The first of these conferences was held in Valencia on the 17-18th June 1994 taking as a subject of discussion the relations between Disease and Culture. A selected group of fourteen specialists in the fields of anthropology, social history, demography, paleopathology and history of science and medicine from the universities of Oxford, Bologna, Pavia, Venezia, Valencia, Alacant, Autonoma de Barcelona, Granada and Tarragona joined in the Palau de Pineda, site of the Universidad Internacional Menendez y Pelayo. The meeting was coordinated by Josep Lluls Barona with the collaboration of the Department of History of Science (Universitat de Valencia), Universidad Internacional Menendez Pelayo, The British Council and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura. Thirty postgraduate students and professors from eight Spanish universities attended the conference

Barona Vilar, Josep Lluís

Llinares Chover, Joan B.

Repositori d'Objectes Digitals per a l'Ensenyament la Recerca i la Cultura

ENCONTRE INTERDISCIPLINARI MALALTIA I CULTURA I DISEASE AND CULTURE VALENCIA, JUNE 17-18TH, 1994 The Seminari d'Estudios sobre la Ciencia was founded in 1993 as an initiative of a group of professors and researchers from different realms of the social sciences linked mainly to the universities of Alacant and Valencia. It was conceived as an open space which aimed to surpass closed disciplinary discourses. Since its creation, two initiatives have been developed: the first is a series of publications under the title of Scientia Veterum; the second deals with the organisation of yearly multidisciplinary meetings focused on specific topics. The first of these conferences was held in Valencia on the 17-18th June 1994 taking as a subject of discussion the relations between Disease and Culture. A selected group of fourteen specialists in the fields of anthropology, social history, demography, paleopathology and history of science and medicine from the universities of Oxford, Bologna, Pavia, Venezia, Valencia, Alacant, Autonoma de Barcelona, Granada and Tarragona joined in the Palau de Pineda, site of the Universidad Internacional Menendez y Pelayo. The meeting was coordinated by Josep Lluls Barona with the collaboration of the Department of History of Science (Universitat de Valencia), Universidad Internacional Menendez Pelayo, The British Council and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura. Thirty postgraduate students and professors from eight Spanish universities attended the conference. The scientific sessions embraced three different · fields: 1) «The conceptualization of disease», 2) «Disease and cultural patterns» and .3) «Attitudes in front of disease». The papers will be published in their original languages (English, Italian, Spanish and Catalan) in a new series promoted by the Seminari under the title of Trobades. The first session began with an opening paper by Alistair C. Crombie (Trinity College, Oxford University) on A General Reftexion about Boundaries of Normality. Taking as a point of departure the idea that normality is a taxonomic concept and what is considered normal is based on theoretical expectations within a particular science or in a whole intellectual and moral culture, Professor Crombie focused on moral and medical dilemmas risen by the diversification of the conceptions of the healthy and the pathological. He took as an example the historical case of deaf mutes and the conceptions of space found by the congenitally blind. These were some of the questions what he claimed to be new historical and philosophical research. 