Irritating Experiments : "Haller's Concept and the European Controversy on Irritability and Sensibility, 1750-90"

Hubert Steinke

ISBN 10: 9042018526 / ISBN 13: 9789042018525

Edité par World Bank Publications Jan 2005, 2005

Neuware - One of the great medical controversies of the Enlightenment was the European debate on motion, sensation, and animal experimentation provoked by Albrecht von Haller's treatise on irritability and sensibility (1752). Irritating Experiments is the first full-length study to explore the theoretical background and the experimental process that led to Haller's description and separation of two fundamental bodily qualities: irritability, or the capacity of muscles to contract upon stimulation, and sensibility, or the capacity of the nervous system to transmit impressions that are felt as touch or pain in humans, or produce signs of pain in animals. This new concept presented a serious challenge to the reigning medical systems. Haller's animal experiments were repeated all over Europe, on a scale never seen before. The results, however, were contradictory. Haller's concept was largely rejected, and animal experimentation could not be established as a major research method in physiology. Focussing on procedural aspects of experimentation, the interaction between experiment and theory, the status of surgery, the use of medical and pathological models, and the culture of criticism, Irritating Experiments tries to explain why. N° de réf. du vendeur 9789042018525

Synopsis :

One of the great medical controversies of the Enlightenment was the European debate on motion, sensation, and animal experimentation provoked by Albrecht von Haller's treatise on irritability and sensibility (1752). Irritating Experiments is the first full-length study to explore the theoretical background and the experimental process that led to Haller's description and separation of two fundamental bodily qualities: irritability, or the capacity of muscles to contract upon stimulation, and sensibility, or the capacity of the nervous system to transmit impressions that are felt as touch or pain in humans, or produce signs of pain in animals. This new concept presented a serious challenge to the reigning medical systems. Haller's animal experiments were repeated all over Europe, on a scale never seen before. The results, however, were contradictory. Haller's concept was largely rejected, and animal experimentation could not be established as a major research method in physiology. Focussing on procedural aspects of experimentation, the interaction between experiment and theory, the status of surgery, the use of medical and pathological models, and the culture of criticism, Irritating Experiments tries to explain why.

À propos de l?auteur: Hubert Steinke is currently a research assistant at both the Universities of Bern and Zurich. He received his MD and MA from Bern and his PhD from Oxford University. His publications include books and articles on Haller, the Republic of Letters, and popular medicine in early modern Europe

Détails bibliographiques

Titre : Irritating Experiments : "Haller's Concept ...
Éditeur : World Bank Publications Jan 2005
Date d'édition : 2005
Reliure : Taschenbuch
Etat : Neu