PubMed: 28260563
DOI: 10.1017/mdh.2017.1 -
Medical History. Supplement 2000
Topics: Climate; Geography; History, 19th Century; History, 20th Century; Humans; United States
PubMed: 11769934
DOI: No ID Found -
Medical History. Supplement 1981
Topics: Fever; History, Modern 1601-
PubMed: 11612148
DOI: 10.1017/s0025727300070071 -
Medical History Jan 1967
Topics: Association; History, 18th Century; Humans; Mental Disorders; United Kingdom
PubMed: 5341035
DOI: 10.1017/s002572730001173x -
Medical History Jan 1975
Topics: Anatomy; Education, Medical; England; History, 16th Century; History, 17th Century; Scotland
PubMed: 1095849
DOI: 10.1017/s0025727300019906 -
Medical History Jul 2015Adolf Meyer (1866-1950) exercised considerable influence over the development of Anglo-American psychiatry during the first half of the twentieth century. The concepts...
Adolf Meyer (1866-1950) exercised considerable influence over the development of Anglo-American psychiatry during the first half of the twentieth century. The concepts and techniques he implemented at his prominent Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at Johns Hopkins remain important to psychiatric practice and neuro-scientific research today. In the 1890s, Meyer revised scientific medicine's traditional notion of clinical skill to serve what he called the 'New Psychiatry', a clinical discipline that embodied social and scientific ideals shared with other 'new' progressive reform movements in the United States. This revision conformed to his concept of psychobiology - his biological theory of mind and mental disorders - and accorded with his definition of scientific medicine as a unity of clinical-pathological methods and therapeutics. Combining insights from evolutionary biology, neuron theory and American pragmatist philosophy, Meyer concluded that subjective experience and social behaviour were functions of human biology. In addition to the time-honoured techniques devised to exploit the material data of the diseased body - observing and recording in the clinic, dissecting in the morgue and conducting histological experiments in the laboratory - he insisted that psychiatrists must also be skilled at wielding social interaction and interpersonal relationships as investigative and therapeutic tools in order to conceptualise, collect, analyse and apply the ephemeral data of 'social adaptation'. An examination of his clinical practices and teaching at Johns Hopkins between 1913 and 1917 shows how particular historical and intellectual contexts shaped Meyer's conceptualisation of social behaviour as a biological function and, subsequently, his new vision of clinical skill for twentieth-century psychiatry.
Topics: Baltimore; Clinical Competence; Female; History, 19th Century; History, 20th Century; Humans; Male; Mental Disorders; Psychiatry; Schools, Medical; Social Behavior; Social Skills; United States
PubMed: 26090738
DOI: 10.1017/mdh.2015.29 -
Medical History Jan 2013This article continues the analyses in Medical History 52 (2008), 73-90, 365-86 of William Harvey's self-understanding as the philosopher and discoverer of the blood's...
This article continues the analyses in Medical History 52 (2008), 73-90, 365-86 of William Harvey's self-understanding as the philosopher and discoverer of the blood's circulation. Harvey brilliantly and subversively assumed the persona of the mythological Hercules to embody his own anatomical labour in De motu cordis et sanguinis (1628). He reprised the role in self-defence against accusations in the College of Physicians, London, of his breach of faith with medical tradition. Harvey sought to usurp the medical epithet 'a second Hercules' by reforming humanist dependence on ancient texts as authoritative medicine. A knowledge of the theory and practice of Renaissance humanism discloses his identification with the Herculean labour of cleansing the Augean stable. He employed anatomical demonstration against Galen's porous cardiac septum, which admitted blood across the ventricles. Harvey's oath mehercule swore against Galen's Dia to assert the necessity of opening an alternate route for the blood flow. His Herculean labour was to dam the cardiac septum and divert the blood flow into a continuous channel through the arteries and veins. His circulation of the blood also imitated Hercules' successful dependence on the force of the water flow to flush the Augean stable. Harvey's copia did not denote a quantitative amount but a powerful supply. Harvey aspired to be, like Hercules, immortal, a term which the College belatedly acknowledged. This cultural analysis exposes Harvey's professional issues and personal ambitions, so to promote a fuller understanding of his historic role in medical discovery.
Topics: Blood Circulation; Cardiology; England; History, 17th Century; Humans; Mythology; Philosophy, Medical
PubMed: 23393400
DOI: 10.1017/mdh.2012.78 -
Medical History Oct 1997
Topics: Bibliographies as Topic; Databases, Factual; Famous Persons; History, 17th Century; Philosophy
PubMed: 9536619
DOI: 10.1017/s0025727300063055 -
Medical History Apr 2019In 1920 in France, a law was passed prohibiting abortion, the sale of contraceptives and 'anti-conception propaganda'. While contraception was legalised in 1967 and...
In 1920 in France, a law was passed prohibiting abortion, the sale of contraceptives and 'anti-conception propaganda'. While contraception was legalised in 1967 and abortion in 1975, 'anti-natalist propaganda' remained forbidden. This article takes seriously the aim of the French state to prevent the circulation of information for demographic reasons. Drawing from government archives, social movement archives and media coverage, the article focuses on the way the propaganda ban contributed to shaping the public debate on contraception as well as lastingly impacting the ability of the state to communicate on the subject. It first shows how birth control activists challenged the legal interdiction against communicating about contraception (1956-67) without questioning the natalist obligation. It then shows how, after 1968, communication on contraception became a power struggle carried out by various actors (sexologists and feminist and leftist activists) and how the dissemination of information about contraception was thought of as a way to challenge moral and social values. Finally, the article describes the change of state communication policies in the mid-1970s, leading to the first national campaign on contraception launched in 1981, which defined information as a task that women should take on.
Topics: Abortion, Induced; Contraception; Contraceptive Agents; Female; Feminism; France; Health Policy; History, 20th Century; Humans; Legislation, Medical; Politics; Pregnancy; Propaganda; Women's Rights
PubMed: 30912500
DOI: 10.1017/mdh.2019.4 -
Medical History Jul 1966
Topics: History, Modern 1601-; Physicians; United Kingdom
PubMed: 5330005
DOI: 10.1017/s002572730001108x