Women and the history of the neurosciences

Since the closing decades of the nineteenth century, women have been contributing in a significant way to the neurosciences. This article looks at the contributions of some of the leading women pioneers in this field. It also deals with women who have written on the history of the neurosciences and the representation of women in the International Society for the History of the Neurosciences, the largest neuroscience history organization. Trends suggest that books and articles from and about women in the history of the neurosciences will increase markedly in the future.     

Stahl, Leibniz, Hoffmann et la respiration

At the beginning of the XVIII th century, Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz and Friedrich Hoffmann criticize Georg Ernst Stahl's medical theory. They differenciate between unsound and true reasonings. Namely, they validate Stahl's definition of breath but extracting it from its animist basis and placing it in an epistemology obeying to the principle of sufficient reason and to the mechanical model. The stahlian discovery consists in understanding breath as a calorific ventilation against the ancient conception; the iatromechanists recognize its accuracy, but they try then to transpose it to a mechanical model of ventilation. Using it in a different epistemological context implies that they analyze the idea of discovery "true" in its contents, but "wrong" in its hypothesis. It impels to examine the epistemology of medical knowledge, as science and therapeutics, and in its links with the other scientific theories. Thus, if Leibniz as philosopher and Hoffmann as doctor consider Stahl's animism so important, it is because its discoveries question the fundamental principles of medicine.     

槟榔的隐患

年轻女子们沿着台湾的大街小巷站好位置,兜售着一种危险却越来越受欢迎的小吃：槟榔。顾客们把熟石灰抹在槟榔树的种子上,再用蒌叶包起来——“蒌叶果”的别名由此而来——接着便丢入口中大嚼。吃这种东西会上瘾。和烟草嚼块一样,槟榔能使人产生微醺的感觉,减轻饥饿感,消除疲劳。吃这种东西的样子也很不堪,它刺激唾液腺,然后把涌出来的口水染成鲜红色。