RESUMEN
Thomas Hun (1808-1896)-along with his sons Edward (1842-1880) and Henry (1854-1924)-were prime movers in establishing the clinical practice and academic discipline of neurology in the Hudson River Valley of New York in the ninteenth and early-twentieth centuries. This article outlines the life of the family's semi-aristocratic patriarch, beginning with Thomas's unusual educational background and his six-year post-graduate hiatus in Paris of the 1830s, where he came under the influence of P. C. A. Louis (1787-1872). It lays out his subsequent career as professor of the Institutes of Medicine and ultimately as dean of an American medical school that was not situated in a major metropolis. It also will demonstrate how Thomas Hun's career as a medical practitioner, academician, neurophilosopher, and "proto-neurologist" recapitulates the evolution of clinical and academic neurology in nineteenth-century America.
RESUMEN
Resumo O vitalismo canguilhemiano não é evidente, tampouco é uma forma mais conhecida desse tipo de pensamento; não nasce das antigas diatribes que, do século XVIII, invadiram as polêmicas do XIX. Canguilhem reabilita o vitalismo a partir de uma abordagem ontológica única, para a qual ele não hesita em referenciar-se nos antigos e, de modo geral, num Hipócrates que, lido sobretudo por meio da história escrita por Charles Singer, traz à tona outros temas, como a crítica ao conceito de homeostase revivido e nomeado por Walter Cannon. Canguilhem redimensiona a homeostase hipocrática que Cannon cientificizou, dando-lhe uma mobilidade que lhe é conceitualmente essencial, e redesenha o projeto do vitalismo, recusando-lhe a antítese do mecanicismo. Dessa forma, Canguilhem foi buscar ou se respaldar num Hipócrates lido pelos historiadores da medicina (e das ciências biomédicas). Este artigo procurou mapear a contribuição de longa duração de Georges Canguilhem para o discurso médico, bem como seu papel fundador de uma nova concepção de normalidade a partir da sua concepção de vitalismo, que, para ele, é herdeira de um "espírito hipocrático".
Abstract Canguilhem's vitalism is not obvious, neither does is consist of a more known form of this type of thinking; it does not come from the old diatribes that, coming from the 19th century, are still relevant to the 20th century's discussions. Canguilhem reclaims vitalism from a unique ontological approach, and does not hesitate to allude to the classics and, most of all, to a Hippocrates that, read mainly through the perspective of the history written by Charles Singer, brings to light other themes such as the critic to the concept of homeostasis revitalized and named by Walter Cannon. Canguilhem gives another perspective to Hippocrates' homeostasis, that was "scientified" by Cannon, giving it mobility that is considered essential to its concept and redraws the vitalism project, rejecting the place of mechanism antithesis. This paper aimed to map Canguilhem's longue durée contribution to the medical discourse, as well as his funding role of a new conception of normality formulated from his own interpretation of a vitalism that, in his point of view, comes from a "Hippocratic spirit".