A life dedicated to research and ideal: Johannes Müller between empirical universality and idealistic vitalism mirrored in lecture notes from 1851.

Until the mid-nineteenth century, "physiology" was a comprehensive theory of life, expounded and shaped by Johannes P. Müller (1801-1858). Biologists and medical doctors still refer to him today. In the summer term of 1851, Müller gave a lecture on the Comparative Anatomy of animals. This lecture was attended and recorded by Ernst Zeller (1830-1902), a future physician and zoologist, and has recently been published together with a German transcript. In this paper, we situate Johannes Müller within the intellectual history of his time. Through his "empirical idealism," we show how he opposed the speculative tendencies of the romantic understanding of nature, the emerging evolutionism, and the growing splits in the natural sciences. Müller focused on recognizing living nature as a whole and realizing ideal "phenomena" through his empirical research. He considered the notion of the soul of the world. Müller's lecture transcript serves as a poignant testament to German scientific culture in the mid-nineteenth century, a few years before the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species. It also provides valuable insights into the self-contained epistemological foundations of morphology.

Physiology, Vitalism, and the Contest for Body and Soul in the Antebellum United States.

In the early nineteenth century, physiology became an increasingly popular and powerful science in the United States. Religious controversy over the nature of human vitality animated much of this interest. On one side of these debates stood Protestant apologists who wedded an immaterialist vitalism to their belief in an immaterial, immortal soul - and therefore to their dreams of a Christian republic. On the other side, religious skeptics argued for a materialist vitalism that excluded anything immaterial from human life, aspiring thereby to eliminate religious interference in the progress of science and society. Both sides hoped that by claiming physiology for their vision of human nature they might direct the future of religion in the US. Ultimately, they failed to realize these ambitions, but their contest posed a dilemma late nineteenth-century physiologists felt compelled to solve: how should they comprehend the relationship between life, body, and soul? Eager to undertake laboratory work and leave metaphysical questions behind, these researchers solved the problem by restricting their work to the body while leaving spiritual matters to preachers. In attempting to escape the vitalism and soul questions, late nineteenth-century Americans thus created a division of labor that shaped the history of medicine and religion for the following century.

Missing Part of Vitalism: Information.

No Abstract Available.

The third-way third wave and the enduring appeal of bioexceptionalism.

We may induce from a longue durée examination of Anglo-American History of Biology that the impulse to reject reduc - tionism persists and will continue to percolate cyclically. This impulse I deem "bioexceptionalism": an intuition, stance, attitude, or activating metaphor that the study of living beings requires explanations in addition to exclusively bottom-up causal explanations and the research programs constructed upon that bottom-up philosophical foundation by non-organismal biologists, biochemists, and biophysicists - the explanations, in other words, that Wadding - ton (1977) humorously termed the "Conventional Wisdom of the Dominant Group, or cowdung." Bioexceptionalism might indicate an ontological assertion, like vitalism. Yet most often in the last century, it has been defined by a variety of methodological or even sociological positions. On three occasions in the interval from the late nineteenth century to the present, a small but significant group of practicing biologists and allies in other research disciplines in the UK and US adopted a species of bioexceptionalism, rejecting the dominant explanatory philosophy of reductionistic mechanism. Yet they also rejected the vitalist alternative. We can refer to their subset of bioexceptionalism as a "Third-Way" approach, though participants at the time called it by a variety of names, including "organicism." Today's appeals to a Third-Way are but the latest eruption of this older dissensus and retain at least heuristic value apart from any explanatory success.

Locating hygienic medicine within the intellectual history of hygiene: cases of E. W. Lane and T. R. Allinson.

Nineteenth century hygiene might be a confusing concept. On the one hand, the concept of hygiene was gradually becoming an important concept that was focused on cleanliness and used interchangeably with sanitation. On the other hand, the classical notions of hygiene rooted in the Hippocratic teachings remained influential. This study is about two attempts to newly theorise such a confusing concept of hygiene in the second half of the century by Edward. W. Lane and Thomas R. Allinson. Their works, standing on the borders of self-help medical advice and theoretical treatises on medical philosophies, were not exactly scholarly ones, but their medical thoughts - conceptualised as hygienic medicine - show a characteristically holistic medical view of hygiene, a nineteenth-century version of the reinterpretation of the nature cure philosophy and vitalism. However, the aim of this study is to properly locate their conceptualisations of hygienic medicine within the historical context of the second half of the nineteenth century rather than to simply introduce the medical ideas in their books. Their views of hygiene were distinguished not only from the contemporary sanitary approach but also from similar attempts by contemporary orthodox and unorthodox medical doctors. Through a chronological analysis of changes in the concept of hygiene and a comparative analysis of these two authors' and other medical professionals' views of hygiene, this paper aims to help understand the complicated picture of nineteenth-century hygiene, particularly during the second half of the century, from the perspective of medical holism and reductionism.

