The Social Construction of Medical Knowledge

Abstract

The paper examines some of the ways in which a social constructionist perspective may be useful for social historians of medicine. It outlines the streams of thought that, over the last twenty years or so, have contributed to this perspective. Some of the problems and issues raised by social constructionism are considered. The relationships between the history of science and the history of medicine are discussed in order to clarify the extent to which the latter can and should be modeled on the former. I suggest that social constructionism is useful, partly because it gives weight to ideas, and that there is a potentially fruitful alliance to be considered between the social history of medicine and cultural history.

Introduction

“…Further, we risk contributing little to the epistemology of psychiatric treatment by viewing it through an ahistorical "use/abuse model." 12 For nineteenth-century commentators-both medical and non-medical -bodies were "things to think with." 13 They were appealed to as analogies to explain the sewer systems of large cities: the metropolis was imagined by many sanitary reformers as a body whose veins were clogged with an accumulation of waste material that had a grave impact on its overall health.…”

Marañón y la identidad sexual: biología, sexualidad y género en la España de la década de 1920

“…Estas redefiniciones intentaban alejarse de la ambigüedad sexual, ante el temor a una desestabilización del orden sexual. Debemos recordar que la medicina es uno de los instrumentos más poderosos para naturalizar valores morales y, por tanto, para generar exclusión o rechazo (Jordanova, 1995).…”

The Manipulated History of Manipulations of Spines and Joints? Rethinking Orthopaedic Medicine Through the 19th Century Discourse of European Mechanical Medicine

“…12 In an Anglophone context of historiography this ''progressive narrative'' is referred to as ''Whiggish history'' or ''Doctor's history''. See: Jordanova (1995), Pickstone (2005). The earlier customary tradition, that a thesis in Medicine had to hold an introductory historic exposé ranging from Hippocrates and Galen to the time of the author's discoveries, has for instance been interpreted in this way.…”