A voyage to Argentina: the Asuero case and the illegal practice of medicine (Buenos Aires, 1930). / Un viaje a la Argentina: el caso Asuero y la práctica ilegal de la medicina (Buenos Aires, 1930).

This article examines the activities of a well-known figure who, during his stay in Argentina, influenced life in Buenos Aires by cultivating his connections to medical science, the political sphere and the news media. The person in question was Fernando Asuero, an ear, nose and throat specialist from San Sebastián (Spain), whose activities in Buenos Aires in 1930 allow us to examine the conflicts within the healing arts, a field rife with competitors and numerous concurrent and opposing traditions. Using a biographical approach centered on a case study, this article shows that, at certain points, the disputes over cognitive monopoly ended up being debated within a courtroom.

Indagamos el derrotero de un personaje que, durante su estadía en Argentina, incidió en la vida porteña mediante los vínculos que trazó con la ciencia galénica, la esfera política y los medios de comunicación. Nos referimos a Fernando Asuero, especialista en nariz, garganta y oídos, oriundo de San Sebastián (España), figura cuyo itinerario por Buenos Aires en 1930 nos permite avizorar enfrentamientos propios del arte de curar, campo minado de competidores y cuantiosas tradiciones concomitantes y contrapuestas. A partir de una aproximación biográfica centrada en un estudio de caso mostraremos que, en ciertas oportunidades, los litigios imbricados al monopolio cognitivo terminaron por debatirse en el interior de un juzgado.

Un viaje a la Argentina: el caso Asuero y la práctica ilegal de la medicina (Buenos Aires, 1930) / A voyage to Argentina: the Asuero case and the illegal practice of medicine (Buenos Aires, 1930)

Resumen Indagamos el derrotero de un personaje que, durante su estadía en Argentina, incidió en la vida porteña mediante los vínculos que trazó con la ciencia galénica, la esfera política y los medios de comunicación. Nos referimos a Fernando Asuero, especialista en nariz, garganta y oídos, oriundo de San Sebastián (España), figura cuyo itinerario por Buenos Aires en 1930 nos permite avizorar enfrentamientos propios del arte de curar, campo minado de competidores y cuantiosas tradiciones concomitantes y contrapuestas. A partir de una aproximación biográfica centrada en un estudio de caso mostraremos que, en ciertas oportunidades, los litigios imbricados al monopolio cognitivo terminaron por debatirse en el interior de un juzgado.

Abstract This article examines the activities of a well-known figure who, during his stay in Argentina, influenced life in Buenos Aires by cultivating his connections to medical science, the political sphere and the news media. The person in question was Fernando Asuero, an ear, nose and throat specialist from San Sebastián (Spain), whose activities in Buenos Aires in 1930 allow us to examine the conflicts within the healing arts, a field rife with competitors and numerous concurrent and opposing traditions. Using a biographical approach centered on a case study, this article shows that, at certain points, the disputes over cognitive monopoly ended up being debated within a courtroom.

Magnetism.

Quackery in medicine is as old as medicine itself. In times of crisis desperate patients often believe extraordinary claims. In the annals of pain killer quack medicine, elixirs, nostrums and liniments hold a special position. The College of Dentistry at NYU received a collection of 234 bottles of nostrums and liniments dating from approximately 1850 through 1940. In this paper, the FOURTH in a series of articles featuring "Elixirs of the Past" we bring to light four more samples claiming to have magnetic properties: Dr. J.R. Miller's Magnetic Balm, Havens' Electromagnetic Liniment, Headman's Magnetic Liniments, and Magnetic Cream. It goes without saying that none of these had any magnetic properties. In 1906, Congress enacted The Pure Food and Drug Act to prohibit exaggerated or unsubstantiated claims in the marketing and labeling of household products and to control the use of potentially harmful ingredients. The modern-day use of internet advertisements to make unsupported claims is in some ways even more brazen than the advertisements from a century ago.

Snake Oil and Indian Liniment.

