British Journal for the History of Science最新文献

{"title":"Innovation amidst post-socialist reform: Jonas Salk and the birth of the Sabin strains-derived inactivated polio vaccine in China.","authors":"Tianyu Li, Chadwick Wang","doi":"10.1017/S0007087424001195","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0007087424001195","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>As an industrial science, vaccinology is susceptible to changing social, economic and political frameworks. This article reconstructs the history of the birth of the Sabin strains-derived inactivated polio vaccine (sIPV) in China. The development of this nascent vaccine can be attributed first and foremost to the circulation of knowledge and technology in the global polio research network of the 1980s, before the privatization of vaccine manufacturing and the escalation of intellectual-property protections. Tracing correspondence between Jonas Salk and a Chinese scientist, Jiang Shude, and his colleagues, we chart how institutional efforts in search of a profitable product and scientists' motives in pursuing personal careers in the post-socialist reform era led to collaboration on many levels, centered around polio vaccines. In response to recent polio history research, we also emphasize the impact of multiple temporalities of polio dramaturgy on the vaccine manufacturer, as this article demonstrates how the confluence of shifting global polio eradication agendas and contingencies in complex vaccinology undertakings ironically helped to materialize the idea of the sIPV. Finally, stories of vaccines and scientists in China add compelling subplots to the global polio history, which reveals the need to reconsider the politicization of imported technology in broader socialist contexts.A letter dated '3 June 1986' was mailed from Jonas Salk to Jiang Shude (). Jiang had been an unknown vaccinologist working at the Institute of Medical Biology (IMB) in Flower Red Cave in the Western Hills of Kunming, in south-western China. Salk had visited two years earlier to discuss the feasibility of the IMB's proposal to manufacture inactivated polio vaccine (IPV). The initial collaborative plan had come to a halt by the time Salk wrote the letter to Jiang; still, he kindly offered Jiang an opportunity to travel to Bilthoven and then Lyon to learn IPV-related technology with a generous $10,000 grant for his one-year stay in Europe.</p>","PeriodicalId":46655,"journal":{"name":"British Journal for the History of Science","volume":" ","pages":"407-423"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143123127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Proxies and partial connections in an anthropologist's archive.","authors":"Dmitry V Arzyutov, David G Anderson","doi":"10.1017/S0007087424000815","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0007087424000815","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article examines the role of primary ethnographic materials - of field notes, letters and photographs - and even of the shelves and bookcases - in building accounts of the human condition. We trace the lives of incomplete and not-yet-found manuscripts, which have been treated as representative of whole archives, as well as closely held convictions and ideas in the history of anthropology. In so doing, we employ the notion of a 'proxy', or a set of signs and images which point the audience in particular directions, without determining their overall destination. Our research is based on a few episodes from the histories of paper and digital copies of manuscripts and photographs of the anthropological couple Sergei and Elizabeth Shirokogoroff, who conducted ethnographic, linguistic and some archaeological research, first on the borderlands between China and Russia, and then later within China. We aim to show the complexity and social and intellectual vibrancy of their ethnographic field archives, which have been scattered across countries, institutions and personal collections. We conclude by suggesting that engaging anthropologically with field archives enables us to approach existing perspectives on archives in a new way, viewing them not as containers of catalogued information, but as entanglements reflecting social relations in local communities, the trajectories of ethnographers, and the aspirations of scholars asking questions today.</p>","PeriodicalId":46655,"journal":{"name":"British Journal for the History of Science","volume":" ","pages":"389-405"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142630103","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"'Down pythons' throats we thrust live goats': snakes, zoos and animal welfare in nineteenth-century Britain.","authors":"Helen Cowie","doi":"10.1017/S0007087424000542","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0007087424000542","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In nineteenth-century Britain, captive snakes in menageries and zoological gardens were routinely fed with live prey - primarily rabbits, pigeons and guinea pigs. From the late 1860s, this practice began to generate opposition on animal welfare grounds, leading to a protracted debate over its necessity, visibility and morality. Focusing on the <i>c.</i>1870-1914 period, when the snake-feeding controversy reached its zenith, this article charts changing attitudes towards the treatment of reptiles in captivity and asks why an apparently niche practice generated so much interest. By looking at the biological arguments put forward for and against live feeding, the article traces the changing nature of humanitarian activism in the late nineteenth century and shows how the shifting character of the live-feeding debate paralleled wider trends in the animal welfare movement. It also highlights the different types of knowledge and expertise involved in the debate, as naturalists, veterinary surgeons, legal professionals, zookeepers and humanitarians offered conflicting perspectives on questions of reptilian dietary requirements and animal sentience.</p>","PeriodicalId":46655,"journal":{"name":"British Journal for the History of Science","volume":" ","pages":"369-388"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141072288","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Charting the hybrid architectural style of quantum theory.","authors":"Steven French","doi":"10.1017/S0007087424000839","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0007087424000839","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Given how thoroughly the history of quantum physics has been excavated, it might be wondered what these two hefty volumes by a physicist (Duncan) and a historian (Janssen) bring to the table. Aside from their inclusion of a wide range of recent work in this area, including some notable publications by themselves, the answer is twofold: first, as they state explicitly in the preface to the first volume, derivations of the key results are presented 'at a level that a reader with a command of physics and mathematics comparable to that of an undergraduate in physics should be able to follow without having to take out pencil and paper' (vol. 1, p. vi). In response to those who might raise Whiggish eyebrows, I shall simply play the 'you-try-reading-Pascual-Jordan's-groundbreaking-work-in-the-original' card. As the authors suggest, by using modern notation and streamlining derivations whilst also, they maintain, remaining conceptually faithful to the original sources (ibid.), the book is rendered suitable for classroom use, albeit at the higher undergraduate or graduate levels.