Bulletin of the history of medicine
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Biography Historical Article
Exercises in therapy--neurological gymnastics between Kurort and hospital medicine, 1880-1945.
This article focuses on the convergence of sports and medicine in the practice of neurological gymnastics (Übungstherapie) in the German-speaking world at the turn of the twentieth century. It shows how Übungstherapie first found receptive ground within the peripheral medical space of the spa town (Kurort). Übungstherapie appealed to Kurort patients because, as a form of neurological gymnastics, it drew on the cultural capital of the broader German gymnastics movement. ⋯ Recuperating the therapeutic aspects of neurology, this article suggests that the development of Übungstherapie contributed to the formation of neurology as an independent specialty, distinct from psychiatry and internal medicine. It thus demonstrates the importance of expanding the scope of historical study beyond the traditional boundaries of the mainstream in order to understand clinical, institutional, and disciplinary change.
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Biography Historical Article
The physiology of extremes: Ancel Keys and the International High Altitude Expedition of 1935.
This article examines the International High Altitude Expedition of 1935 and its significance in the life and science of Ancel Keys. Both the expedition and Keys's story afford excellent opportunities to explore the growing reach of interwar physiology into extreme climates-whether built or natural. As IHAE scientists assessed human performance and adaptation to hypoxia, low barometric pressure, and cold, they not only illuminated the physiological and psychological processes of high altitude acclimatization, but they also drew borderlines between the normal and the pathological, paved the way for the neocolonial exploitation of natural and human resources in Latin America, and pioneered field methods in physiology that were adapted and adopted by the Allied Forces during the Second World War. This case study in the physiology of place reveals the power and persistence of environmental determinism within biomedicine well into the twentieth century.
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A heated ethical and professional debate occurred in the United States in the late 1980s over whether doctors had an ethical obligation to treat people with AIDS. Sparked by public refusals to treat by physicians, the debate was linked to changes in the epidemic and general tensions about the character of the profession. ⋯ Physicians' obligations for HIV/AIDS were defined by law; no general and durable obligation in the face of epidemics was secured. The professional system proved weak in the face of potential crisis.
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Historical Article
European cloth and "tropical" skin: clothing material and British ideas of health and hygiene in tropical climates.
As Britain's imperial and colonial ambitions intensified toward the end of the nineteenth century, the preservation of white European health in tropical climates became an increasingly important concern. Since at least the seventeenth century, the "tropics" had been seen as spaces holding vast potential wealth but also death and disease. To combat these deadly but desirable landscapes, the British built a considerable commodity culture around the preservation of white European health, and for many, tropical clothing was one of the most important and essential items in their "kits." This article investigates the composition and use of such clothing in relation to British ideas of health and hygiene in tropical climates. ⋯ Finally, it considers the relationship of tropical clothing to the formation of a unique colonial identity. To British men and women embarking for any number of tropical destinations, proper clothing was not a banal and mundane component of their outfitting. For many, the clothing signified a departure from the safe and "civil" climes of Britain for adventure in the expanding tropical empire.
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Historical Article
Catching cowpox: the early spread of smallpox vaccination, 1798-1810.
The introduction of smallpox vaccination after the publication of Edward Jenner's An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of Variolae Vaccinae depended on the spread of cowpox, a relatively rare disease. How Europeans and their colonial allies transported and maintained cowpox in new environments is a social and technological story involving a broad range of individuals from physicians and surgeons to philanthropists, ministers, and colonial administrators. Putting cowpox in new places also meant developing new techniques and organizations. This essay focuses on the actual practices of vaccination and their environmental contexts in order to illuminate the dynamic exchanges of materials, images, and ideas that made the spread of vaccination possible.