Acta historica Leopoldina最新文献

Whoever turns to the history of photosynthesis research in the twentieth century is soon confronted with the fact that one of its most exciting periods, the years from 1938 to 1955 (and even beyond), was in large part overshadowed by a bitter controversy in which many of the leading scientists in the field were involved: the dispute on the minimal quantum requirement - or, its inverse: the maximum quantum yield - of photosynthesis. On the one side was Otto H. WARBURG (1883 -1970), who, in 1923, had found that 4-5 light quanta were required for one molecule of oxygen; and who would never accept any other value. On the other side were a number of highly renowned American photosynthesis researchers, among others Robert EMERSON (1903-1959), James FRANCK (1882-1964) and Hans GAFFRON (1902-1979), who contested this value and argued, instead, that 8-12 light quanta were required for one molecule oxygen. This value is still accepted today. In this paper, the course of the controversy is reconstructed on the basis of numerous documents and correspondences that so far have not received much attention. The historically contingent factors will be analyzed that made this controversy so atrocious; however, I will argue that the dispute was not primarily about reputation and glory but in large parts driven by the keen interest of the scientific community to solve a difficult research question - notwiith standing the fact that WARBURG failed to comply with scientific conventions of methodical transparency and mutual.

The "Akademie der Naturforscher" (Academy of Natural Scientists) was founded in 1652; in 1687 Emperor LEOPOLD 1. raised it in the rank of an imperial academy (Sacri Romani Imperii Academia Caesareo-Leopoldina Naturae Curiosorum). The president and the editor of the academic periodical (Director Ephemeridum) got the same privileges as imperial physicians. Based on this the duties of the physicians and their status within the court hierarchy are explained. During the reign of LEOPOLD I there were 61 persons who worked as physicians at court. The prosopographical analysis shows their distribution to the households of the members of the imperial family. Other aspects are their origin, their education and their relationship to the University of Vienna. Finally we learn about the imperial physicians as members of the Academy and as mediators between the Academy and the court.

The paper is devoted to one of the most important and, at the same time, relatively unexplored phases in the history of Russian science and technology. The Great War coincided with the beginning of a heyday in science, engineering education, and technology in Russia. It was precisely the time in which Russia's era of "Big Science" was emer- ging. Many Russian and Soviet technical projects and scientific schools were rooted in the time of the Great War. The "engineerization" of science and a "physical-technical" way of thinking had already begun before the war. But it was precisely the war which encouraged a large proportion of the Russian academic community to take part in industrial projects. Academics also played a significant role in developing concepts and implementing strategic plans during the Great War. This article also discusses how the organization of science and the academic community was transformed during, and after, the Great War. And it looks at the impact that war had on Russia's participation in the international scientific community.

The story, which unfolds here, is a cultural history of science, one that closely analyzes the content of science. My story deals with an object, a gene. I use the CCR5 gene as a heuristic tool in order to probe the boundaries between science and society. Three important themes are discussed in this essay: genes as commodities (intellectual property and gene patents); alleles, natural selection, and the resistance to disease; and race and genomics. This is in part a story about neoliberalism, laissez-faire goverenments, free and open markets, the increase of privatization, and biotechnology. Many claim that the United States Patent and Trademake Office's (henceforth, USPTO) leniency in granting gene patenting led to the growth of biotechnology. I maintain the opposite: the growth of biotechnology led to decision to patent genes. My story is one of the present, a genealogy to borrow FOUCAULT'S and NIETZsCHE's terminology. How has it come about that genes are patentable entities, and that human classificatory schemes are usually based on race, although there are an infinite number of possibilities to characterize human variation? There are always alternatives, and historians are obliged to present those alternatives and explain why they were never chosen. I also use the concept of genealogy in the classical biological sense, i.e. to trace the passing of alleles from one generation to another. While this essay is similar to earlier studies dealing with the biography of objects, particularly scientific objects, the history told here is not a biography of the CCR5 gene, as that story is still ongoing. Rather, this essay concentrates upon a twenty-year period of the gene's life from the mid-1990s to the present. I am interested in understanding how it is we have reached the point we have today with respect to the relationship between science and society, and I use the CCR5 gene as a vehicle for that analysis.

Do our faces reflect who we are? Or do they display the person we would like to be? Or even the person our society would like us to be? What is the difference between "enhancement" and "reconstruction", between "improving" facial features and restoring them? To what extent is the definition of these terms determined by cultural assumptions, particularly when it comes to what makes our appearance "authentic"? This article critically investigates the frequently circulating opinion that face transplants serve to reconstruct, while cosmetic surgery "improves" our appearance according to our wishes. The historical case study presented here begins with the history of nose operations in Berlin in the 19" century and ends with the practice of face transplants in the 21st century.

At the beginning of the First World War, the numbers of members from French speaking countries in German Academies and the number of members from German speaking countries in French Academies were roughly the same, and equally high. For instance the French Academy of Sciences had 23 members belonging to German speaking countries, of which 17 from Germany. The Berlin Academy of sciences had 16 members from French speaking countries, the Gbttingen Academy 18 members, and the Bavarian Academy 13. The Leopoldina had also a great number of French members, as a result of a long-lasting policy. These data show that the relationships between France and Germany in the fields of natural and human sciences were traditionally very well developed. However, these relationships were so damaged by the First World War that they could revive only slowly after the Second World War. The sometimes vivid discussions, which took place within several Academies of the Institut de France regarding the mea- sures to be taken in the field of scientific cooperation against the Central Powers, will be commented in this paper.

The essay presents a critical analysis of KUHN's theory of the historical development of the sciences and of scientific revolutions from the perspective of the historiography of science. It focusses on KUHNS'S concept of structure, his intemalistic model of scientific change in history as well as his assumptions about the duration of scientific revolutions and the relation between continuity and discontinuity.

Internationally, Helmut RENNERT (1920-1994) was one of the most renowned representatives of psychiatry in the GDR. From 1958 until 1984 he was the chair of the department of psychiatry and neurology at the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg. He was also the chairman of the Association for Neurology and Psychiatry of the GDR for many years. The textbook on neurology and psychiatry which he prepared together with Rudolf LEMKE (1906-1957) turned into the standard textbook for training and education in the GDR. RENNERT became well known primarily with his model of the universal genesis of endogenous psychoses in which he propagated the idea of unitary psychosis. In 1965 he became a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and as vice- president he represented the medical section. RENNERT belonged to the so-called second generation of professors which established itself at the end of the 1950s at university clinics in the GDR. As the leading experts and academic lecturers they influenced the field with respect to education and research for the entire time the GDR existed. This generation of professors maintained a strong bond with their academic teachers and continued their tradition in the sense of a "school" for the most part independent of political circumstances and restrictions.

The 'case' of Georg Friedrich NICOLAI, a Berlin physiologist and pacifist, who vehemently stood against a chauvi- nistic academic world in Germany in August 1914, is typical for the academic situation and the role of nationalistic professors as 'mandarines' at German universities and academies at the outbreak of the Great War. NICOLAI suffered a lot from his pacifist internationalism: he was brutally excluded from scientific community, and his academic career was destroyed. Had he not successfully escaped to Denmark, his physical existence would have been endangered as well. On the other hand his dignity was never endangered while NICOLAI successfully resisted military dictatorship and a kind of submissive chauvinism of a perishing Kaiserreich.