[On Conditioned Rats and Stressed Workmen : Rudolf Baumann and the Discourse About Stress and Environment in the GDR]. / Von konditionierten Ratten und gestressten Werktätigen : Rudolf Baumann und der Stress- und Umweltdiskurs in der DDR.

The emergence of cardiovascular diseases from stress, i.e. psychosocial pressure, was a constitutive element in the international medical discourse of the 1960s and 1970s. This article describes an East German variant of the stress discourse, developed by Rudolf Baumann and his associates at the Institute for cortico-visceral pathology and therapy in Berlin-Buch. The group sought to develop a genuinely materialist approach to the problem of psychosocially caused diseases, as well as ways of therapy and prevention suited to a socialist health system. At the same time, it was constantly drawing on Western concepts and practices. By examining this project in international context, congruences and differences between Eastern and Western perceptions of the stressful effects of industrial society are worked out. Furthermore, the article discusses that the concept of stress implied ambitious programs for social prevention and therapy, the realization of which in both political systems was constrained by the social reality.

[Summary Tradition and innovation. Representatives of medical concepts in Uwe Tellkamp's novel The Tower]. / Tradition und Innovation. Medizinische Konzepte und ihre Vertreter in Uwe Tellkamps Roman Der Turm.

Uwe Tellkamp's novel Der Turm. Geschichte aus einem versunkenen Land (The Tower. A Story From a Lost Land) tells the story of a physician's family in Dresden during the last seven years of the GDR's existence. Crucial in this narration of this family, the Hoffmanns, are the medical aspects. I'm particularly interested in how various concepts of clinical diagnostics and therapies are introduced and linked to specific characters, respectively. While the physicians of the Hoffmann family follow a traditional and rather conservative notion of their profession and use orthodox medical methods, the novel presents a number of figures that are linked to alternative complementary healing methods. In the end, those characters searching for alternative ways of practicing medicine, in contrast to the traditional doctors, are also actively involved in the political uproar that led to the fall of the wall in 1989. Hence the text presents analogies that capture both the medical and the political spheres.

[The amazing career of a homeopath, philanthropist, Fourierist, Benoît-Jules Mure. (1809-1858)]. / L'étonnante carrière d'un homéopathe philantrope fouriériste, Benoît-Jules Mure. (1809-1858).

The authors evoke the difficulty of dealing with the life and work of Benoît-Jules Mure who was a homeopathic scientist and a keen specialist on propaganda. He was also an adept of Charles Fourier and he used almost his fortune to the spreading of homeopathy and at time, the improvement of social life. Thus he tried to settle humanitarian colonies in Brazil and later in Egypt, Nubian and Sudan in order to improve their fashion of life. He was hit by tuberculosis which led him discover homeopathy and by his strength of character lie led the idea of his mission in favour of his convictions. He was very angry with the official medical organisation and at last he never has been recognized as a médical doctor. The authors underline that his life and his work have probably left some definite marks in the South America let alone the birth of Socialism.

[A new political contribution to medicine: homeopathy in 19th century Spain]. / Una nueva aportacion de la politica a la medicina: la homeopatia en la España del siglo XIX.

The author has sumarized the role of well known 19th century doctors, Thackray, Villermé, Chadwick and especially Virchow (whose socio-medical works are related in detail), in the influence of political ideas on Medicine. As a new contribution to this subject the author informs us of the participation or a Spanish homeopathic doctor in this task. Anastasio García López (1821-1897), was influenced by the works of Charles Fourier, whose doctrine was spreading throughout Spain at that time. García López aplied the sociological concepts of the French utopian philosopher to his idea of homeopaty. A review is made of how Fourierism penetrated and became implanted in Spain and the mark it left on Hahnemann is analized using the "passionate attraction" concept and the ideas of social constriction and violence. García López believed that Hahnemann was attempting to free therapeutics from the yoke of attacking symptoms, emphasizing the affinities of the illness with the cure. Finally, this influence is demostrated in all the activitires of this Spanish doctor, politican, spiritualist, mason and hydrologist of renown.