Two anti-poliomyelitic vaccination campaigns coexisted in 1963: the Salk vaccine used by the Compulsory Health Insurance and the pilot experience with the oral Sabin vaccine promoted by the Health General Office. This si...Two anti-poliomyelitic vaccination campaigns coexisted in 1963: the Salk vaccine used by the Compulsory Health Insurance and the pilot experience with the oral Sabin vaccine promoted by the Health General Office. This simultaneity of campaigns was due to the interest that both bodies had to control the Preventive Medicine in Spain. The Compulsory Sickness Insurance used the anti-polio vaccine to promote itself socially in a time when the Basic Law on Social Security was being developed. Under these circumstances, the Health General Office allegedly brought forward its vaccine campaign by using a test of an innovative oral trivalent vaccine in the province of León, something which was hidden to the public. The Health General Office's claim of competence in prevention and the need of a massive response to a voluntary vaccine led to a singular advertising campaign with old messages in innovative means of communication.
The aim of the paper is to analyse the introduction, use and diffusion of the serological surveys, a public health technology on the borderline between epidemiology and laboratory, in connection with poliomyelitis in Spa...The aim of the paper is to analyse the introduction, use and diffusion of the serological surveys, a public health technology on the borderline between epidemiology and laboratory, in connection with poliomyelitis in Spain during the Francoism period. Within the framework of the "new history" of medical technologies and innovations, the serological surveys played an important role both in the improvement of knowledge on socio-demographic distribution and the health politics arena.
Studies into the polio virus began in Valencia in 1959 with the work undertaken by the microbiologist Vicente Sanchis-Bayarri Vaillant. After his education at the Rochester University and at the Pasteur Institute, Sanchi...Studies into the polio virus began in Valencia in 1959 with the work undertaken by the microbiologist Vicente Sanchis-Bayarri Vaillant. After his education at the Rochester University and at the Pasteur Institute, Sanchis-Bayarri Vaillant established a laboratory of cell cultures at the Faculty of Medicine in Valencia, where he developed a new diagnostic technique for the poliomyelitis virus. In addition, epidemiological studies were carried out both prior to and post the 1963 vaccination campaign, which proved that Sabin's oral vaccine was both effective and safe for use.
This article will address how Swedish scientists, physicians and public health officers tried to combat the polio epidemics in the pre-vaccine era. It shows that once polio was considered as an epidemic disease the preve...This article will address how Swedish scientists, physicians and public health officers tried to combat the polio epidemics in the pre-vaccine era. It shows that once polio was considered as an epidemic disease the preventive measures used were based on the hindrance of other infectious diseases. It also illustrates how epidemiological and laboratory studies to some degree affected the thoughts of how polio should be prevented, and that Swedish ideas and experiences differed from those put forward in the USA.
Against the background of the renewed interest aroused in recent years by the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919, and the leading role now played by research analysing the process of innovation in medicine, this paper asses...Against the background of the renewed interest aroused in recent years by the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919, and the leading role now played by research analysing the process of innovation in medicine, this paper assesses the role played by serums and vaccines - the new resources of the medical science of the time 0 in the fight against the influenza outbreak of 1918-1919. The paper highlights the dependence on combined scientific, social, economic and professional factors, and also shows the main consequences arising from the fine-tuning and implementation of these therapeutic and prophylactic resources.
In June 1906, the conservative deputy and doctor Eliseo Cantón submitted in the Argentinian Parliament the project of a <<big polyclinical hospital>>, which would take up four blocks, would be located in front of the Fac...In June 1906, the conservative deputy and doctor Eliseo Cantón submitted in the Argentinian Parliament the project of a <<big polyclinical hospital>>, which would take up four blocks, would be located in front of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Buenos Aires and would be made up by 20 institutes with a capacity for 80 beds each. The dispute over this huge project, which lasted until 1917, placed in the middle of the scene, a group of "medical deputies" who used the political platform as a space to define the main aspects of the hospital system. The controversy went beyond the Parliament reaching the public sphere. The lavishness of the project on the eve of the Centenary public festivities or the opulence of a Buenos Aires which inspired to be like Paris were related, in a symbolic view, to the progress of local medicine and its aspirations to be included in the international medical arena. The analysed case helps understand how an essentially political controversy - which led to economical, ethical and cognitive discussions - intervened in the process of building up a socio-professional space of the hospital medical practice.
Continuing with the subject of the previous work, this article considers the whole series of problems connected to the question of vision provoked by the mere existence of the body of the automaton. The eyes of the andro...Continuing with the subject of the previous work, this article considers the whole series of problems connected to the question of vision provoked by the mere existence of the body of the automaton. The eyes of the android and, above all, the reactions aroused by looking at these human-shaped machines are the object of Hoffman's reflections, from a viewpoint apparently firmly set within the Goethean concept of the <<world of the eye>> - Welt des Auges. Similarly, there is as it had been perceived in science since the seventeenth century.
