Doctoral Dissertation Research: Carin Berkowitz: "Discovering" the Nerves: Experiment in Early Nineteenth-Century British Pedagogical Culture

这项NSF科学与社会科学史论文改进资助将允许共同pi访问爱丁堡和整个英国的档案，以调查查尔斯·贝尔和他同时代的未发表的论文。在19世纪早期，两位生理学家，查尔斯·贝尔和弗朗索瓦·马根迪，卷入了一场关于生理学正确实践的争论，这场争论是在运动神经和感觉神经的分离根的发现的优先争论的背景下出现的。这场争论始于1822年，持续了20多年，在贝尔和马根迪有生之年都没有得到决定性的解决。这种优先权的争论为19世纪英国医学机构和生理学之间以及教育学和研究实践之间的联系的评估提供了一个切入点。它允许讨论英国生理学家如何回应早期医学科学中相互竞争的实验模式。此外，这场争论阐明了生理学家群体理解生命体的方式，以及理论和实践被视为发现过程中相互支持的元素的方式。更具体地说，在NSF论文支持下的研究将允许回答以下问题：关于优先级和实验的辩论如何体现不同的教学文化和学科信息的替代模型？英国医疗和外科机构的结构在哪些方面适合贝尔揭示的特定教学风格、出版重点和感知受众？我们能否找出活体解剖的作用或临床医学中实验科学的作用的更广泛的政治背景，以帮助解释贝尔同时代人对这场争议的重要性？这项工作对智力的影响包括揭示教育学在建立生物科学研究方法中的作用；加强对将自然哲学和早期科学纳入医学的方式的理解；探索不同的实验模式。此外，它将讨论教育学在19世纪早期印刷文化中的地位。它还将产生更广泛的影响，有助于培养科学史学家；它将产生对在研究和教育环境中早期使用活体解剖的政治和伦理的理解；它将研究民族主义政治在解决优先争端中的作用，它将有助于理解有关研究实践的伦理和技术方面的相互交织的辩论。尽管在大陆生理学和医学科学方面已经做了很多工作，但对19世纪早期英国生命科学的研究仍然不足。贝尔和马根迪之间的优先权之争，帮助联合了英国解剖学家，有望揭示一种自然哲学文化在哲学、专业和教学上的斗争，这种文化在医学科学中实验的地位。从这场争论中可以看出，法国和英国哲学家之间的激烈竞争表明，英国的生理学模式对法国的实验模式构成了严重的竞争，值得进一步研究。

This NSF Science and Society Dissertation Improvement Grant in the History of Science will allow the co-PI to visit archives in Edinburgh and throughout the United Kingdom in order to investigate the unpublished papers of Charles Bell and his contemporaries. In the early nineteenth century, two physiologists, Charles Bell and Francois Magendie, became embroiled in a debate over the proper practice of physiology, a debate that emerged within the context of a priority dispute over the discovery of the separate roots of motor and sensory nerves. The dispute, which began in 1822, lasted for over twenty years and was not settled decisively within either Bell's or Magendie's lifetime. This priority dispute provides an entry point for an evaluation of connections between medical institutions and physiology and between pedagogy and research practice in nineteenth-century Britain. It allows for a discussion of ways in which British physiologists responded to competing models of experimentation in early medical sciences. Moreover, this controversy illuminates the ways in which communities of physiologists made sense of living bodies and the ways in which theory and practice were taken to be mutually supportive elements of discovery. More specifically research supported under the NSF dissertation support will allow the following questions to be answered: how did a debate over priority and experimentation embody divergent pedagogical cultures and alternative models for a discipline in formation? In what ways did the structures of British medical and surgical institutions lend themselves to a particular pedagogical style, publishing priorities, and perceived audience revealed by Bell? And can we identify wider political contexts for the role of vivisection or the role of experimental science in clinical medicine that help to explain the significance of this controversy to Bell's contemporaries? The intellectual impacts of this work include shedding light on the role of pedagogy in the establishment of research methodologies in the biological sciences; enhancing understandings of the ways in which natural philosophy and early science were incorporated into medicine; and exploring alternative models of experimentation. Furthermore, it will discuss the place of pedagogy within the print culture of the early nineteenth century. It will also have broader impacts by contributing to the training of a historian of science; it will produce an understanding of the politics and ethics of the early uses of vivisection both in research and in educational contexts; it will examine the role of nationalist politics in the resolution of priority disputes, and it will contribute to an understanding of the intertwined debates about ethical and technical aspects of research practice. Although much work has been done on continental physiology and medical sciences, British life sciences of the early nineteenth century remain understudied. The priority dispute between Bell and Magendie, which helped to unite British anatomists, promises to reveal the philosophical, professional, and pedagogical of a natural philosophical culture struggling over the place of experimentation in medical science. The fierce rivalry between French and British philosophers seen through this dispute serves to indicate that a British model of physiology provided serious competition for the French experimental model and merits further study.