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Transforming the Lab: Technological and Societal Concerns in the Pursuit of De- and Regeneration in the German Morphological Neurosciences, 1910–1930

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Medicine Studies

Abstract

This paper focuses on the make-up of different cultures in experimental neurology, neuroanatomy, and clinical psychiatry. These cultures served as important research bases for early regenerative concepts and projects in the area of neurology and psychiatry at the beginning of the 20th century. Nevertheless, the developments in brain research and clinical neurology cannot be regarded to be isolated from broader societal developments, as the discourses on social de- and regeneration, neurasthenia, nerve-weakness and experiences of the brain-injured after WWI show. Societal and cultural developments directly influenced researchers’ conceptualisation, scientific ideas, and even their experimental and clinical orientation. They directly reflect which scientific problems the neuroscientists felt inclined to address and what areas they began to leave aside. Using the concept of socio-technical experiments, it is demonstrated that research methodologies in neuronal de- and regeneration studies were not simply a product of recent advances in the scientific differentiation of somatic neurology or brain-psychiatry. Moreover, they resulted in important interdisciplinary attempts which emerged from great collaborative work including neuroscientists from various areas of investigation in both basic and clinical contexts.

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Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Allan Young, Christoph Gradmann, Heiner Fangerau, and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Partial funding for this project came from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH) and from a Development Grant of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

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  1. Department of Community Health Sciences and Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, Heritage Medical Research Building Room G30, 3330 Hospital Drive N.W., Calgary, AB, T2N 4N1, Canada

    Frank W. Stahnisch

  2. Department of History, University of Calgary, Social Sciences 656, 2500 University Drive N.W., Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada

    Frank W. Stahnisch

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Correspondence to Frank W. Stahnisch.

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Stahnisch, F.W. Transforming the Lab: Technological and Societal Concerns in the Pursuit of De- and Regeneration in the German Morphological Neurosciences, 1910–1930. Medicine Studies 1, 41–54 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12376-009-0004-x

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