"My Death Was in a Kiss": Theatrical Propaganda Against Sexually Transmitted Infections in the Early Soviet Union and the United States in the 1920s-1930s.

We analyze key historical anti-sexually transmitted infection (STI) theatrical performances in the Soviet Union and the United States that were staged to disseminate knowledge and awareness of STIs among the population. The phenomenon of theatrical hygiene propaganda emerged in the USSR after the October Uprising of 1917. The so-called sanitary plays, mock trials, revues, and Living Newspapers addressed important public health issues, one of which was STIs. The Soviet experience provided inspiration for the Federal Theater Project in the United States, which produced socially relevant performances during the Great Depression. The Living Newspaper Spirochete, staged in Chicago, Illinois, in 1938 at the beginning of the "war against syphilis," became one of the most often staged Living Newspapers in the United States. We compare discourses of the theatrical propaganda against STIs in the Soviet Union and the United States. We aim to explain the driving forces and motives behind the anti-STI movement in both countries and describe structural and performative differences in the anti-STI theatrical productions. (Am J Public Health. 2022;112(9):1318-1325. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022.306933).

Airborne infection with Covid-19? A historical look at a current controversy.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, experts and the broader public have vigorously debated the means by which SARS CoV-2 is spread. And understandably so, for identifying the routes of transmission is crucial for selecting appropriate nonpharmaceutical interventions to control the pandemic. The most controversial question in the debate is the role played by airborne transmission. What is at stake is not just the clinical evidence, but the implications for public health policy, society, and psychology. Interestingly, however, the issue of airborne transmission is not a new controversy. It has reappeared throughout the history of western medicine. This essay traces the notion of airborne infection from its development in ancient medical theories to its manifestation in the modern era and its impact today.

The "proletarian disease" on stage. Theatrical anti-tuberculosis propaganda in the early Soviet Union.

The present contribution analyses sanitary theatrical performances as a means of anti-tuberculosis propaganda in the early Soviet Union. Starting in the 1920s, sanitary theatrical performances were demonstrated in open-air theatres and clubhouses for workers and farmers. Since 1925, the newly founded Moscow Theatre for Sanitary Culture centrally managed the theatrical hygiene propaganda. It became a role model for other theatres of hygienic enlightenment and numerous sanitary amateur stages. Their anti-tuberculosis repertoire ranged from the so-called "mock trials" where a person or even Koch's bacillus must stand trial for the spreading of tuberculosis, to "living newspapers" which used entertainment elements such as music or acrobatics to provide a mass audience with the hygiene knowledge. The contribution describes in which images, figures and actions knowledge about tuberculosis was presented on stage, which genre traditions and communicative instruments were used and which changing political implications those performances were based on. To achieve this goal, the archive sources, selected texts of theatrical performances, reports and reviews in daily press have been evaluated.

National Socialist Medical Literature and the Censorship Practices in the Soviet Occupation Zone and Early East German State.

This study examines how medical discourse and culture were affected by the denazification policies of the Soviet occupation authorities in East Germany. Examining medical textbooks in particular, it reveals how the production and dissemination of medical knowledge was subject to a complex process of negotiation among authors, publishers, and censorship officials. Drawing on primary-source material produced by censorship authorities that has not been rigorously examined to date, it reveals how knowledge production processes were structured by broader ideological and political imperatives. It thus sheds new light on a unique chapter in the history of censorship.

[Psychiatric textbooks from National Socialism and the censorial practice in the Soviet Occupation Zone and early GDR]. / Psychiatrische Fachbücher aus dem Nationalsozialismus und die zensorische Praxis in der SBZ und frühen DDR.

The Allied Forces policy of denazification and demilitarization during the early post-war period has had a lasting impact on medical disciplinary cultures in all occupation zones of Germany. By means of various control procedures, the conceptuality and linguistic design, the style and normative horizon of medical literature were reconstituted. This article examines this change using the example of psychiatry and neurology in the Soviet Occupation Zone. It deals with the neurological psychiatric textbook as a central medium of disciplinary communication and reconstructs how the knowledge in this field was processed and prepared in complex negotiation processes between authors, publishers and censors. The focus is on institutionalized filters of limited production of discourses and thus the archival holdings of censorship authorities, which have not yet been evaluated. The evaluation results are presented here with a focus on psychiatry and neurology and illustrated with selected case studies.

No Silver Medal for Nobel Prize Contenders: Why Anesthesia Pioneers Were Nominated for but Denied the Award.

Taking the examples of the pioneers Carl Ludwig Schleich, Carl Koller, and Heinrich Braun, this article provides a first exploratory account of the history of anesthesiology and the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine. Besides the files collected at the Nobel Archive in Sweden, which are presented here for the first time, this article is based on medical literature of the early 20th century. Using Nobel Prize nominations and Nobel committee reports as points of departure, the authors discuss why no anesthesia pioneer has received this coveted trophy. These documents offer a new perspective to explore and to better understand aspects of the history of anesthesiology in the first half of the 20th century.

Therapeutic Pneumothorax and the Nobel Prize.