</p>","PeriodicalId":46655,"journal":{"name":"British Journal for the History of Science","volume":" ","pages":"485-488"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142606871","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"'Like nets or cobwebs': Kenelm Digby, Isaac Newton and the problem of rarefaction.","authors":"John Henry","doi":"10.1017/S0007087424000554","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0007087424000554","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article aims to bring out the problematic nature of condensation and rarefaction for early modern natural philosophers by considering two historically significant attempts to deal with it, first by Sir Kenelm Digby in his <i>Treatise on Body</i> (1644), and subsequently by Isaac Newton, chiefly in manuscript works associated with the <i>Principia</i> (1687). It is argued that Digby tried to sidestep the problem of variation in density and rarity by making it a fundamental starting point for his physics. But he also brought out the difficulties of dealing with condensation and rarefaction within the mechanical philosophy, whether that philosophy was plenist or allowed for void space. The problems became exacerbated after experiments with the air-pump achieved extreme rarefactions. It is argued that these led Newton to first consider a retiform or net-like structure of matter, before adopting the radical innovation of supposing repelling forces operating at a distance between the particles of the rarefied bodies. Eventually, Newton came to believe that extreme rarity was inexplicable 'by any other means than a repulsive Power'.</p>","PeriodicalId":46655,"journal":{"name":"British Journal for the History of Science","volume":" ","pages":"447-466"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142366903","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"When Scottish medicine hospitalized Indian magic: Dr James Esdaile's mesmeric surgery in mid-nineteenth-century Bengal.","authors":"Kapil Raj","doi":"10.1017/S000708742400116X","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S000708742400116X","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In order to explore the ways knowledge travels across spatial and cultural boundaries, this article focuses on the intriguing case of the Edinburgh-trained Scottish surgeon James Esdaile (1808-59), who, after practising conventional surgery for almost fifteen years in British colonial India, quite unexpectedly turned to mesmeric anaesthesia in the last five years of his service. By following his career and his mesmeric turn, the article describes Esdaile's subsequent public experiments in mesmeric anaesthesia in collaboration with indigenous practices and practitioners of trance induction in the 1840s which led to the creation of a special mesmeric hospital in Calcutta. Although very successful, it eventually ceased to function, apparently victim to new and cheaper chemical anaesthetics. Mobilizing the insights of science studies scholarship into the processes of scientific experimentation, this article seeks to shed new light on the necessary professional, social and political investments for the making and mobility of scientific knowledge across social and cultural boundaries in a colonial setting.</p>","PeriodicalId":46655,"journal":{"name":"British Journal for the History of Science","volume":" ","pages":"325-347"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142830423","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Horizontal Chemistry.","authors":"Michelle DiMeo, Andrew Gregory, Frank A J L James, Viviane Quirke","doi":"10.1017/S0007087424000451","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0007087424000451","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In 1976 Raymond Williams commented, 'Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.' Such implied difficulty has not prevented Bloomsbury Academic, since the 2000s, from publishing around forty series of their well-produced and generously illustrated Cultural Histories, with, according to their website, a further fifty in progress. Each series contains six volumes, each book covering, in theory, the same chronological period (antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the age of empire and the modern age), though there is some variation depending on precise topic. The idea is that one can use these books not only to read 'horizontally' about a subject across time, but also 'vertically' through different subjects in the same period - a idea made easier by the e-texts of the series on Bloomsbury's website.</p>","PeriodicalId":46655,"journal":{"name":"British Journal for the History of Science","volume":" ","pages":"467-477"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141082391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Concluding conversation: decentring science diplomacy.","authors":"Gordon Barrett, Claire Edington, Aya Homei, Kate Sullivan de Estrada, Zuoyue Wang","doi":"10.1017/S0007087424000475","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0007087424000475","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p><b>Gordon Barrett</b> (<b>GB</b>): Research Associate, Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester, UK (special issue co-editor).</p>","PeriodicalId":46655,"journal":{"name":"British Journal for the History of Science","volume":" ","pages":"273-285"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140912986","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The politics of medical expertise and substance control: WHO consultants for addiction rehabilitation and pharmacy education in Thailand and India during the Cold War.","authors":"Reiko Kanazawa","doi":"10.1017/S000708742400058X","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S000708742400058X","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper explores the role of World Health Organization (WHO) medical experts in ambitious projects for substance control during the Cold War in Thailand and India. The circumstances surrounding opium production in these two nations were very different, as were the reasons for requesting expert assistance from the United Nations. Whereas the Thai military regime was concerned with controlling illicit traffic to secure its borders, the Indian government wanted to direct its opium raw materials towards domestic pharmaceutical production. Overlapping and sometimes competing agendas of country governments and international agencies converged upon each project, complicating the consultants' work and requiring careful navigation. In both cases, medicine as a science concerned with human health and well-being was subordinated to more pressing agendas. At the same time, the article argues that WHO consultants left an important impact, though not necessarily due to their skills and training in medicine. Instead, they provided exemplars of sound governance and delivery of public health in a politically stable and economically developed country.</p>","PeriodicalId":46655,"journal":{"name":"British Journal for the History of Science","volume":" ","pages":"221-238"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142510191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Concluding Conversation: De-centring Science Diplomacy - CORRIGENDUM.","authors":"Gordon Barrett, Claire Edington, Aya Homei, Kate Sullivan de Estrada, Zuoyue Wang","doi":"10.1017/S0007087424000712","DOIUrl":"10.1017/S0007087424000712","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46655,"journal":{"name":"British Journal for the History of Science","volume":" ","pages":"287"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141238415","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}