Case and Series: Medical Knowledge and Paper Technology, 1600–1900

Hess, Volker; Mendelsohn, J. Andrew

doi:10.1177/007327531004800302

Cited by 110 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…30 Only when such compendia were made accessible through indexing, which required rearrangement of contents according to keywords, did the details of similar types of case come to be clustered together, making possible comparisons between cases isolable from each other and from background information. 31 Building on links between news and narrative, eighteenth-century case reports began to be published as free-standing accounts of medical fi ndings, instances of special interest titled 'a narrative' 32 sometimes written in tones referencing an account of a life. 33 Peter Logan's work on hysteria in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries demonstrated the 'intricate association between medical theory and narrative form', 34 and supported Thomas Laqueur's identifi cation of a new literary aesthetic in the period, which brought together literary and scientifi c writings in a 'new humanitarian narrative' 35 licensing memoirists and novelists to focus on the intimate details of a life, to elicit compassionate responses from readers made witnesses to corporeal scenes previously confi ned to autopsy reports and case histories.…”

Section: Narrative Forms and Structures In Medicinementioning

confidence: 99%

The Roots and Ramifications of Narrative in Modern Medicine

Hurwitz¹,

Bates²

2018

Edinburgh University Press

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Narrative became a concept of great versatility and fluidity in the second half of the twentieth century, configuring multi-dimensional understandings and meanings in healthcare. The literary and social theorist Martin Kreiswirth speaks of ‘a massive and unprecedented eruption of interest in narrative and in theorizing about narrative’ in the period, which resulted in stories and fragments of stories gaining significant conceptual traction in many discourses and practices. Not until narrative began to be credited with such multi-disciplinary capacities were claims for a pluripotential role in medicine explicitly formulated. Yet in attempting to respond to human needs incarnated in language, narrativity and medicine have long been co-implicated. If ‘the chief characteristic of human life is that it is always full of events which ultimately can be told as a story,’ as Hannah Arendt argued, narrativity is a precondition of epitomising and reflecting on illness.6

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Section: Narrative Forms and Structures In Medicinementioning

confidence: 99%

The Roots and Ramifications of Narrative in Modern Medicine

Hurwitz¹,

Bates²

2018

Edinburgh University Press

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“…48 See, for example, Dupré, 2017;Smith, 2010Smith, , 2012 http://www.makingandknowing.org/ 50 Harkness, 2007. 51 Hess & Mendelsohn, 2010;Kassell, 2014;Stolberg, 2013bStolberg, , 2016 Stolberg, 2016. 53 Stolberg, 2013aStolberg, , 2014 On casebooks, particularly those of Simon Forman (1552-1611) and Richard Napier (1559-1634), see Kassell, 2014.…”

Section: Note Taking In the "Field"mentioning

confidence: 99%

Read. Do. Observe. Take note!

Leong

2018

Centaurus

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This article offers a brief overview of recent studies on note taking and paperwork in histories of early modern science. Showcasing the wide variety of note‐taking practices performed by a range of historical actors across diverse sites and knowledge practices, it argues that a focus on note taking and “paper technologies” enables us to put in conversation a number of linked epistemic practices from reading and writing to making and doing to observing and surveying to classifying and categorizing. By viewing these practices as a continuum rather than as distinct parts, we are able to further understand early modern knowledge production.

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“…135 The casebook served to dissect the body "epistemically" as knives dissected it physically, and as such they provide a vital window onto contemporary medical practice. 136 As Volker Hess and Andrew Mendelsohn observe, case records also served to link different areas of an institution. 137 In the West Riding casebooks it is possible to glimpse the multiple practices (photomicrography, physiological research, interviewing patients) and sites (photographic studios, laboratories, admission rooms) within the Asylum, as well as the institution's connections to researchers elsewhere such as Horsley and Ferrier.…”

Section: The Patient and The Case Recordmentioning

confidence: 99%

Muscle

Wallis

2017

Investigating the Body in the Victorian Asylum

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MuscleExtending the focus on the exterior of the asylum patient's body that was discussed in Chapter "Skin", this chapter considers how asylum doctors conceptualised and investigated the muscular system both before and after death. As researchers in psychiatric institutions began to incorporate physiological methods and instruments into their work, general paralysis was seized upon as an ideal disease for investigation. General paralytic patients suffered from a number of physical complaints-from atrophying muscles to disordered locomotion-that, at a time of increasing interest in the connection between brain and body (such as cerebral localisation), suggested that the disease did serious harm to the brain. The link between body and brain was investigated in several ways, such as searching for structural damage to the brain substance during postmortems. It was also investigated in ways that necessitated the active or passive involvement of the patient during life. Testing the patient's articulation, strength, or walking ability became a crucial part of physical examination, with many patients also leaving their own inscriptions in historical records alongside those of doctors and medical technologies. In examining physical abilities, though, doctors also found themselves confronting the rather complex issue of willpower-the control of patients over their own bodies, for example, or the frequent and seemingly purposeless thefts often committed by general paralytics. The degeneration of the bodily fabric-particularly of the muscles, which were symbolic of strong and vigorous masculinity-was a worrying illustration of the state of the brain, then, as well as a phenomenon that could have serious socio-economic consequences for patients and their families.

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Case and Series: Medical Knowledge and Paper Technology, 1600–1900

Cited by 110 publications

References 5 publications

The Roots and Ramifications of Narrative in Modern Medicine

The Roots and Ramifications of Narrative in Modern Medicine

Read. Do. Observe. Take note!

Muscle

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