[A short biography of Paul Bonét-Maury (1900-1972) or parallel lives of a pharmacist: researcher and judoka]. / Une courte biographie de Paul Bonét-Maury (1900-1972) ou les vies parallèles d'un pharmacien: chercheur et judoka.

Pharmacist by training, doctor in sciences and student of Marie Curie, he will be between 1925 and 1965 one of the pioneers of radiobiology, science of the study of the interaction between ionizing radiations and living matter. He will be the initiator of the teaching on the use of radioelements in medicine and pharmacy. At the same time as he develops a scientific work of international level, he makes a commitment prematurely in the judo of which he will be one of the first four French black belts. He founds in 1946 the French Federation of this sport of which he will be president until 1956, year from which he becomes a general secretary of the International Federation of Judo until 1971.

Ibn Bajja on medicine and medical experience.

This article lists the medical works written by Ibn Bajja, overviews those that have come down to us and studies the super-commentary of Galen's commentary to Hippocrates' "Aphorisms (Sharh fi al-Fusul)". This text shows a deep influence of al-Farabi, namely in a conception of medical experience which stems from the latter's construal of experience (tajriba) as the inductive process described by Aristotle in "Posterior Analytics" which brings the premises of demonstration. On this basis, Ibn Bajja advocated for a less scholastic, more empiric medicine, and his claim was echoed by Ibn Rushd. There are some similarities between Ibn Bajja's text and Ibn Rushd's "K. al-Kulliyyat fi al-tibb" which suggests that the latter had read "Sharh fi al-Fusul". This work gives moreover some evidence that human dissection could have been performed during Ibn Bajja's time.

[The foundational myth of Argentinian homeopathy. The journal "Homeopatía," Buenos Aires (1933-1940)]. / El mito fundacional de la homeopatía Argentina. La revista "Homeopatía," Buenos Aires (1933-1940).

The present article analyzes the historical-identitary construction in the older and most important institution of Homeopathy in Argentina. Two analytical axes are constructed: on the one hand, the construction of a foundational myth that outlines a genealogical thread between the "divinities" of the medicine, and on the other hand, the mitification of Hahnemann, founding father of the discipline. Using both axes we explain how the discourses of the journal were creating a symbolic support for the weak conjuncture in which they tried to be consolidated legally as an institution.

Anaclitic therapy in North America psychoanalytic and psychiatric practice in the 1950s-1960s.

Anaclitic therapy, a little-known chapter in the history of North American psychoanalysis and psychiatry, sheds light on the prevailing trends and therapeutic approaches common in the 1950s and 1960s. It touches upon major junctions in the history of psychoanalysis and psychiatry, such as the therapeutic use of regression, the usage of biological measures in conjunction with psychoanalysis, the relationship between therapist and patient and eclecticism in North American psychiatry. By following the brief history of this form of therapy, this article affords a glimpse of the history of some of the significant issues practitioners in psychoanalysis and psychiatry faced at the time.

The persistence of the subjective in neuropsychopharmacology: observations of contemporary hallucinogen research.

The elimination of subjectivity through brain research and the replacement of so-called "folk psychology" by a neuroscientifically enlightened worldview and self-conception has been both hoped for and feared. But this cultural revolution is still pending. Based on nine months of fieldwork on the revival of hallucinogen research since the "Decade of the Brain," this paper examines how subjective experience appears as epistemic object and practical problem in a psychopharmacological laboratory. In the quest for neural correlates of (drug-induced altered states of) consciousness, introspective accounts of test subjects play a crucial role in neuroimaging studies. Firsthand knowledge of the drugs' flamboyant effects provides researchers with a personal knowledge not communicated in scientific publications, but key to the conduct of their experiments. In many cases, the "psychedelic experience" draws scientists into the field and continues to inspire their self-image and way of life. By exploring these domains the paper points to a persistence of the subjective in contemporary neuropsychopharmacology.

The Berlin tradition in Chicago: Franz Alexander and the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis.

Freud considered Franz Alexander, the first graduate of the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute and an assistant in the Berlin Polyclinic, to be "one of our strongest hopes for the future." Alexander went on to become the first director of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis in 1932 and modeled some of the Chicago Institute's mission on his Berlin experiences. He was also a researcher in psychosomatic medicine, a prolific writer about psychoanalysis and prominent in psychoanalytic organizations. As he proposed modifications in psychoanalytic technique, he became a controversial figure, especially in the elaboration of his ideas about brief therapy and the corrective emotional experience. This paper puts Alexander's achievements in historical context, draws connections between the Berlin and Chicago Institutes and suggests that, despite his quarrels with traditional psychoanalysis, Alexander's legacy may be in his attitude towards psychoanalysis, characterized by a commitment to scientific study, a willingness to experiment, and a conviction about the role of psychoanalysis within the larger culture.

Daniel Chambers Macreight FRCP, FLS (1799-1856), a little-known, innovative Irish botanist.

Biographical information is provided for Daniel Chambers Macreight. He worked in Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle's herbarium at Geneva during the early 1830s, and later in the decade was prominent in medico-botanical circles in London. Macreight retired in 1840, due to ill-health, and moved to Jersey in the Channel Islands where he died. In 1837, he published an innovative "Manual of the British flora" which covered both native and cultivated plants. This flora contained two novel features: dichotomous keys were provided to assist students to identify plants, and the category subspecies was employed for taxa within the genera "Rosa," "Rubus" and "Salix."

