Medicina nei secoli最新文献

This paper uses a case study from the Cold War to reflect on the meaning at the time of the term 'Pure Science'. In 1961, four senior scientists from Britain's biological warfare centre at Porton Down visited Moscow both attending an International Congress and visiting Russian microbiological and biochemical laboratories. The reports of the British scientists in talking about a limited range of topics encountered in the Soviet Union expressed qualities of openness, sociologists of the time associated with pure science. The paper reflects on the discourses of "Pure Science", secrecy and security in the Cold War. Using Bakhtin's approach, I suggest the cordial communication between scientists from opposing sides can be seen in terms of the performance, or speaking, of one language among several at their disposal. Pure science was the language they were allowed to share outside their institutions, and indeed political blocs.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the scientific and commercial survival strategy of the Ravetllat-Pla Institute after the Spanish Civil War. Founded in 1923 by Ramon Pla (1880-1956) and Joaquim Ravetllat (1872-1923), it produced two sera: 'Hemo-antitoxin' and the 'Ravetllat-Pla serum'. When the Civil War ended and Ramon Pla was forced into exile, management of this laboratory was taken over by his daughter, Núia Pla Monseny (1918- 2011) who had to deal with an extremely difficult economic, political and commercial situation. In this paper, I analyse the means by which the Institute survived. These involved the Institute's ability to construct different political symbols from 'Hemo-antitoxin'. I study how Franco's repression influenced this survival strategy and Ramon Pla's role in exile. I also analyse the part played in this scientific and commercial process by the Institute's scientific and commercial network in Chile.

The emphasis of the normal, the human aspect and feature in monstrosities is a leitmotif that becomes prevalent in the scientific debate on teratological phenomena in the nineteenth century. The discourse highlights the organisation of the civilising process with regard to creating an antithesis between human and animality. In this respect, anthropology establishes anthropometry as a measuring and classifying instrument, hence supporting concepts of norm and abnormity in the scientific discussion. The classification approach finally translates teratological occurrences into the "human system" with the monstrosity being transformed into a subject of knowledge. Scientific discourse poses and installs the latter as living attraction for medical and anthropological examination, thus stressing boundary permeability between man and animal. Evolutionary theory finally initiates the quest for the missing link between man and ape, with congenital disorders, such as microcephaly, becoming particularly supportive of the idea of a manifesting existence of a primitive pre-human form.

Patents on antibiotics were introduced in Spain in 1949. Preliminary research reveals diversification in the types of antibiotics: patents relating to penicillin were followed by those relating to streptomycin, erythromycin and tetracycline. There was also diversification in the firms that applied for patents: while Merck & Co. Incorporated and Schenley Industries Inc. were the main partners with Spanish antibiotics manufacturers in the late 1940s, this industrial space also included many others, such as Eli Lilly & Company, Abbott Laboratories, Chas. Pfizer & Co. Incorporated, and American Cyanamid Company in the mid-1970s. The introduction of these drugs in Spain adds new elements to a re-evaluation of the autarkic politics of the early years of the Franco dictatorship.

Between 1944 and 1989--the period of communist power in Poland--the national pharmaceutical market experienced several dramatic changes. The country was a prodigious importer of drugs following the Second World War, with a large portion of the medicine received being donated by various aid organisations. In the 1960s, Poland became a significant exporter of drugs to the Eastern Bloc countries, but dropped down the list of meaningful producers again after the post-1989 transformation. For four and a half decades the pharmaceutical market in Poland had been a scene of political and ideological struggle. The companies, owned and controlled by the state, were poorly managed, being neither innovative nor competitive. This fact, along with the state's irrational and inconsequent drug policy, caused an almost permanent shortage in drug supplies for patients: ironic for a socialist system in which universal and free health care was a basic principle.

In this paper I explore the early circulation of penicillin. I review the early distribution in Spain of a scarce product, reflect on the available sources about the illegal penicillin trade and discuss some cases of smuggling. I argue the early distribution of penicillin involved time and geography, a particular chronology of post Second World War geopolitics. Penicillin practices and experiences belong to this period, in a dictatorship that tolerated smuggling and illegal trade of other products, some, like penicillin, produced in neighbouring countries. As a commodity that crossed borders, penicillin, transiting between the law and hidden trade, between countries and social domains--between war fronts and from a war front to an urban site to be sold--reveals practices of the early years of prosperity in the 1950s. These transits were permanent tests of a society based on taxes and exchanges, law and bureaucracy, control, discipline and the creation of standards.

Among the children found in the crypt of the Grand Duke Giangastone in S. Lorenzo Basilica (Florence), the skeletal remains of a 5-year-old child still wearing his fine high social status clothing were recovered. This child of the Medici family was identified as Don Filippino (1577-1582), son of the Grand Duke Francesco I (1541-1587) and Giovanna from Austria (1547 - 1578). The prince showed several pathological deformities of the cranial and post-cranial skeleton, including enlargement of the cranium, thinning of the cranial vault bones (craniotabes), platybasia and marked bending of femora, tibiae and fibulae. Differential diagnosis suggests that Don Filippino was affected by rickets. The occurrence of this metabolic disease related to vitamin D deficiency in a Renaissance high social class individual can be explained by the practice of very prolonged breast-feeding, up until two years of age. Maternal milk contains insufficient vitamin D ratios and retarded weaning severely exposes children to a higher risk of developing rickets, especially if dietary habits are combined with inadequate exposure to sunlight. Historical sources describe Don Filippino as frail and sickly, with frequent illnesses and persistent slight fevers, and it can be supposed that the child was frequently confined indoors, especially in the cold season. Integration of osteoarchaeological evidence with historical documentation suggests that bone lesions observed in the skeletal remains of Don Filippino are compatible with a diagnosis of rickets, caused by the custom of prolonged breast-feeding associated with inadequate sunlight exposure to sunlight. Historical sources describe Don Filippino as frail and sickly, with frequent illnesses and persistent slight fevers, and it can be supposed that the child was frequently confined indoors, especially in the cold season. Integration of osteoarchaeological evidence with historical documentation suggests that bone lesions observed in the skeletal remains of Don Filippino are compatible with a diagnosis of rickets, caused by the custom of prolonged breast-feeding associated with inadequate sunlight exposure.

In 2012 the Italian Court of Cassation recognized a young woman the right not to be born and a compensation for her Down's syndrome. Before her birth, her parents asked their gynaecologist for abortion in case he had found any patology affecting the baby. The clinical tests didn't reveal the syndrome, so, after the baby's birth, the doctor was sued for damages. A similar case had occurred in France, where the High Court affirmed that constitution is based on the right to live, not to die. A debate was opened, in which the hippocratic oath has been used to support the pro vita position. This article focuses on whether, when and why the hippocratic tradition allows abortion; when and by whom the embryo was considered to be a human being; if, according to the few sources we have, a charter for the embryo existed in ancient times.

It is controversial whether the development of Fascist racism was influenced by earlier Italian eugenic research. Before the First International Eugenics Congress held in London in 1912, Italian eugenics was not characterized by a clear program of scientific research. With the advent of Fascism, however, the equality "number = strength" became the foundation of its program. This idea, according to which the improvement of a nation relies on the amplitude of its population, was conceived by statistician Corrado Gini (1884-1965) already in 1912. Focusing on the problem of the degeneration of the Italian race, Gini had a tremendous influence on Benito Mussolini's (1883-1945) political campaign, and shaped Italian social sciences for almost two decades. He was also a committed racist, as documented by a series of indisputable statements from the primary literature. All these findings place Gini in a linking position among early Italian eugenics, Fascism and official state racism.