This article focuses on the study of some social control technologies and discourses, displayed in Argentina's provinces between 1880 and 1940, with particular reference to the so-called 'Territorios Nacionales' of La Pa...This article focuses on the study of some social control technologies and discourses, displayed in Argentina's provinces between 1880 and 1940, with particular reference to the so-called 'Territorios Nacionales' of La Pampa Río Negro and Neuquén, which were submitted to a direct federal authority. THe main purpose is to analyze - within these areas- - the building of repressive and sanitary institutions (i.e., police, prisons, asylums, hospitals) as well as the enforcement of positivists studying and classifying methodologies, intended to identify 'abnormality'. A straight and permanent rule of these "territorios Nacionales' on the federal State could have meant a longer attention to their social and economic development through a direct and intense presence of national, modernizing, positivist institutions. However, a deeper historical study of repressive and sanitary institutions allows to arrive to completely different conclusions. The sources show that these institutions had numerous daily problems, were frequently and severely under-budgeted and were obliged to develop not originally forseen functions and tasks. These situations imply revising not only these institutions' real regulation capacities but also the very existence of a generalized, efficient social control programme in Argentina at the beginning of the 20th century, as many scholars focused on Buenos Aires's study case have already argued.
Tuberculosis was a stigmatized disease, with a strong social meaning developed by medicine itself. In this paper, we make an analysis of the medical conceptions about the disease, and their repercussions on patients in a...Tuberculosis was a stigmatized disease, with a strong social meaning developed by medicine itself. In this paper, we make an analysis of the medical conceptions about the disease, and their repercussions on patients in a special place such as tuberculosis sanatoriums. In the first place, we enumerate the sanatoriums in the province of Cordoba, after that, we study the medical views about the sanatoriums and the infection, as a central element for hospitalized patients with tuberculosis. Later, we analyze the myths generated around the disease, and finally, we try to understand how these myths made possible to create a particular social group within those sanatoriums.
This article intends to examine the conditions of the city of Rio de Janeiro, regarding the city's health safety of the living and housing condition of its workers, which helped bringing about the spread of tuberculosis...This article intends to examine the conditions of the city of Rio de Janeiro, regarding the city's health safety of the living and housing condition of its workers, which helped bringing about the spread of tuberculosis in the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. Evidencing the high incidence of tuberculosis at this time, it intends to verify the reasons for creating the Brazilian League Against Tuberculosis and its purpose, analyzing its project of assistance to children's health and its intervention to discipline, which resulted in the creation of the Dona Amélia Queen Reformatory.
The observation in the city of Medellín within the framework of urban history generated a surprising picture of subjects in hygiene and public health, among which we found the case of mental illness and the control syste...The observation in the city of Medellín within the framework of urban history generated a surprising picture of subjects in hygiene and public health, among which we found the case of mental illness and the control systems proposed by civilian authorities and doctors. In Medellín, between 1880 and 1950, the modernization process went on, turning its pole of attraction on population displacements to the interior of the province of Antioch. As a result of Railroad I, there was a massive mobility of population from the neighboring towns, including some mentally ill people. At the end of the 19th century, the authorities created a house of asylum for these people, which became the Mental Hospital in the middle of the 20th century. The isolation of the mentally ill people reports both medical authority and the beginning of the constitution process and institutionalization of the psychopathology and medicalization of mental disease in Antioquia at the beginning of the 20th century.
In post-revolutionary Mexico City, work therapy prevailed over other treatments used to correct what was considered a social disease: child delinquency. Thousands of children took up the fields of farm schools as well as...In post-revolutionary Mexico City, work therapy prevailed over other treatments used to correct what was considered a social disease: child delinquency. Thousands of children took up the fields of farm schools as well as workshops in reformatories and industrial schools. The manual labor carried out by children of the popular sectors was used in childhood establishments as a way to make up for what they received in those places. Based on the logic that work as regenerator of a sick body and an ill mind, the Mexican state tried to turn the young delinquents into the future workers.
The São Pedro Hospice was inaugurated on June 29, 1884, and it wa the first psychiatric hospital in Rio Grande do Sul State and one of the first of Brazil, whose history was in a turning point, and it became correlated w...The São Pedro Hospice was inaugurated on June 29, 1884, and it wa the first psychiatric hospital in Rio Grande do Sul State and one of the first of Brazil, whose history was in a turning point, and it became correlated with the construction of the psychiatry then province. This article presents an abbreviation history of the institution until the decade of 1920, it analyzes the data of the internal population. Moreover, it deals with the medical practices of attendance inside the hospice, which were combined with the development of the "cure" of the subjects, the precepts of the science and the physical and cultural attributes, as well as the experiences of the inpatients' life.