At the turn of the 20th century, the epidemic proportions of tuberculosis puzzled great parts the scientific community. Thus it is not surprising that well-known scholars who worked on particularly promising solutions to fight the disease were nominated for the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, perhaps the most prestigious benchmark of scientific excellence. The authors have gathered files on the Italian phtisiologist Carlo Forlanini (1847 to 1918) at the Nobel Prize archive for Physiology or Medicine in Solna, Sweden. Drawing on these files and contemporary publications, the authors discuss the origin of artificial pneumothorax for treating pulmonary tuberculosis, show how it became an international gold standard operation, and trace why the Nobel committee finally chose not to award Forlanini. Twenty Nobel Prize nominations for Forlanini were submitted from 1912 to 1919 exclusively by Italian scholars. In 1913 and 1914, Forlanini was on the shortlist of the Nobel Committee and thus one of the prime candidates for the prestigious prize. Important aspects of the rise, fall, and revival of the artificial pneumothorax from 1815 to 2015 are highlighted along with its benefits and risks.

Bolshevik disease and Stalinist terror: on the historical casuistry of artificial pneumothorax.

From its initial development by Carlo Forlanini at the end of the nineteenth century until the advent of antibiotics in the 1940s, artificial pneumothorax was one of the most widely used treatments for pulmonary tuberculosis. However, there were strongly held reservations about this therapy because of its risks and side effects. In the Soviet Union under Stalin, such uncertainties became instruments of political denunciation. The leading Soviet pulmonary physician Volf S. Kholtsman (1886-1941) was alleged to have used the so-called 'aristocratic therapy' of artificial pneumothorax to kill prominent Bolsheviks. Drawing on documents from Stalin's personal Secretariat, this historical study of the pneumothorax scandal contributes to the cultural history of tuberculosis, showing how it was instrumentalised for political purposes.

Forensische Psychiatrie und politische Repression in der Sowjetunion der Nachkriegszeit: Akteure, Konzepte, Kontexte.

While the history of Soviet forensic psychiatry remains a subject of continuing interest in the ,,politics of remembrance," there is a conspicuous dearth of historiographic studies in this area. Drawing on newly accessible source material, this study addresses this gap in the literature, delineating issues of key concern to the topic. The paper first explores specific interrelationships between legal and nosological points of view in the theories of forensic psychiatry that prevailed in the USSR. On this basis, it then reconstructs the functional characteristics of the "diagnosis factory" run under the auspices of Andrej V. Sneshnewski, illuminating the role of this school of psychiatry in the context of the history of medicine. In the third section of the paper, the discussion turns to institutional conditions, political factors, ideological implications, and socio-cultural contexts related to how hegemonic actors in Soviet forensic psychiatry dealt with non-conformers. In this context, a focus is placed on instances of resistance and dissidence within Soviet psychiatry. In particular, the paper discusses how polemics that relied on values and norms were of central importance to the political misuse of psychiatry as a nucleus and catalyst of democratic self-reflection during the reform era that took place under Mikhail Gorbachev.

Toward "harder" medical humanities: moving beyond the "two cultures" dichotomy.

Using the current international debate surrounding the incorporation of medical humanities into medical curricula as a starting point, the authors address both the legitimacy and didactics of teaching medical humanities to medical students. They highlight the paradox of the increasing prevalence of medical humanities in medical curricula and the often critical reception humanities courses receive. The alleged lack of empirical evidence linking such courses with improved patient care cannot alone explain the criticism they engender. After a short overview of the debate surrounding medical humanities and their inclusion in outcomes-based education, the authors outline the medical humanities block, "The History, Theory, and Ethics of Medicine," which is part of the German medical curriculum. A model developed at Ulm University exemplifies the integrated inclusion of the heterogeneous aspects of medical culture into medical education. This model emphasizes a reflexive approach (i.e., understanding how the humanities are manifested in medicine) as an alternative to the currently dominant narrative approach (i.e., liberal arts, moral development, and/or mental retreat), which has gradually been limited to a quasi-"secular religion" for doctors. This model uses established concepts from science and cultural studies as the "instruments" for seminars and courses; paradigms, discourses, social systems, and cosmologies constitute the tools for teaching and learning about the historical, theoretical, and ethical dimensions of medicine. The authors argue that this approach both precludes the need to justify the medical humanities and overcomes the dichotomy that has heretofore existed between the two cultures of science and the humanities in medicine.

[The "good doctor". Physicians' morality and the self-conception of medicine since the early modern period]. / Der "gute Arzt". Arztlicher Moralhaushalt und das Selbstverständnis der Medizin seit der Frühen Neuzeit.

The article examines the historical change in medical ethics since the beginning of the early modern period, drawing on normative sources, mostly of German origin. The theoretical frame of reference is provided by historical moral sociology and the history of the modernisation, as expounded in Niklas Luhmann's system theory. In a first step, evidence for the change in the moral codes of the various social systems (science, economy etc.) of the early modern period is assembled (1) in order to approach the question, taking the medieval medical doctrines of salvation as a starting point (2), whether structurally analogous processes of change can be made out in the medical system. These are identified in the removal of a moral evaluation of disease and in the moral neutralization of doctors' behaviour which is reflected in the spread of medical happiness doctrines (3). Following an interim reflection on moral theory (4), the enforcement of a modern behavioural code in 19th-century medical deontology is outlined, which was based on moral restraint (5) and the specific professional identity of the doctor (6). A summary of the results leads to a concluding outlook on current trends in medical ethics discourse (7).