Quackery in medicine is as old as medicine itself. In times of crisis, desperate patients often believe extraordinary claims. In the annals of pain-killer quack medicine, snake oil, elixirs, nostrums and Indian liniments hold a special position. NYU College of Dentistry (NYUCD) has a collection of 234 bottles of such medicines dating from the mid-1800s through 1940. This paper is the fifth in a series of articles featuring "Elixirs of the Past" in which we bring to light six more samples with claims to traditional Chinese or American Indian medicine using snake oil: Virex Compound, Rattlesnake Bill's Oil, Electric Indian Liniment, The King of All Indian Oils, Millerhaus Antiseptic Oil and Celebrated Indian Lotion. The six examples are just a few quack medications linked to fraud, overdose, addiction or death. In 1906, Congress enacted The Pure Food and Drug Act and reinforced it with the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938, to stop unsubstantiated medicinal claims and control the use of addictive and dangerous substances. The modern-day use of social media to advertise quack medicine is in some ways even more brazen than selling patent medicine a century ago.

Clinical trials and the origins of pharmaceutical fraud: Parke, Davis & Company, virtue epistemology, and the history of the fundamental antagonism.

This paper describes one possible origin point for fraudulent behavior within the American pharmaceutical industry. We argue that during the late nineteenth century therapeutic reformers sought to promote both laboratory science and increasingly systematized forms of clinical experiment as a new basis for therapeutic knowledge. This process was intertwined with a transformation in the ethical framework in which medical science took place, one in which monopoly status was replaced by clinical utility as the primary arbiter of pharmaceutical legitimacy. This new framework fundamentally altered the set of epistemic virtues-a phrase we draw from the philosophical field of virtue epistemology-considered necessary to conduct reliable scientific inquiry regarding drugs. In doing so, it also made possible new forms of fraud in which newly emergent epistemic virtues were violated. To make this argument, we focus on the efforts of Francis E. Stewart and George S. Davis of Parke, Davis & Company. Therapeutic reformers within the pharmaceutical industry, such as Stewart and Davis, were an important part of the broader normative and epistemic transformation we describe in that they sought to promote laboratory science and systematized clinical trials toward the twin goals of improving pharmaceutical science and promoting their own commercial interests. Yet, as we suggest, Parke, Davis & Company also serves as an example of a company that violated the very norms that Stewart and Davis helped introduce. We thus seek to describe one possible origin point for the widespread fraudulent practices that now characterize the pharmaceutical industry. We also seek to describe an origin point for why we conceptualize such practices as fraudulent in the first place.

Publicity, politics, and professoriate in fin-de-siècle Vienna: The misconduct of the embryologist Samuel Leopold Schenk.

This essay uses the case of the fin-de-siècle Vienna embryologist Samuel Leopold Schenk to analyze the factors at play in allegations of misconduct. In 1898, Schenk published a book titled Theorie Schenk. Einfluss auf das Geschlechtsverhältnis (Schenk's theory. Influence on the sex ratio). The book argued that, by changing their diet, women trying to conceive could influence egg maturation and consequently select the sex of their offspring. This cross between a scientific monograph and a popular advice book received enormous publicity but also spurred first the Vienna Medical Association and then the Senate of the University of Vienna to accuse Schenk of poor science, self-advertisement, quack medical practice, and wrong publisher choice. Formal proceedings against Schenk ended in 1900 with the unusually harsh punishment of early retirement. Schenk died two years later. I examine the elements of the case, from the science of sex determination and selection, to the growth of print media and advertising within the changing demographic and political landscape of Vienna. I argue that the influence of the public, via the growing media, upon science was the main driver of the case against Schenk, but also that the case would have had a more limited impact were it not for the volatile political moment rife with anti-Semitism, nationalism, and xenophobia. I draw the attention to the importance of setting cases of misconduct in the broader political history and against the key social concerns of the moment.

The "Controversial Cundurango Cure": Medical professionalization and the global circulation of drugs.

This article examines the medical and political discussions regarding a controversial medicinal bark from Ecuador - cundurango - that was actively sponsored by the Ecuadorian government as a new botanical cure for cancer in the late nineteenth century United States and elsewhere. The article focuses on the commercial and diplomatic interests behind the public discussion and advertising techniques of this drug. It argues that diverse elements - including the struggle for positioning scientific societies and the disapproval of the capacities of Ecuadorian doctors, US abolitionist history, regional and local political struggles - played a role in the quackery accusations against cundurango and its promoters. The development and international trade of this remedy offer interesting insights into the global history of drugs, particularly how medical knowledge was challenged during a period when scientific medicine was struggling for hegemony. It explores how newspapers expanded "the public interest" in a possible cancer cure.

