An overview of women's health in the U.S. since the mid-1960 s

Women's health became intertwined with the second wave of feminism in the 1960s. The process and history of the interactions among physicians, feminists, health care consumers, activists, and politicians have brought women's health into the foreground of health research and curricular agendas in several ways. It identified major gaps in research and practice and initiated a critique of the current health care system at all levels; it originated from, and remains connected with, the non-medical community; it is interdisciplinary and requires interdisciplinary teams for research and clinical practice, as well as collaboration with colleagues in non-medical academic fields; it developed new curriculum focused on women's health; it emphasizes race, class, sexual orientation, and other diversities among women. The continuing presence of activists and feminist scholars will insure that health and science include women's needs to provide better health for all.     

Underground in the Ironbridge Gorge

Abstract

If it was not for the dangers of unstable ground, inflammable and asphyxiating underground gases, the Ironbridge Gorge would be a paradise for the industrial archaeologist with spelaeological and mining interests. In a two mile length of Gorge there are opportunities for scaling limestone shafts, crawling through tenuous, long-abandoned tunnels and the prospects of a 'find' on every trip that would make the surface archaeologist green with envy. This short article is an attempt to bring together some of the results of over twenty years underground research in the Gorge by the writer, and other members of the Shropshire Mining Club. More detail is available in the publications of the Club and in the other papers listed. It is stressed that on no account should any workings be approached other than through format channels and all underground workings located in the Gorge should be treated with respect.     

New perspectives on forced migration in the history of twentieth-century neuroscience

ABSTRACT

This special issue of the Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, comprised of six articles and one commentary, reflects on the multifold dimensions of intellectual migration in the neurosciences and illustrates them by relevant case studies, biographies, and surveys from twentieth-century history of science and medicine perspectives. The special issue as a whole strives to emphasize the impact of forced migration in the neurosciences and psychiatry from an interdisciplinary perspective by, first, describing the general research topic, second, by showing how new models can be applied to the historiography and social studies of twentieth-century neuroscience, and, third, by providing a deeper understanding of the impact of European émigré researchers on emerging allied fields, such as neurogenetics, biological psychiatry, psychosomatics, and public mental health, etc. as resulting from this process at large.     

Literature’s place in the global public health arena: Graham Greene’s fictional translation of leprosy in A Burnt-Out Case

ABSTRACT

This paper traces the engagement of Graham Greene's novel A Burnt-Out Case with traditional discourses of leprosy (the biblical ‘leper’ as a sinner, missionary care, tropical medicine, Albert Schweitzer's hospital in Lambaréné, germ theory), and shows how it suggests an ethics of care which highlights the psychosocial aspects of disease and healing. The paper argues that the reception of the novel opened a discursive space for the re-negotiation of images of leprosy after empire, making visible the structures and agents of global public health communication and their diverging conceptions of explanatory authority, scientific accuracy and the relation of science and literature. The article incorporates archival sources from press reviews to draft versions of the novel and the author's correspondence with prominent leprosy experts. It draws on media and science communication studies, disability studies and on contributions to the sociology of knowledge by Ludwik Fleck, Thomas Kuhn and Bruno Latour.     

Silas Marner,Catalepsy, and Mid-Victorian Medicine: George Eliot's Ethics of Care

‘Silas Marner, Catalepsy, and Mid-Victorian Medicine’ reads Eliot's novel Silas Marner through the history of medicine, and particularly in the context of Marner's strange cataleptic trances which embody his alienation and suffering. Eliot, I argue, employs catalepsy in order to investigate ideas of illness and care, especially as that relates to professional medicine and to ideas of community. Focusing on cataleptic case histories and on Eliot's personal health concerns I show how issues of care become philosophical questions about ethical responsibility. It is through Silas Marner and his catalepsy, I conclude, that Victorian scholars can come to understand more about what that means within Eliot's canon and, more widely, in the mid-Victorian period. Overall, the article provides a unique reading of Silas Marner, drawing on significant new archival research on catalepsy and in Eliot's writing of illness narratives.     

Wasteful Research in Pure and Applied Science

Abstract

Research may be considered wasteful if its objectives are intrinsically unattainable – as, for example, the alchemists' search for transmutation of base metals into gold. In our own times, despite lavish encouragement of research over many decades, cancer is still a biological mystery, an instance of how obstacles inherent in Nature can frustrate the attainment of a research objective. Human failings include repeating research work already described in the literature, lapse by neglect, bandwaggon research and politically motivated trendy research, best exemplified by Lysenko. Efforts at economic assessment of research effort, particularly in the pharmaceutical industry and in military research, are discussed. Machinations by a 'scientific estate' with vested interests call for vigilance.     

