Search results for " History of Science"
showing 10 items of 39 documents
The treatment of madness in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: discourses about curability in Spanish mental health care, 1890-1917
2016
Resumen En el trabajo se estudian los discursos sobre la cura que elaboraron los médicos mentalistas españoles en la transición del siglo XIX al XX. Si en las décadas de los años 1870 y 1880 el discurso preponderante promulgado por los médicos pertenecientes a instituciones privadas era extremadamente optimista, posteriormente cambió y se orientó hacia un mayor pesimismo terapéutico. Sin embargo, dadas las necesidades profesionales de los frenópatas, siguieron mostrando una confianza más o menos firme hacia las capacidades terapéuticas de la psiquiatría. La recepción de las nuevas nosologías, como la de Kraepelin, estuvo condicionada, en parte, por la actitud hacia la cura de los médicos me…
Cudworth on Types of Consciousness
2010
The Uncertain Limits Between Classical and Quantum Physics: Optical Dispersion and Bohr's Atomic Model
2018
Applied Mathematics versus Fluid Dynamics
2018
This paper investigates scientific, institutional, and political conflict and collaboration between two different disciplines in the first part of the 20th century: applied mathematics and fluid dynamics. It argues for the catalytic role of Richard von Mises (1883–1953) in this process and analyzes the reasons for von Mises’s considerable fame in the former and limited posthumous reputation in the latter field. I argue that von Mises’s contributions to fluid dynamics and aerodynamics suffered chiefly from two somewhat interconnected deficiencies compared to the work of his principal competitors. There was, on the one hand, von Mises’s methodological preference for applied mathematics as opp…
The treatment of madness in Spain in the second half of the 19th century: conceptual aspects.
2006
This paper deals with the conceptual principles which governed the treatment of madness in Spain during the nineteenth century. Against the general view that treatments were targeted to diseases, we argue that clinicians were more syndrome-oriented than disease-oriented in their treatments. Mental syndromes were classified into groups according to the different treatments that were thought to be useful. We also describe the conceptual basis of moral treatment and study the correlation between somatic and mental disease in relation to treatment.
Limits in medical care and social relief during the Spanish Civil War in a rear-guard city: the inclusa of the provincial hospital of Valencia.
2016
Due to its geostrategic condition during the Spanish Civil War, Valencia became one of the Republican cities welcoming more refugees, including many children. In this scenario of demographic and health crisis, the town had to restructure the assistance network in order to accommodate thousands of displaced children, who often had their relatives in faraway places. The paper focuses in the progressive rehabilitation undertaken by the Inclusa of Valencia, which was the provincial foundling hospital. This included deep changes both in its operation and in the admission criteria, particularly following the transfer of the Inclusa of Madrid to Valencia. The resulting overcrowding encouraged the …
Medicina e religione: su alcuni contributi teratologici in Sicilia in età moderna
2023
The essay summarizes the parable of the affirmation of a teratological perspective in Sicily through some of its protagonists. What explanation do science and naturalists mature in the face of the disorienting epiphany of monstrous births? What lags and discontinuities are generated - in this path that is anything but linear and continuous - by a religious discourse that insists for a long time on the sacramental question and on the baptism of this unusual creatures? These are upheavals that make explicit the attempt by theology to still maintain an active dialogue with a medical discipline that in the modern age is gradually becoming the protagonist of an impetuous development.
The conversion of the atom : nuclear science and ideology in Francoist Spain
2016
At the beginning of the atomic age, Francoist Spain launched an expensive project to develop, research and use nuclear energy. Scientists, the military and high-ranking officials in the administration mobilised to materialise a technoscientific dream with an international scope. The modernity of nuclear science contrasts with the reactionary ideology of the regime, but the paradox is only apparent because until now there has not necessarily been any historical relationship between science and democracy. The drive towards nuclear technoscience reveals the mutual construction of science and politics during the Cold War era and the different ways to appropriate and exploit the atom during the …
Truth and Historicism in Kuhn’s Thesis of Methodological Incommensurability
2013
Methodological incommensurability is a Thomas Kuhn’s thesis affirming that there are not shared, objective methodological rules or neutral scientific standards for theory comparison and choice. This thesis has often been interpreted as a relativistic and irrationalist claim on the incomparability of scientific theories. Since every paradigm refers to its standards, problem-field and aims, theory choice is subjective and arbitrary. Moreover it seems that, in his latest works, Kuhn abandons this aspect of incommensurability to focus on semantic incommensurability. On the contrary I will argue against the interpretation of methodological incommensurability as a source of epistemological relati…