880 Cron ache Next, Joan Llinares (Universitat de Valencia) devoted a paper to The Concept of Disease During the Establishment of Cultut'al Anthropology. He evaluated the importance of the interpretation of some aspects of primitive culture - as myths - as pathological in the work of some of the fathers of cultural anthropology, such as Max Muller and E.B. Tylor, amongst others. Domenech Campillo (Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona), offered A Paleopathological Approach to the Boundaries Between the Skeletic Vat'iability and Pathology. He stated and exemplified five complementary ways to the problem: 1) the morphological and metric perspective; 2) the consideration of the nosological importance or significance of variability; .3) the influence of external post mortem factors, 4) aetiology and 5) the osteopathological inherent aspects. Then, Sabina Cremonini (Universita di Venezia) discussed Women's Hysteria Dut'ing the Tt'ansition from 19th to 20th Centuries. She focused on the fact that madness is a social and historical product trying to individualize the cultural variants which ánfluúncÉd=that social and historical construction of the concept of hysteria. Among the materials used, a diary of a woman treated as hysterical in an Italian institution at the end of the 19th century was analysed. At the end of the first session, J osep Lluls Barona (Universitat de Valencia) presented a paper on Possession and Disease: Boundaries of Pathology in the 16th Centu1y. He analyzed the argument given by theologians, judges, inquisitors and physicians in the explanation given to witchcraft and demonic possession. Theologians considered it a consequence of sin; judges and inquisitors a criminal activity, while physicians were in favor of considering it a specific type of disease. A social and cultural negotiation took place which finally carried this type of transgression to the field of medicine. The second session was devoted to Disease and Cultural Patterns. Silvia Carrasco (Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona) connected Feeding Practices and Cultural Differences in the Perception of Disease. On the same subject, but with materials from the Italian society (Disease and Eating Habits. A Historical and Anthmpological Analysis of Italian Reality Between 19th and 20th Centuries), Paolo Sorcinelli (Universita degli Studi di Bologna) showed how scarsity and bad quality food conditioned the Ancien Regime societies not only in medical, but also in psychological and morphological aspects. Next, Antonia Pasi (Universita di Pavia) discussed Infant Mortality and Medical Cultu1'e in 19th Century Italy. Taking as a point of analysis the III Congress of the Italian Medical Association (1866) in which awareness was taken of the necessity for reducing infant mortality rates, she focused on the campaigns vulgarization and on the preventive activities promoted by physicians in relation to new breast feeding patterns and use of wet nurses. The conclusion was that their influence was minimal and that just a small percentage of the population had changed their habits. Then, Josep Bernabeu (Universitat d'Alacant) presented an interesting paper on the topic Disease, Cultu1·e and Population: Cultural Factors in Demogt'aphic and Cron ache 881 Epidemiologic Analysis. He analysed the methodological background of the so-called Risk Model and evaluated the role played by some cultural factors (particularly the practical application of cultural traditions related to breeding and child health care) like a determinant factor of the potential levels of exposure and resistence to infection that characterized the Spanish population during the period qualified by demographers as «pretransitional>>. The third session focused on Attitudes towards Disease and offered a wide range of orientations. Jose Luis Fresquet (Universidad de Valencia) tried to justify the interest of popular therapeutics as a matter of interest for teaching medical students and for research. He offered some detailed information about what is being done on this subject at the Universitat de Valencia. Next, Josep Maria Comelles (Universitat Rovira Virgili, Tarragona) discussed The Sacralization of Hospital Practice: from Technological Display to the Institutionalisation of the Miracle. He offered an anthropological perspective of the doctor and patient attitudes in the hospital practice, and the use and manipulation of some ideas like sanitation, death and miracle in the everyday life at the health services. In his paper on Medicine and Epidemics. From