Creating the world: the origins of all things in ancient Greek myth and medicine

Abstract

In the sixth and fifth centuries BC, a series of dramatic shifts in science and the arts took place in the Greek world, and history, medicine, philosophy, and science came into being. This paper examines 'the Greek miracle', looking at how new ideas about 'the origin of all things' were rooted in traditional mythic patterns of thought. In particular, it examines how medical writers thought about the origins of the cosmos, and of disease. The multiple creations of the world present in Greek myth, where the origin of all things was seen as a process of differentiation out of original similarity, may have predisposed the Greeks to be open to the new theories of early scientific thinkers.     

Student Empowerment through 'Area Analysis'

As a result of the teaching quality assessment at the Faculty of Spatial Sciences in Groningen (Netherlands), the course 'Gebiedsanalyse' (Area Analysis) was set up in spring 1998. The aim was to provide an opportunity for the development of transferable and geographical skills in the context of a group-based research project at level II. In addition, an effort was made to move from tutor-led to student-led learning. Experiences from the past 3 years have shown that Area Analysis has been largely successful in providing an opportunity for the application of geographical and transferable skills but also for the 'deep empowerment' of undergraduate students.     

The Research and Production Plant,Parkgate, Dublin: Archaeological Investigations of a World War II Munitions Facility

Abstract

This paper describes the structures, operations, and history of the Research and Production Plant, Parkgate, a munitions facility developed by the Irish State in the early years of World War II (referred to in Ireland as 'the Emergency'). Located on the edge of the city of Dublin and within the historic curtilage of Phoenix Park, its emissions were the cause of some controversy and resulted in a local health scare, suppressed and censored by the Fianna Fáil government of the day. The Plant's eventual closure was brought about by complaints from the Office of Public Works regarding severe chemical damage in the adjacent Peoples' Garden and to trees and other vegetation further away in the Park proper. In the meantime, production had switched to service a private concern, which was to benefit further from the arrangement before restrictions on the importation of phosphorus and other chemicals were lifted in 1946. The structures were identified and recorded over the summer of 2007 and the research conducted the following winter, based on files held in the Military Archives and contemporary parliamentary reports.     

A thought style perspective on making decisions about technology

Abstract

Continuing with the many interdisciplinary activities of Benjamin Franklin, the Institute named after him more than 150 years ago embraces today two large research centers, one scientific press, a museum and far-flung international activities, including research at the South Pole. The Institute's important pioneering activities to establish American industry and technology are recalled and emphasis is placed on the Institute's present research work.     

Hegel and Historicism

Abstract

This article summarises the story of the production of the historical volumes by the South African Democracy Education Trust (SADET). SADET was established after former president Thabo Mbeki expressed concern that there was very limited research done on the achievement of a peaceful political settlement in South Africa after decades of violent conflict. SADET's mission is, and has been to conduct a major study of South Africa's political history between 1960 and 1994. The focus of the article is on the project's editorial structure and on its research methodology, particularly the benefits and limitations of the use of oral interviews as the main research tool.     

Introduction

Abstract

For all of its political drama, the health care debate appears consumed with bureaucratic minutiae quite distant from political philosophy. Yet in important respects that debate is intimately connected with the founding premises of the modern technological project of the mastery of nature for the relief of man's estate as envisioned by René Descartes and Francis Bacon. This essay uses a recent discussion of the health care debate by bioethicist Daniel Callahan to raise some fundamental questions about the role of technology in our medical culture. It argues that modern health care is the Cartesian project come of age, and it uses Descartes' Discourse on Method to reflect on the possibility of a sensible politics of technology in our time.     

Ideology and the history of ancient Israel

An answer to the recent criticism of Ian Provan and James Barr of the position of the so-called ''revisionists'' among Old Testament scholars. Provan - as well as Barr - accuses the revisionists for being ''ideologists'', i.e., that ideology has governed their research. This is a false accusation. The revisionists originally shared the ideology of the scholarship of the modern age. Only at a later date they adopted, forced by their analyses, an ideological approach to the reading of text that seems more on-line with ideas that are said to be postmodern.     

