Social history of medicine : the journal of the Society for the Social History of Medicine
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Historical Article
Of war and epidemics: unnatural couplings, problematic conceptions.
The relationship between war and epidemics is usually cast pathogenically. This article pursues a different perspective: that of the history of the idea of relating wars to epidemics. lt considers how this notion was formulated, deployed, and transformed overtime. The first section reviews prevailing approaches to the war and epidemics dyad, and outlines the reasons for its "denaturalization" within contemporary historical demography. ⋯ It enables us to concentrate on the different socio-political and professionalizing contexts within which the "ideal partnership" between war and disease was fashioned, and eventually deposed, in epidemiology. By thus historicizing the relationship, the article contributes to a view of epidemiology and historical epidemiology as socially-constructed discourses. As such, it cautions against borrowing uncritically from the writings of the original framers of the retrospectively fashioned war-and-epidemics couplet - borrowings, arguably, that have served to constrain the imaginative capacities of historians ever since.
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Historical studies of homeopathy in Europe and the USA have focused on practitioners' attempts to emphasize 'modern' and 'scientific' approaches. Studies of homeopathy in India have focused on a process of Indianization. Arguing against such unilineal trajectories, this paper situates homeopathy in South India within the context of shifting relations between 'scientific' and 'indigenous' systems of medicine. ⋯ It was not until the early 1970s that homeopathy was officially recognized in Tamilnadu State. By then, both homeopathy and Ayurveda had become conceptualized as non-Tamil, in contrast with promotion of the Tamil Siddha system of 'indigenous' medicine. Thus, constructs of 'indigenous' and 'scientific' systems of medicine are quite malleable with respect to homeopathy in South India.
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Biography Historical Article
A tale of two experts: thalidomide and political engagement in the United States and West Germany.
The physicians, Widukind Lenz and Frances Kelsey, played crucial roles in the thalidomide drama of the early 1960s. Widespread use of the drug in West Germany was only halted when the paediatrician, Lenz, publicized its association with the birth of nearly 4,000 children exhibiting abnormal limb growth. Few cases were reported in the United States because Kelsey, a medical officer at the US Food and Drug Administration, repeatedly delayed thalidomide's marketing approval. ⋯ Comparing Lenz and Kelsey demonstrates how institutional structures shape an expert's social and scientific roles. While the United States provided important protection from external pressure for Kelsey through her regulatory position at the FDA, Lenz was open to sharp criticism, especially when giving expert testimony during a lengthy court trial. The degree of exposure to politically motivated attacks differed for these two experts; they nevertheless faced similar threats to their professional credibility and personal integrity when they publicized links between thalidomide and birth defects.
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Historical Article
Slavery, smallpox, and revolution: 1792 in Ile de France (Mauritius).
In 1792 a slave-ship arrived on the french Indian Ocean island of Ile de France (Mauritius) from South India, bringing with it smallpox. As the epidemic spread, a heated debate ensued over the practice of inoculation. The island was in the throes of revolutionary politics and the community of French colonists were acutely aware of their new rights as 'citizens'. ⋯ Eighteenth-century colonial medicine was largely geared to keeping the bodies of slaves and workers productive and useful, but formal medicine never had a monopoly. Slaves on Ile de France brought with them a rich array of medical beliefs and practices from Africa, India, and Madagascar. We have little direct historical evidence for these, but we do know that many slaves came from areas in which forces of smallpox inoculation were known and practised.