From Organismic Biology as History and Philosophy to the History and Philosophy of Biology-the Work of Hans-Jörg Rheinberger in the German Context.

In this paper, I ask about the broader context of the history and philosophy of biology in the German-speaking world as the place in which Hans-Jörg Rheinberger began his work. Three German philosophical traditions-neo-Kantianism, phenomenology, and Lebensphilosophie-were interested in the developments and conceptual challenges of the life sciences in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Their reflections were taken up by life scientists under the terms theoretische Biologie (theoretical biology) and allgemeine Biologie (general biology), i. e., for theoretical and methodological reflections. They used historical and philosophical perspectives to develop vitalistic, organicist, or holistic approaches to life. In my paper, I argue that the resulting discourse did not come to an end in 1945. Increasingly detached from biological research, it formed an important context for the formation of the field of history and philosophy of biology. In Rheinberger's work, we can see the "Spalten" and "Fugen"-the continuities and discontinuities-that this tradition left there.

Vitalism, Holism, and Metaphorical Dynamics of Hans Spemann's "Organizer" in the Interwar Period.

This paper aims to provide a fresh historical perspective on the debates on vitalism and holism in Germany by analyzing the work of the zoologist Hans Spemann (1869-1941) in the interwar period. Following up previous historical studies, it takes the controversial question about Spemann's affinity to vitalistic approaches as a starting point. The focus is on Spemann's holistic research style, and on the shifting meanings of Spemann's concept of an organizer. It is argued that the organizer concept unfolded multiple layers of meanings (biological, philosophical, and popular) during the 1920s and early 1930s. A detailed analysis of the metaphorical dynamics in Spemann's writings sheds light on the subtle vitalistic connotations of his experimental work. How Spemann's work was received by contemporary scientists and philosophers is analyzed briefly, and Spemann's holism is explored in the broader historical context of the various issues about reductionism and holism and related methodological questions that were so prominently discussed not only in Germany in the 1920s.

"What is Dead May Not Die": Locating Marginalized Concepts Among Ordinary Biologists.

Historians and biologists identify the debate between mechanists and vitalists over the nature of life itself with the arguments of Driesch, Loeb, and other prominent voices. But what if the conversation was broader and the consequences deeper for the field? Following the suspicions of Joseph Needham in the 1930s and Francis Crick in the 1960s, we deployed tools of the digital humanities to an old problem in the history of biology. We analyzed over 31,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers and learned that bioexceptionalism participated in a robust discursive landscape throughout subfields of the life sciences, occupied even by otherwise unknown biologists.

Reductionism, Vitalism, and Holism.

The reductionist strategy, adopted by physics and chemistry, which was based on the effort to reduce the concepts necessary for the statement of scientific explanations to a minimum, was attractive to those who worked in the biomedical field. On the other hand, the vitalistic point of view opposed mechanism, believing that there were processes in living organisms that do not obey the laws of physics and chemistry. Finally, the holistic approach is focused on the evidence that the organized whole is almost always much more than the sum of its parts, and have led to direct attention to emerging qualities in a highly organized system which is a living being.

Selecting Instruments for Measuring the Clinical Learning Environment of Medical Education: A 4-Domain Framework.

Learning environments shape the experiences of learners and practitioners, making them an important component of program evaluation. However, educators find it challenging to decide whether to measure clinical learning environments with existing instruments or to design their own new instrument and, if using an existing instrument, which to choose. To assist educators with these decisions, the authors compared clinical learning environment instruments based on their characteristics, underlying constructs, and degree to which items reflect 4 domains (personal, social, organizational, material) from a recently developed model for conceptualizing learning environments in the health professions. Building on 3 prior literature reviews as well as a literature search, the authors identified 6 clinically oriented learning environment instruments designed for medical education. They collected key information about each instrument (e.g., number of items and subscales, conceptual frameworks, operational definitions of the learning environment) and coded items from each instrument according to the 4 domains. The 6 instruments varied in number of items, underlying constructs, subscales, definitions of clinical learning environment, and domain coverage. Most instruments focused heavily on the organizational and social domains and less on the personal and material domains (half omitted the material domain entirely). The variations in these instruments suggest that educators might consider several guiding questions. How will they define the learning environment and which theoretical lens is most applicable (e.g., personal vitality, sociocultural learning theory)? What aspects or domains of the learning environment do they most wish to capture (e.g., personal support, social interactions, organizational culture, access to resources)? How comprehensive do they want the instrument to be (and correspondingly how much time do they expect people to devote to completing the instrument and how frequently)? Whose perspective do they wish to evaluate (e.g., student, resident, fellow, attending, team, patient)? Each of these considerations is addressed.

