KEEL (Othmar). – L’Avènement de la médecine clinique moderne en Europe, 1750-1815. Politiques, institutions et savoirs

Ce livre soutient une thèse substantiellement révisionniste sur l’historiographie de la médecine française dans la période autour de la Révolution. Toute l’argumentation de l’auteur est dirigée contre une périodisation qui suppose une rupture radicale entre la médecine dite « pré-clinique » ou « protoclinique » et les pratiques initiées par l’École clinique de Paris au tournant du xixe siècle. Quoiqu’il reconnaisse la fécondité des aperçus de Michel Foucault, Othmar Keel nie absolument la pré..

KEEL (Othmar). – L’Avènement de la médecine clinique moderne en Europe, 1750-1815. Politiques, institutions et savoirs

Ce livre soutient une thèse substantiellement révisionniste sur l’historiographie de la médecine française dans la période autour de la Révolution. Toute l’argumentation de l’auteur est dirigée contre une périodisation qui suppose une rupture radicale entre la médecine dite « pré-clinique » ou « protoclinique » et les pratiques initiées par l’École clinique de Paris au tournant du xixe siècle. Quoiqu’il reconnaisse la fécondité des aperçus de Michel Foucault, Othmar Keel nie absolument la pré..

Virology Experts in the Boundary Zone Between Science, Policy and the Public: A Biographical Analysis

This article aims to open up the biographical black box of three experts working in the boundary zone between science, policy and public debate. A biographical-narrative approach is used to analyse the roles played by the virologists Albert Osterhaus, Roel Coutinho and Jaap Goudsmit in policy and public debate. These figures were among the few leading virologists visibly active in the Netherlands during the revival of infectious diseases in the 1980s. Osterhaus and Coutinho in particular are still the key figures today, as demonstrated during the outbreak of novel influenza A (H1N1). This article studies the various political and communicative challenges and dilemmas encountered by these three virologists, and discusses the way in which, strategically or not, they handled those challenges and dilemmas during the various stages of the field’s recent history. Important in this respect is their pursuit of a public role that is both effective and credible. We will conclude with a reflection on the H1N1 pandemic, and the historical and biographical ties between emerging governance arrangements and the experts involved in the development of such arrangements

Narrative and natural history in the eighteenth century.

In the eighteenth century, natural histories of animals incorporated narratives about animal behaviour and narratives of discovery and experimentation. Naturalists used first-person accounts to link the stories of their scientific investigations to the stories of the animal lives they were studying. Understanding nature depended on narratives that shifted back and forth in any given text between animal and human, and between individual cases and generalizations about species. This paper explores the uses of narrative through examples from the work of René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur and Abraham Trembley. In all cases, narrative took the genre of natural history well beyond straightforward description and classification. Prose accounts of insect actions and mechanisms worked in tandem with visual narratives embedded in the accompanying illustrations, where artists developed strategies for representing sequences of minute changes over time. By throwing into relief the narrative sections of natural histories, the examples considered here expose the role played by these tales of encounters with the insect world in the making of natural historical knowledge

Narrative and natural history in the eighteenth century.

In the eighteenth century, natural histories of animals incorporated narratives about animal behaviour and narratives of discovery and experimentation. Naturalists used first-person accounts to link the stories of their scientific investigations to the stories of the animal lives they were studying. Understanding nature depended on narratives that shifted back and forth in any given text between animal and human, and between individual cases and generalizations about species. This paper explores the uses of narrative through examples from the work of René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur and Abraham Trembley. In all cases, narrative took the genre of natural history well beyond straightforward description and classification. Prose accounts of insect actions and mechanisms worked in tandem with visual narratives embedded in the accompanying illustrations, where artists developed strategies for representing sequences of minute changes over time. By throwing into relief the narrative sections of natural histories, the examples considered here expose the role played by these tales of encounters with the insect world in the making of natural historical knowledge

Masculine Knowledge, the Public Good, and the Scientific Household of Réaumur.

In the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris (founded 1666), expressions of a masculine culture of science echoed contemporary language used to articulate the aristocracy's value to crown and state--even though the academy was not an aristocratic institution as such. In the eighteenth century, the pursuit of science became a new form of manly service to the crown, often described in terms of useful knowledge and benefit to the public good [le bien public]. This article explores the connection of academic scientific knowledge to the domestic spaces where it was made and, in particular, to the household of R.-A. Ferchault de Réaumur, an exemplary academician. Although Réaumur had neither wife nor children, a complex net of affective ties, some of them familial, linked the members of the household, which accommodated women (the artist Hélène Dumoustier and her female relatives) as well as men (a series of assistants, many of whom eventually entered the academy). As head of this dynamic household, Réaumur produced not only scientific results but also future academicians

Masculine Knowledge, the Public Good, and the Scientific Household of Réaumur.

In the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris (founded 1666), expressions of a masculine culture of science echoed contemporary language used to articulate the aristocracy's value to crown and state--even though the academy was not an aristocratic institution as such. In the eighteenth century, the pursuit of science became a new form of manly service to the crown, often described in terms of useful knowledge and benefit to the public good [le bien public]. This article explores the connection of academic scientific knowledge to the domestic spaces where it was made and, in particular, to the household of R.-A. Ferchault de Réaumur, an exemplary academician. Although Réaumur had neither wife nor children, a complex net of affective ties, some of them familial, linked the members of the household, which accommodated women (the artist Hélène Dumoustier and her female relatives) as well as men (a series of assistants, many of whom eventually entered the academy). As head of this dynamic household, Réaumur produced not only scientific results but also future academicians