Mathematical representations in science: a cognitive-historical case history.

The important role of mathematical representations in scientific thinking has received little attention from cognitive scientists. This study argues that neglect of this issue is unwarranted, given existing cognitive theories and laws, together with promising results from the cognitive historical analysis of several important scientists. In particular, while the mathematical wizardry of James Clerk Maxwell differed dramatically from the experimental approaches favored by Michael Faraday, Maxwell himself recognized Faraday as "in reality a mathematician of a very high order," and his own work as in some respects a re-representation of Faraday's field theory in analytic terms. The implications of the similarities and differences between the two figures open new perspectives on the cognitive role of mathematics as a learned mode of representation in science.

Correspondence of Charles Darwin on James Torbitt's project to breed blight-resistance potatoes.

The most prolific of Darwin's correspondents from Ireland was James Torbitt, an enterprising grocer and wine merchant of 58 North Street, Belfast. Between February 1876 and March 1882, 141 letters were exchanged on the feasibility and ways of supporting one of Torbitt's commercial projects, the large-scale production and distribution of true potato seeds (Solan um tuberosum) to produce plants resistant to the late blight fungus Phytophthora infestans, the cause of repeated potato crop failures and thus the Irish famines in the nineteenth century. Ninety-three of these letters were exchanged between Torbitt and Darwin, and 48 between Darwin and third parties, seeking or offering help and advice on the project. Torbitt's project required selecting the small proportion of plants in an infested field that survived the infection, and using those as parents to produce seeds. This was a direct application of Darwin's principle of selection. Darwin cautiously lobbied high-ranking civil servants in London to obtain government funding for the project, and also provided his own personal financial support to Torbit.

Potato agriculture, late blight science, and the molecularization of plant pathology.

By the mid-1980s nucleic-acid based methods were penetrating the farthest reaches of biological science, triggering rivalries among practitioners, altering relationships among subfields, and transforming the research front. This article delivers a "bottom up" analysis of that transformation at work in one important area of biological science, plant pathology, by tracing the "molecularization" of efforts to understand and control one notorious plant disease -- the late blight of potatoes. It mobilizes the research literature of late blight science as a tool through which to trace the changing typography of the research front from 1983 to 2003. During these years molecularization intensified the traditional fragmentation of the late blight research community, even as it dramatically integrated study of the causal organism into broader areas of biology. In these decades the pathogen responsible for late blight, the oomycete "Phytophthora infestans," was discovered to be undergoing massive, frightening, and still largely unexplained genetic diversification -- a circumstance that lends the episode examined here an urgency that reinforces its historiographical significance as a case-study in the molecularization of the biological sciences.

Good vibrations: "sirens," soundscapes, and physiology.

This article establishes Joyce's ongoing interest in psychoacoustics and illustrates how much he drew, in the writing of the "Sirens" episode, on nineteenth-century sound experiments that were developed by the German physician Hermann von Helmholtz. It argues that Joyce consciously referenced nineteenth-century sound theories to explore the link between the emotional and sensory experience of music and the physical and physiological components of sound perception.

A bug's life: change and transformation in early modern China.

Chanting wasps and shape-shifting worms were all in a day's work for sixteenth-century Chinese naturalists such as Li Shizhen (1518-1593). In an effort to understand the metamorphoses of both nature and the human body, he and other early modern Chinese scholars looked towards tiny creatures like roundworms, lice and demon bugs. For them, such animals could reveal the most intimate secrets of the universe.

[Historical Archives of Italian Nephrology: The role of women in the history of Medicine and Nephrology]. / Archivi storici della Nefrologia Italiana: Il ruolo della donna nella storia della Medicina e della Nefrologia.

The aim of the present survey of the history of medicine is to provide a series of succinct assessments of the role of women in the development of nephrology. The inadequate role played by women in some areas of medicine underlines the trend that considers health history as part of external history modulating the branches of science. If "external" or social history considers women's role as marginal in many segments of society, no wonder they play a marginal role in the history of medicine. Nonetheless, when women are offered the opportunity to map out new medical paths or handle new health systems they have always been excellent. Tratula, a doctor from Salerno's medical school, is just an example. Women have been excellent in nursing and popular medicine. Florence Nightingale (1823-1910), an English woman of rare ability and humanitarian enthusiasm, was the first to understand the role of women in organising nursing. In this area she had such a striking success that her method contributed to the founding of the first school of nursing in England and in the world. On the other hand, women doctors have had many difficulties in the medical area. The first modern woman to take her degree in medicine was Elisabeth Blackwell, who graduated from the Geneva Medical School of Western New York in 1849. She managed to open a private dispensary, which within a few years developed into a great hospital and training school for women. In the nephrology area a great Australian woman entered the universal history of medicine, Priscilla Kincaid-Smith. Her outstanding contribution was to improve the diagnosis and treatment of glomerulonephritis. Her positive attitude and the novelty of a woman being on the same scientific level as men, combined to secure her unique reputation in both her own country and the world. We hope that new social trends will develop in which women with scientific ideas will be able to completely express their medical ability and the tendency to eliminate the vestiges of old traditions will be reinforced through the granting of new scientific and academic opportunities. In Italian nephrology this tendency has been accelerating.