Vitalism in contemporary chiropractic: a help or a hinderance?

BACKGROUND: Chiropractic emerged in 1895 and was promoted as a viable health care substitute in direct competition with the medical profession. This was an era when there was a belief that one cause and one cure for all disease would be discovered. The chiropractic version was a theory that most diseases were caused by subluxated (slightly displaced) vertebrae interfering with "nerve vibrations" (a supernatural, vital force) and could be cured by adjusting (repositioning) vertebrae, thereby removing the interference with the body's inherent capacity to heal. DD Palmer, the originator of chiropractic, established chiropractic based on vitalistic principles. Anecdotally, the authors have observed that many chiropractors who overtly claim to be "vitalists" cannot define the term. Therefore, we sought the origins of vitalism and to examine its effects on chiropractic today. DISCUSSION: Vitalism arose out of human curiosity around the biggest questions: Where do we come from? What is life? For some, life was derived from an unknown and unknowable vital force. For others, a vital force was a placeholder, a piece of knowledge not yet grasped but attainable. Developments in science have demonstrated there is no longer a need to invoke vitalistic entities as either explanations or hypotheses for biological phenomena. Nevertheless, vitalism remains within chiropractic. In this examination of vitalism within chiropractic we explore the history of vitalism, vitalism within chiropractic and whether a vitalistic ideology is compatible with the legal and ethical requirements for registered health care professionals such as chiropractors. CONCLUSION: Vitalism has had many meanings throughout the centuries of recorded history. Though only vaguely defined by chiropractors, vitalism, as a representation of supernatural force and therefore an untestable hypothesis, sits at the heart of the divisions within chiropractic and acts as an impediment to chiropractic legitimacy, cultural authority and integration into mainstream health care.

Measurement invariance of the moral vitalism scale across 28 cultural groups.

Moral vitalism refers to a tendency to view good and evil as actual forces that can influence people and events. The Moral Vitalism Scale had been designed to assess moral vitalism in a brief survey form. Previous studies established the reliability and validity of the scale in US-American and Australian samples. In this study, the cross-cultural comparability of the scale was tested across 28 different cultural groups worldwide through measurement invariance tests. A series of exact invariance tests marginally supported partial metric invariance, however, an approximate invariance approach provided evidence of partial scalar invariance for a 5-item measure. The established level of measurement invariance allows for comparisons of latent means across cultures. We conclude that the brief measure of moral vitalism is invariant across 28 cultures and can be used to estimate levels of moral vitalism with the same precision across very different cultural settings.

Moving towards a contemporary chiropractic professional identity.

Since the inception of the chiropractic profession, debate has continued on differing practice objectives and philosophical approaches to patient care. While the political and academic leaders of the profession continue to dominate the discourse, little is known on the perspectives of the everyday practising chiropractor on their professional identity. In this paper, professional identity within the profession of chiropractic was evaluated using a systematised search strategy of the literature from the year 2000 through to May 2019. Initially 562 articles were sourced, of which 24 met the criteria for review. The review confirmed three previously stated professional identity subgroups; two polarised approaches and a centrist or mixed view. The musculoskeletal biomedical approach is in contrast to the vertebral subluxation vitalistic practice approach. Whilst these three main chiropractic identity subtypes exist, within the literature the terminology used to describe them differs. Research aimed at categorising the chiropractic profession identity into exclusive subtypes found that at least 20% of chiropractors have an exclusive vertebral subluxation focus. However, deeper exploration of the literature shows that vertebral subluxation is an important practice consideration for up to 70% of chiropractors. Patient care with a musculoskeletal spine focus is dominant in clinical practice. This review found that practising chiropractors consider themselves to be primary care or primary contact practitioners with a broad scope of practice across a number of patient groups not limited to musculoskeletal management. Across the research, there is a marked difference in the categories of practice objectives evaluated, and future research could examine the relatedness of these. Additionally, future research could explore the professional identity construct over time and within different practice contexts to help facilitate the progression of the profession.

Words matter: the prevalence of chiropractic-specific terminology on Australian chiropractors' websites.

