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E-book
Author Steinke, Hubert

Title Irritating experiments : Haller's concept and the European controversy on irritability and sensibility, 1750-90 / Hubert Steinke
Published Amsterdam ; New York : Rodopi, 2005

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Description 1 online resource
Series Wellcome series in the history of medicine
Clio medica, 0045-7183 ; 76
Wellcome series in the history of medicine.
Clio medica (Amsterdam, Netherlands) ; 76.
Contents Preliminary Material -- List of Figures -- Abbreviations -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Theories of Animal Motion before 1750 -- Experimentation in the Göttingen Laboratory -- Haller's Changing Views on Irritability and Sensibility -- The Uses of Experiment -- Irritability, Sensibility, and Medical Philosophy -- The Debate and the Medical and Public Sphere -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- The Spread of Experiment -- Index
Summary One of the great medical controversies of the Enlightenment was the European debate on motion, sensation, and animal experimentation provoked by Albrecht von Haller's treatise on irritability and sensibility (1752). Irritating Experiments is the first full-length study to explore the theoretical background and the experimental process that led to Haller's description and separation of two fundamental bodily qualities: irritability, or the capacity of muscles to contract upon stimulation, and sensibility, or the capacity of the nervous system to transmit impressions that are felt as touch or pain in humans, or produce signs of pain in animals. This new concept presented a serious challenge to the reigning medical systems. Haller's animal experiments were repeated all over Europe, on a scale never seen before. The results, however, were contradictory. Haller's concept was largely rejected, and animal experimentation could not be established as a major research method in physiology. Focussing on procedural aspects of experimentation, the interaction between experiment and theory, the status of surgery, the use of medical and pathological models, and the culture of criticism, Irritating Experiments tries to explain why
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-337) and index
Issuing Body Digitized and made available on the world wide web by Ingenta
Subject Haller, Albrecht von, 1708-1777.
Haller, Albrecht von, 1708-1777
Haller, Albrecht von, 1708-1777
Haller, Albrecht von 1708-1777
SUBJECT Europa gnd
Subject Irritability.
Senses and sensation.
Physiology -- History -- 18th century
Medicine -- History -- 18th century.
Physiology -- history
Animal Experimentation -- history
History, 18th Century
Muscle Contraction -- physiology
Sensation -- physiology
Sensation
Medicine
Irritability
Physiology
Senses and sensation
Kontroverse
Neuromuskuläres System
Erregbarkeit
Europe.
Europe
Europe
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9042018526
9789042018525
9789004332980
9004332987
Other Titles Haller's concept and the European controversy on irritability and sensibility, 1750-90