the Rationalization of the Myth to the Myth of the Rationalization, Esteban Rodriguez Ocana (Universidad de Granada) proposed a study of the changes in medical explanations and practices in front of epidemics along the Modern Age. In order to explain social and political strategies to challenge the epidemic diseases, he focused on two main topics: the transfotmation of medical causal thinking and the problem of the identification of disease. The Popularisation of Hygiene in the Handbooks of Domestic Economy (1870-1920) was the contribution by Enrique Perdiguero (Universidad d'Alacant). He presented an interesting paper on the influence of this type of literature on nutritional patterns as well as its relevance for the social diffusion of bacteriological ideas. The last paper was that of Guillermo Olague (Universidad de Granada) discussing the social and scientific conditions that surrounded the introduction of Jennerian vaccination in Spain (1800-1805). He pointed out that vaccination succeded as a result of the enthusiastic initiatives of a wide group of individuals from different social and intellectual positions. After each session, a discussion (sometimes characterized obviously by some methodological or content disagreements) took place in which the different points of view were reviewed. After two days of hard work, a final lunch at the Hotel Ingles was a fine reward. J OSEP LLUIS BARONA JOAN LLINARES Universt'tat de Valencia PHYS IS RIVISTA INTERNAZIONALE DI STORIA DELLA SCIENZA pubblicata dalla DOMUS GALILABANA DI PISA in collabora:done con ISTITUTO DELLA ENCICLOPEDIA lTALIANA ISTITUTO DI STORIA DELLA MEDICINA DELL'UNIVERSITA DI MILANO MUSEO NAZIONALE DELLA SCIBNZA E DELLA TECNICA DI MILANO SEMINARIO DI STORIA DELLA SCIENZA DELL'UNIVERSITA DI BARI DIREZIONE E REDAZIONE (EDITORS) Direttore responsabile (Senior Editor): VINCENZO CAPPBLLETI'I. Direttore (Editor): Gumo CIMINO. Condirettore (Associate Editor): SANDRO PETRUCCIOLI. Comitato direttivo (Editorial Board): Nrno DAZZI, MAURO DI GIANDOMENICO, CARLO MACCAGNI, GIULIANO PANCALDI, BRUNO ZANOBIO. Book Reviews Edito1': PIERS BuRSILL-HALL. Redazione (Editorial Office): ANNA LISA ScmNO (caporedattore), LucIANO ALBANESE, LUCIA ANTONELLI, ADAM ATKINSON, LAURA FERRAROTTI, FRANCO A. MESCmNI, CAR-MELA MORABITO, BARBARA VANONI (;egretaria di Redazione). CONSIGLIO SCIENTIFICO (ADVISORY EDITORS) EvANDRo AGAZZI, FRANCESCO BARONE, Gruuo BARSANTI, ENRico BELLONE, ENRico BERTI, MAruo BIAGIOLI, JED BucH\'*' ALD, PAOLO CASINI, CATHERINE CHEV ALLEY, AusTAIR C. CROM-BlE, LORRAINE DASTON, ALLEN G. DEBUS,}EAN DHOMBRES, FRAN'):OIS DUCHESNEAU, MA-RIA RosARIA EGim, HosAM ELKHADEM, DIETRICH VON ENGELHARDT, ROBERT Fox, TORE FRANGSMYR, PAOLO FREGUGLIA, PAOLO GALLUZZI, Gruuo GmRElLo, ENRICO Grusn, M.mKo D. GRMEK, RoBERTHALLEux,JoHNL. HEILBRON, GERALD HOLTON, SHUNTAROlTo, EBER-HARD KNOBLOCH, V1noRio LANTERNARI, GEOFFREY LLOYD, ALFoNso MAIERu, MAuRI.zm MAMIANI, ARTHUR I. MILLER, JOHN NORTH, ·ALBERTO PASQUINELLI, LUIGI PEPE, MARCEL-LO PERA, GIOVANNI PUGLIESE CARRATELU, ANDRE ROBINET, PAOLO ROSSI, A. I. SABRA, WIL-LIAM R. SHEA, GIORGIO TABARRONI, MAURIZIO ToRRINI, CESARE V ASou, VALERIO VERRA, . L. PEARCE WILLIAMS. Direzione: via S. Maria 26, 56100 Pisa, tel. -050-23726 Recapito postale: piazza della Enciclopedia Italiana 4, 00186 Roma, tel. 06-68985350, fax 06-68985367 Pubblicazione quadrimestrale Abbonamento (1994): Italia Lire 85.000 - Estero Lire 110.000 Abbonamento (1995): Italia Lire 90.000 - Estero Lire 115.000 Annate arretrate: Italia Lire 115.000 - Estero Lire 130.000 L'importo deve essere inviato direttamente alla Casa editrice Leo S. Olschki, Viuzzo del Pozzetto (Viale Europa) - Cas. post. 66 - 50100 Firenze, tel. 055/6530684 fax 055/6530214 - preferibilmente a mezzo del conto corrente postale 12707501 PHYS IS RIVISTA INTERNAZIONALE DI STORIA DELLA SCIENZA VOL. XXXl (1994) - NUOVA SERIE FASC. 3 

Encontre interdisciplinari. Malaltia i cultura/Disease and culture

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Repositori d'Objectes Digitals per a l'Ensenyament la Recerca i la Cultura