BACKGROUND: Chiropractors use words and phrases in unique ways to express traditional, chiropractic-specific theories. This lexicon represents concepts that reinforce the separation of chiropractic from other health care professions. It may impact referrals both to and from chiropractors, lead to public confusion about health care issues, and reduce cross-disciplinary research. Therefore, it is important to understand how prevalent chiropractic-specific terms are in publicly available media. METHODS: Five chiropractic terms were selected: subluxation, adjustment, vital (-ism/-istic), wellness, and Innate (Intelligence). States and territories in Australia were proportionately sampled according to population of chiropractors using a Google search for chiropractors' private practice websites. The top results were recorded. Websites were word-searched on every publicly available page for the five terms. Context was checked to count only terms that were used to support a chiropractic-specific concepts. The number of occurrences of each term was recorded, tallied nationally and by state/territory. Descriptive statistics were applied to determine prevalence. RESULTS: Three hundred sixty-nine websites were sampled, based on an estimate of 5500 chiropractors practising in Australia. Nationally, 85% of chiropractors used one or more terms. The term adjust (-ing/-ment) occurred most frequently, being found on 283 websites (77%) with a total of 2249 occurrences. Wellness was found on 199 websites (54%) with 872 occurrences; subluxation was found on 104 websites (28%), 489 occurrences; vital (-ism/-istic) on 71 websites (19%) with 158 occurrences; and Innate was least used, being found on 39 websites (11%) with 137 occurrences. CONCLUSION: A majority of the Australian chiropractors sampled used one or more chiropractic-specific terms on their websites. Future research should explore the effects of chiropractic language on the public, policy-makers, and other health care professionals.

Aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage: Effect of CRHR1 genotype on mental health-related quality of life.

Quality of life (QoL) disturbances are common after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) both in physical and mental health domains and their causes are not clearly understood. Corticotropin-releasing hormone receptor 1 (CRHR1) is involved in stress reactivity and development of mental health disturbances after negative life-events. We performed a retrospective cohort study of long-term QoL outcomes among 125 surgically treated aSAH patients (2001-2013). QoL was assessed with Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) and compared to an age and gender matched general population. Genotyping of CRHR1 single nucleotide polymorphisms was performed (Rs7209436, Rs110402, Rs242924) and their effect on QoL scores was explored. aSAH patients experienced a reduced quality of life in all domains. CRHR1 minor genotype was associated with higher SF-36 mental health (OR = 1.31-1.6, p < 0.05), role-emotional (OR = 1.57, p = 0.04) and vitality scores (OR = 1.31-1.38, p < 0.05). Association of all studied SNP's with vitality and Rs242924 with mental health scores remained statistically significant after Bonferroni correction. Mental quality of life scores were associated with physical state of patients, antidepressant history and CRHR1 genotype. Predisposition to mental health disturbances after stressful life-events might be associated with reduced mental QoL after aSAH and selected patients could be provided advanced counselling in the recovery phase.

Correlation between Vitalism and Genetics According to the Paradigm of Complexity.

BACKGROUND: In homeopathic philosophy, vital force is a non-material substrate that is responsible for maintaining the body's sensations and functions and where homeopathic medicines act. In genetics, the body's vital functions are controlled by biochemical information, which is contained in the cell genome and consists of a protein encoding portion (exome) and another that regulates this encoding scheme (epigenome). Both the philosophical vital force and the genome present properties of complex and dynamic self-organisation systems. AIMS: This study aimed to explore and develop a philosophical-scientific correlation between vitalism and genetics according to the complexity paradigm. RESULTS: Vital principle and genome present inseparable composition among distinct existing components that influence one another and form a network of connections that create complex and dynamic self-organisation behaviour. Described in both models, 'vortex' indicates the existence of a force coming from within the system that is externalised as an emergent, information-transmitting phenomenon. Supporting this correlation, some experimental studies show that homeopathic medicines act on the genome by modulating gene expression. CONCLUSIONS: In line with the similarity of existing characteristics and properties, the genome may be considered as hypothetical biological substrate of organic vital force.

Narrating Resuscitation: Theory, Knowledge, and the Cultural Life of Eighteenth-Century Vitalism.

This paper considers the relationship between the practice of resuscitation in mid- to late eighteenth-century Britain, and vitalist physiology and medicine. It explores how the mix of mystery and fact presented in the scene of reanimation, and manifested in the resuscitated body as the site of such a compelling conjunction, is negotiated in contemporary vitalist theories of life and theoretical reflections on natural philosophical method. In this, it gives a particular prominence to the Scottish vitalists, especially William Cullen. It considers the attractions of resuscitation for addressing the particular epistemological predicament faced by vitalism: its combination of post-Newtonian empiricism and the inevitable conjecture-or "provisionally inexplicable explicative device"-necessary when faced with the mysteries of life. Finally, the cultural life of vitalism is considered in the work of William Hawes, Humane Society founder, and John Thelwall, radical journalist.