During the first half of the twentieth century, the presence of leprosy in modern societies provoked various reactions. As ancient prejudices had not disappeared yet, the medical-legal discourse dealt with a problem that...During the first half of the twentieth century, the presence of leprosy in modern societies provoked various reactions. As ancient prejudices had not disappeared yet, the medical-legal discourse dealt with a problem that exceeded the strictly sanitary framework. From a scientific perspective, this paper analyzes the way in which answers find that seemed the population and the future of the race in the physical and symbolic isolation of the leper, were developed in Argentina. In that context, the eugenics legitimated strong restrictions of rights to sick persons on whom this ancestral stigma continued to carry much weight.
Lamarck's theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics and immediate responses to environmental challenges has offered a promise of protagonism of human beings and their fellow travellers, the other organisms, i...Lamarck's theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics and immediate responses to environmental challenges has offered a promise of protagonism of human beings and their fellow travellers, the other organisms, in the evolutionary process. Darwin's theory about evolution by natural selection does not offer this consolation and does not presuppose anything else other than gradual changes in the composition of natural populations. The study of ecology, ethology, neurobiology, animal culture, psychology and human history reveals that the lamarckian interpretations of change and character transmission processes always assume what they intend to explain, that is previous processes of darwinian evolution that guarantee the adaptive nature of the observed responses. The permanent search of direction and intentionality in evolutionary processes by many scientists suggests the limited acceptance of materialistic explanations as those offered by Darwin's theory.
The problem of the meaning of life is herewith contemplated from a Darwinian perspective. It is argued how factors such as existential depression, the concern about the meaning of "meaning," the problem of evil, death as...The problem of the meaning of life is herewith contemplated from a Darwinian perspective. It is argued how factors such as existential depression, the concern about the meaning of "meaning," the problem of evil, death as the end of our personal identity, happiness as an unachievable goal, etc. may well have an adaptive dimension "controlled" neither by ourselves nor obscure third parties (conspiracy theories) but "simply" by our genes (replicators in general) so that little if anything is to be done to find a radical remedy for the human condition.
After 150 years conceiving and dealing with Nature in terms of competence, costs-benefits, exploitation of resources, strategies..., we have managed to make it enter into a "recession." This estrangement from reality and...After 150 years conceiving and dealing with Nature in terms of competence, costs-benefits, exploitation of resources, strategies..., we have managed to make it enter into a "recession." This estrangement from reality and from natural phenomena, has seriously jeopardized the future of mankind on our planet and makes it necessary, even urgent, the search for a conception of biology based on scientific concepts and vocabulary that re-connects us with Nature before it is too late.
This paper studies Lamarck's evolutionary thought through four analytic elements. Firstly, Lamarckian construction of a founding evolutionary archetype. Secondly, the interpretation of nature as a material system where t...This paper studies Lamarck's evolutionary thought through four analytic elements. Firstly, Lamarckian construction of a founding evolutionary archetype. Secondly, the interpretation of nature as a material system where the organic change represents a continuous process aimed at the adaptative conservation of life. Thirdly, the definition of a genealogical process on the origin of species which identifies the natural method. Fourthly, the redefinition of the concept of species applying the arguments of temporary relativity and individual instability.
Centenary celebrations of Darwin's birth were held in Valencia and Lorca in 1909. Fifty years later, the meetings and the publications of the Spanish scientific community on the occasion of the centenary of the publicati...Centenary celebrations of Darwin's birth were held in Valencia and Lorca in 1909. Fifty years later, the meetings and the publications of the Spanish scientific community on the occasion of the centenary of the publication of "On the Origin of Species" showed a proximity and an acceptance towards the theses of the evolutionary modern synthesis. During the first half of the 20th century, there were controversies in Spain between the Darwinian and anti-Darwinian positions. In addition, non-Darwinian evolutionary theories were spread and supported. Though the assumptions of the synthetic theory of evolution were soon known, commented and discussed, the majority trend in the 40s and 50s was to incline towards finalist and vitalist interpretations of evolution.
This paper attempts to provide a general overview about the way in which Brazilian medicine and physical anthropology gave a naturalistic approach to the idea of race and to the "problem" posed by the mixture of races in...This paper attempts to provide a general overview about the way in which Brazilian medicine and physical anthropology gave a naturalistic approach to the idea of race and to the "problem" posed by the mixture of races in the country during the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, coinciding with the introduction of evolutionism in Brazil.