Nikolai Krementsov
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199992980
- eISBN:
- 9780199370016
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199992980.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter focuses on actual and fictional experiments with hormones which both scientists and writers saw as a powerful tool for manipulating the shape and functioning of the human body. It ...
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This chapter focuses on actual and fictional experiments with hormones which both scientists and writers saw as a powerful tool for manipulating the shape and functioning of the human body. It demonstrates that, for scientists, hormones also become a convenient instrument for influencing their Bolshevik patrons, notably the head of Narkomzdrav Nikolai Semashko. It documents the joint efforts—and different goals—of scientists and their patrons in conducting a different kind of experiment: building large institutional structures for a new biomedical discipline, endocrinology. It analyses tactics and strategies employed by the veterinarian Iakov Tobolkin and the eminent internist Vasilii Shervinskii in creating an Institute of Experimental Endocrinology in Moscow. It shows that although the transformative power of hormones over human body and personality did fire up writers’ imagination, the institutional embodiment of that power completely eluded their attention.Less
This chapter focuses on actual and fictional experiments with hormones which both scientists and writers saw as a powerful tool for manipulating the shape and functioning of the human body. It demonstrates that, for scientists, hormones also become a convenient instrument for influencing their Bolshevik patrons, notably the head of Narkomzdrav Nikolai Semashko. It documents the joint efforts—and different goals—of scientists and their patrons in conducting a different kind of experiment: building large institutional structures for a new biomedical discipline, endocrinology. It analyses tactics and strategies employed by the veterinarian Iakov Tobolkin and the eminent internist Vasilii Shervinskii in creating an Institute of Experimental Endocrinology in Moscow. It shows that although the transformative power of hormones over human body and personality did fire up writers’ imagination, the institutional embodiment of that power completely eluded their attention.
Mark Jackson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199588626
- eISBN:
- 9780191750779
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588626.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The relationship between adaptation and disease was initially explained primarily in terms of the function or malfunction of the autonomic nervous system. However, during the middle decades of the ...
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The relationship between adaptation and disease was initially explained primarily in terms of the function or malfunction of the autonomic nervous system. However, during the middle decades of the twentieth century, scientific debates about adaptation and stress became increasingly inflected by the language and methods of endocrinology rather than neurology or psychology. The research of Selye and others, which focused on the relationship between the hypothalamus, pituitary gland and the adrenal cortex in mediating chronic stress reactions, was mobilised by military authorities and clinicians eager to identify the biochemical pathways and physiological processes involved in determining the symptoms and signs of physical and psychological disease. Chapter Three analyses not only the manner in which scientists and clinicians were increasingly explaining health and disease, and indeed the mysteries and meaning of life itself, in terms of the maintenance or disruption of hormonal and biochemical balance in the face of stress, but also the depth and impact of contemporary preoccupations with equilibrium, control and social progress.Less
The relationship between adaptation and disease was initially explained primarily in terms of the function or malfunction of the autonomic nervous system. However, during the middle decades of the twentieth century, scientific debates about adaptation and stress became increasingly inflected by the language and methods of endocrinology rather than neurology or psychology. The research of Selye and others, which focused on the relationship between the hypothalamus, pituitary gland and the adrenal cortex in mediating chronic stress reactions, was mobilised by military authorities and clinicians eager to identify the biochemical pathways and physiological processes involved in determining the symptoms and signs of physical and psychological disease. Chapter Three analyses not only the manner in which scientists and clinicians were increasingly explaining health and disease, and indeed the mysteries and meaning of life itself, in terms of the maintenance or disruption of hormonal and biochemical balance in the face of stress, but also the depth and impact of contemporary preoccupations with equilibrium, control and social progress.
Sarah S. Richardson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226084688
- eISBN:
- 9780226084718
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226084718.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
A direct intellectual and institutional context for the development of the sex chromosome concept during the period from 1915 through 1930 was the concurrent and spectacular development of sex ...
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A direct intellectual and institutional context for the development of the sex chromosome concept during the period from 1915 through 1930 was the concurrent and spectacular development of sex hormone research. With its rich resources, medical applications, and powerful institutional platform, the new molecular biology of sex drew the X and Y chromosomes into its center of gravity and folded them into the thick scientific account of sex it purported to offer. Through this process, the sex chromosomes began to take on firmer form in both popular and scientific understanding. Sex chromosomes began to emerge from the shadow of the sex hormones in the 1950s and 1960s, when the X and Y debuted in human genetics. Through widely publicized and sometimes sensational scientific discoveries about human sex chromosome anomalies such as Klinefelter and Turner syndromes, the sex chromosomes moved to the fore as the central pillars of the human sex binary.Less
A direct intellectual and institutional context for the development of the sex chromosome concept during the period from 1915 through 1930 was the concurrent and spectacular development of sex hormone research. With its rich resources, medical applications, and powerful institutional platform, the new molecular biology of sex drew the X and Y chromosomes into its center of gravity and folded them into the thick scientific account of sex it purported to offer. Through this process, the sex chromosomes began to take on firmer form in both popular and scientific understanding. Sex chromosomes began to emerge from the shadow of the sex hormones in the 1950s and 1960s, when the X and Y debuted in human genetics. Through widely publicized and sometimes sensational scientific discoveries about human sex chromosome anomalies such as Klinefelter and Turner syndromes, the sex chromosomes moved to the fore as the central pillars of the human sex binary.
Projit Bihari Mukharji
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226381794
- eISBN:
- 9780226381824
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226381824.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Organotherapy, viz. the practice of injecting the crushed essences of animal organs into humans, is the technology around which this chapter is organized. The practice of organotherapy was enormously ...
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Organotherapy, viz. the practice of injecting the crushed essences of animal organs into humans, is the technology around which this chapter is organized. The practice of organotherapy was enormously popular when it first arose and eventually led to the discovery of hormones and the endocrinal system. These developments initiated a radical reorientation within modern Ayurveda away from electromagnetic theories towards hormonal theories. It also led to the incorporation of the yogic idea of chakras into modern Ayurveda. This also meant that the undifferentiated internal space that had been imagined under the influence of electromagnetic ideas now dotted with chakras as control centres which controlled hormonal flows.Less
Organotherapy, viz. the practice of injecting the crushed essences of animal organs into humans, is the technology around which this chapter is organized. The practice of organotherapy was enormously popular when it first arose and eventually led to the discovery of hormones and the endocrinal system. These developments initiated a radical reorientation within modern Ayurveda away from electromagnetic theories towards hormonal theories. It also led to the incorporation of the yogic idea of chakras into modern Ayurveda. This also meant that the undifferentiated internal space that had been imagined under the influence of electromagnetic ideas now dotted with chakras as control centres which controlled hormonal flows.