'Away From Tokyo': The Pacific Islands war crimes trials, 1945-1949

Over the years, a certain mantra has arisen in academic circles involving the post-World War II war crimes trials. Nuremberg, it is said, was a needed display of 'allied justice' and 'democratic fair play'. The Tokyo and Pacific region trials were exercises in 'victor's justice' and 'racism'. Accenting the determined, precedent-setting work of the Pacific Islands war crimes trials on Guam, 'Away from Tokyo' argues that justice was served well there. Evil should never go unpunished. Based on archival research at the Micronesian Area Research Center the US Territory of Guam, Stanford University and the Douglas MacArthur Memorial Archives, this paper examines the good work of both the prosecution and defence teams on Guam. Few trial participants viewed their efforts as part of a larger conspiracy of revenge and racism. In fact, that conspiracy never existed. 'Away from Tokyo' attempts to set the record straight, and re-examines some dramatic cases at the same time.     

Bishop Bickersteth’s Visitation Returns for the Archdeaconry of Craven,Diocese of Ripon, 1858

Abstract

In 1868, an article in the Yorkshire Post about the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum drew attention to Yorkshire's pivotal role in the history of mental health care. It was because of this history, it was claimed, that Yorkshiremen had a special interest in the treatment of the insane. The purpose of this paper is to explore critically this assumption in light of the recent work on the Poor Law's relationship with the asylum. The growth and development of two asylums in the neighbouring North and West Ridings of Yorkshire will be compared and contrasted. The first part of the paper offers a brief explanation of Yorkshire's pivotal role in the history of the institutional approach to the problems of mental health and the growth of institutions in the counties. Central to the paper will be an examination of how each county responded to the differing demands on its resources and how this impacted on the nature of care at each institution. Ultimately, this paper aims to show how Poor Law finances contributed significantly to the development of each institution.     

Challenger and Chernobyl Lessons and Reflections

Abstract

It is argued that Psychological research on 'race' and 'ethnicity' issues presents a number of ethical problems. These relate to the sociopolitical impact of such research, particularly when it purports to find differences of an 'innate' character; to the use of naive subjects, particularly children, in research which is aimed at demonstrating their 'inferiority'; and, within the academic community itself, to the working relationships between researchers who believe in 'innate' 'race' differences and colleagues belonging to allegedly 'inferior' groups – this being particularly significant within a teaching environment. Although the 'race differences' question has a long and controversial history, ethical issues relating to the research process itself have received less focused attention. Moreover, replacement of the genetically obsolete concept of 'race' with the idea of 'ethnicity' does not solve the problem entirely, and the term 'ethnicity' is itself unsatisfactory in several respects.     

Iron production in scandinavian archaeology

Several sites of the historic and prehistoric periods exist at the vicarage of Borg on Vestvåg?y, North Norway. The settlement site Borg I, which is at present being investigated within the framework of a Scandinavian research project, is believed to be a Late Iron Age chieftain's residence.     

'Joking apart…': A 'processual' approach to researching self-help groups

It is well known that 'feminist research methodologies' reject the traditional and positivistic insistence on detached objectivity, favouring instead a situated and empathic responsiveness to particular research contexts. In practice, however, interviewees often have a justifiable interest in maintaining a communicative distance between researcher and researched, thereby retaining a degree of control over the research process. Although the nature and function of this communicative distancing change over time it may (initially at least) emphasize the boundaries between the respondents' 'insider' and the researcher's 'outsider' status. This phenomenon seems especially pertinent where those researched comprise a tightly knit group with shared interests and experiences such as self-help groups for those suffering from specific disabilities. This paper reflects on my own experiences interviewing agoraphobic women members of two such groups in Central Scotland and discusses the manner in which humour acted as an indicator and facilitator of these changing communicative distances. It concludes that a processual methodology is required in circumstances where managing the research process is often as much a matter of coping with as directing change.     

Gods with a limited budget: putting the utility back into utilitarian health politics

Abstract

Resources in healthcare are under strain not only because of increasingly expensive treatment options, but because the definition of health is evolving. For the purpose of resource allocation, definitional boundaries of health are arbitrary and unhelpful. Since biological health combines with mental and societal health to constitute overall quality of life, this very quality ought to inform resource allocation in all relevant areas of public spending. Adopting quality of life as a common objective will require some structural recognition. Integrating the debates surrounding social health and evidence based policy, we argue for the establishment of a common 'currency' that could be used to compare different quality of life measures across disciplines and policy spheres.