[Natural Science as a Kind of Natural Poetry: A Statement by Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland (1762-1832) Against Natural Philosophical Medicine]. / Naturwissenschaft als Naturpoesie: Eine Stellungnahme Christoph Wilhelm Hufelands (1762­1832) gegen die naturphilosophische Medizin.

At the turn to the 19th century, medicine in Germany became strongly influenced by the teachings of John Brown, who was a scottish physician. He had advocated a theory which regards and treats disorders as caused by defective or excessive excitation. His teachings were welcomed by natural philosophers like Schelling or Hegel. They modified it and integrated it into their systems of thinking. On the other hand Hufeland, who was one of the foremost physicians at that time, heavily opposed Brunonian System. This becomes evident in a fragmentary text that had been found only recently. In it he criticizes that these teachings were based on pure speculation and not on sound science as executed by Albrecht von Haller. It was meant ironically when he concluded that it thus resembled natural poetry. As viewed from today, evidence based medicine eventually established our modern ways for successfully diagnosing and treating disease. However, Hufelands disapproval appears to be still relevant. There are many people that even now advocate alternative ways and who consult quacks, healers etc.

Radioactive Artifacts: Historical Sources of Modern Radium Contamination.

Radium has been distributed in a wide variety of devices during the early part of this century. Antique objects containing significant amounts of radium turn up at flea markets, antique shows, and antique dealers, in a variety of locations. These objects include radium in devices which were used by legitimate medical practitioners for legitimate medical purposes such as therapy, as well as a wide variety of "quack cures." These devices may contain anywhere from a few nanocuries to as much as several hundred microcuries of radium. In addition to medical sources, a large variety of scientific instruments utilize radium in luminous dials. These instruments include compasses, azimuth indicators, and virtually any object which might require some form of calibration. In addition, the consumer market utilized a large amount of radium in the production of wrist watches, pocket watches, and clocks with luminous dials. Some of these watches contained as much as 4.5 µCi of radium, and between 1913 and 1920 about 70 gm was produced for the manufacture of luminous compounds. In addition to the large amount of radium produced for scientific and consumer utilization, there were a number of materials produced which were claimed to contain radium but in fact did not, further adding to the confusion in this area. The wide availability of radium is a result of the public's great fascination with radioactivity during the early part of this century and a belief in its curative properties. A number of objects were produced in order to trap the emanations of radium in water for persons to drink in order to benefit from their healing effects. Since the late 20s and early 30s the public's attitude towards radiation has shifted 180° and it is now considered an extremely dangerous and harmful material. However, even as late as the 1950s, there were still some items produced containing radioactivity which today would be unthinkable. The "Buck Rogers Mystery Ring" of the 1950s was activated with polonium. With the shift in public attitudes towards radioactivity, and increasing problems in disposal of radioactive materials, the disposal of radium presents a particularly perplexing problem. The radium which was produced in the early part of the century is still around in various forms and is extremely difficult to dispose of. All objects discovered claiming to contain radium should be taken seriously and should be properly surveyed. They then should either be stored in some area where the environment is protected from the radioactivity or if a very small amount of radium is present, they may be disposed of through one of several commercial sources. Any significant amount of radium is extraordinarily difficult and expensive to dispose of and there are only limited sites which will accept these materials. No clear cut, uniform mechanism for the handling of radioactive materials which turn up outside of the usual institutional sources, is currently in place.

Phineas T. Barnum, Gardner Q. Colton, and Painless Parker Were Kindred Princes of Humbug.

Phineas T. Barnum (1810-1891) and Gardner Q. Colton (1814-1898) both entered the laughing gas show business in Manhattan in 1844. With Horace Wells (1815-1848), Colton introduced inhaled nitrous oxide for dental anesthesia in December 1844. The Barnumesque nature of laughing gas exhibitions may have contributed to the initially negative reception of nitrous anesthesia as humbug. Colton continued laughing gas shows after 1844, and he performed in a Barnum forum in Boston in 1862. In 1863, Barnum encouraged Colton to establish a flourishing painless dentistry practice in Manhattan. Barnum designated himself to be the Prince of Humbug. He embraced humbug for entertainment purposes but decried medical humbug. Notwithstanding, Barnum explicitly evinced awareness of the power of the placebo response. Accordingly, the proneness of individuals to deem impersonal all-purpose assessments to be personally applicable is dubbed the Barnum effect. Barnum was indirectly connected to Painless Parker (1872-1952), a dentist who exploited sensational advertising and humbug and ran a circus.