A Karger 'Publishing Highlights 1890-2015' title This 2nd, revised edition is still the reference work available in print and electronically on Paracelsus by the Paracelsus authority. Furthermore, it makes a very good read. See also Pagel's last book The Smiling Spleen on Paracelsianism as a historical phenomenon. '...a work in the brilliant tradition of biographical research... even the casual reader will be impressed to learn that, four centuries ago, the man who had the courage to burn in public the writings (...) of Avicenna, recognised pulmonary disease in miners as an occupational hazard, cretinism and goitre as endemic in certain areas, and chorea and hysteria as manifestations of disease, not demonic possession.' The Lancet. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage est la thèse de doctorat en médecine présentée en 1943 par Georges Canguilhem, augmentée, lors de sa réédition vingt ans plus tard, de réflexions philosophiques sur la signification du terme « normal » en médecine. La thèse débute par une étude historique sur l’identité des phénomènes normaux et pathologiques, dogme de la pensée médicale au XIXe siècle. La seconde partie est une étude systématique, sous la forme d’une analyse critique, des concepts de normal et de pathologique. Georges Canguilhem (...) (1904-1995), philosophe puis médecin, contribua à rénover l’épistémologie française. (shrink)

In this history of medicine and the medical profession in the Third Reich, Michael Kater examines the career patterns, educational training, professional organization, and political socialization of German physicians under Hitler. His discussion ranges wi.

The production of big pictures is arguably the most significant sign of the intellectual maturity of a field. It suggests both that the field's broad contours, refined over several generations of scholarship, enjoy the approval of practitioners, and that audiences exist with an interest in or need for overviews. The situation is somewhat more complicated in the history of science, since the existence of big historical pictures precedes that of a well-defined scholarly field by about two centuries. Broadly conceived histories (...) of science and medicine were being written in the eighteenth century, when such an all-encompassing vision was central to the claims about the progress of knowledge upon which Enlightenment ideologues set such store. The Plato to Nato style histories, characteristic of the earlier twentieth century, were written largely by isolated pioneers, and while these were used in teaching as the field was becoming professionalized, recent scholars have preferred to concentrate on a monographic style of research. Despite the existence of the series started by Wiley, and now published by Cambridge University Press, it is only in the last ten years or so that more conscious attempts have been made to generate a big-picture literature informed by new scholarship. It is noteworthy that most of this is addressed to students and general readers, although there is no logical reason why it should not tackle major theoretical issues of concern to scholars. My point about maturity still holds, then, since as a designated discipline the history of science is rather new; it is still feeling out its relationship with cognate disciplines. Big-picture histories have an important role to play in these explorations since they make findings and ideas widely available and thereby offer material through which ambitious interpretations can be debated, modified and transformed. (shrink)