IDEM · In Defence of Experimental Medicine: Emotional Appeals and Medical Didacticism in Germany, Britain and North America, 1870-1914
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2017-08-01 → 2020-07-31
- EU contribution
- €243,353
- Participants
- 2
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-GF
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Results in brief
In Defence of Experimental Medicine: Emotional Appeals and Medical Didacticism in Germany,Britain and North America, 1870-1914
IDEM focused on the strategic defence of experimental medicine in Britain, Germany and the United States, 1870-1914. At its core is the question of humanity as a medical practice. Objectives: 1. To explore techniques and strategies of the medical establishment in defending experimental medicine to the lay public, in England, Germany and North America, 1870-1914. 2. To reveal ways this involved transnational networks to represent an orthodoxy of medical endeavour. 3. To assess importance of gendered affective appeals as part of dissemination of medical knowledge. 4. To analyse the extent to which these strategies altered the status of medical institutions and medical personalities into a) political agents and b) public bodies. 5. To assess the extent to which emotional responses to experimental medicine changed (both in lay society and professional). 6. To further develop the theoretical and methodological rigour that stems from the history of emotions -- to fashioning a new methodology for the history of experience. 7. To operationalise this history of experience through IDEM’s principal empirical research project. Conclusions: 1. Medical establishment used a variety of techniques and strategies to defend medical experimentation, including the manipulation of the popular press, the use of political influence, popular education, and societal influence. 2. While there was a well developed transnational network of medical scientists, their approaches in different national theatres were heterodox. The defence of experiment was conducted according to local conditions, but with international experience in mind. 3. The defence was heavily gendered as professional masculine endeavour, just as the anti-scientific movement was heavily gendered as hysterically female. 4. In the UK, the defence of experimental medicine resulted in medical experimentation becoming a part of government policy and publicly funded. The political role of the medical community changed significantly. In the US, the change was less pronounced, but the medical establishment acted as a political body in concert more than it had prior to. 5. The emotional response to experimental medicine became entrenched over the period in question, with experiment being experienced as a practice of humanitarianism. In lay society, the cause of experimental medicine clearly prevailed, with the conclusion that public opinion endorsed the medical view that experiment was an act of humanitarianism. 6. A new methodology of the history of experience has been put forward, and continues to be developed. 7. The principal research project has been completed, and will be published in the coming months.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
IDEM analyses the didactic strategies of the medical establishment in Germany, the UK and North America in educating the public about the benefits of experimental medicine. The period of focus is from 1870 to 1914: the key expansion phase for experimental medicine in physiology, toxicology, surgery and immunology. Educational strategies were important for ensuring the on-going freedom of medical research in the face of opposition from the lay public on ethical, moral and aesthetic grounds. Potential legal checks on medical practice motivated doctors to change anti-scientific opinion through informal educational strategies, involving the dissemination of knowledge, the disparagement of opponents of experimentation, and influence over popular emotional reactions to medical science. IDEM probes the internal politics of the medical establishments of each area and the ways in which they learnt from each other through networks of exchange and experience. IDEM’s objectives are: 1. To explore the pedagogical techniques and strategies of the medical establishment in their efforts to “sell” experimental medicine to the lay public, in England, Germany and North America, c. 1870-1914. 2. To reveal the ways in which these techniques and strategies involved transnational networks and exchanges among these countries that worked to represent an orthodoxy of medical endeavour. 3. To interpret how far medical didacticism in this period depended upon affective appeals, either instead of or embedded into the dissemination of medical knowledge, and the extent to which such appeals were gendered. 4. To analyse the extent to which the defence of medical experimentation transformed both medical institutions and medical personalities into a) political agents and b) public bodies. 5. To assess the extent to which affective didacticism sought to change the emotional responses of both the public and of medical practitioners to the sights, practices and results of experimental medicine.
Original text from CORDIS.
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Data: CORDIS, © European Union