Doctoral Dissertation Research on Generation and Its Problems in Harvey, Highmore and their Contemporaries

简介：pi建议研究威廉·哈维和纳撒尼尔·海莫尔在17世纪中期对生理学的研究，特别是胚胎学及其在世代、生命物质的本质和生物发育期间的争论中的作用。他们计划在大英图书馆、伦敦的威康研究所、牛津大学的博德利图书馆和大学档案中进行档案研究。这些档案包含了17世纪医生和生理学家Nathaniel Highmore的通信和笔记，以及与他的工作密切相关的当代实验笔记和讲座。学术价值：海莫尔是威廉·哈维的朋友和合作者：他们的作品之间的比较将澄清一些与当代辩论中出现的代际问题相关的问题。早期现代科学、哲学和医学的核心发展都集中在海莫尔的杰出作品中，特别是他对生殖器官、生育和歇斯底里症的发现和新解释。档案研究建立在对海莫尔在科学史会议上发表的两篇已发表作品的研究之上。档案访问在几个方面对论文至关重要：大量未发表的作品将揭示海莫尔的医学教育，知识来源，与患者的互动，实验和医学经验在他的研究中的作用，他的思想的发展，以及他发表的文本的接受。对这些重要来源的详细研究尚未发表。该项目特别关注学术医学对化学的早期挪用，这实际上尚未被探索。此外，研究学生的笔记将增强对17世纪早期医学教育的历史理解，特别是学生接触新科学、哲学和实验的程度。更广泛的影响：拟建的项目研究了至今仍存在的关于生命的主要问题：生命与非生命物质的区别是什么？胎儿在什么时候获得了人类的地位？其目的是提供一个批判性的分析和历史的理解，这些问题是严重卷入伦理和宗教价值观。这些问题也成为考察17世纪中期科学、医学、形而上学、认识论和神学等不同领域如何相互交流的中心。该项目的跨学科和同步性意味着它对早期现代主义者有广泛的影响。即将召开的英国、美国和加拿大科学史学会联合会议的主题是“连接学科”，反映了该领域对跨学科研究价值的认可。部分研究成果将于2008年在国际会议和早期现代化学、生理学和医学会议上发表。这个项目的资金是由生物学部和SBE学部的一个名为“生物学对社会的影响”的合资企业提供的，该项目由STS项目管理。

Introduction: The PIs propose to examine William Harvey's and Nathaniel Highmore's mid-seventeenth century studies of physiology, in particular embryology and their role in debates during the period over generation, the nature of living material, and the development of organisms. They plan to do archival research at the British Library and at the Wellcome Institute in London, and in Oxford at the Bodleian Library and in the university records. These archives contain the correspondence and notebooks of the seventeenth-century physician and physiologist Nathaniel Highmore, as well as contemporary notes on experiments and lectures that are closely related to his work.Intellectual merit: Highmore was a friend and collaborator of William Harvey: a comparison between their works will clarify a number of issues related to the problems of generation emerging from contemporary debates. Central developments in early modern science, philosophy, and medicine converged in Highmore's remarkable work, particularly, in his discoveries and novel explanations of reproductive organs, generation, and hysteria. The archival research builds on two studies of Highmore's s published works that have been presented at history of science conferences. There are several respects in which archive visits are crucial to the dissertation: the extensive collections of unpublished writings will shed light on Highmore's medical education, intellectual sources, interactions with patients, the role of experiments and medical experience on his research, the development of his thought, and the reception of his published texts. No close examinations of these important sources have been published. This project focuses in particular on the early stages of the appropriation of chemistry by academic medicine, which remains virtually unexplored. Moreover, studying the student notebooks will enhance historical understanding of early seventeenth-century medical education, particularly the extent to which students were exposed to the new sciences, philosophies, and experimentation.Broader impact: The proposed project examines major questions about life that persist to this day: What distinguishes living from non-living matter? At what point do fetuses acquire human status? The aim is to provide a critical analysis and historical understanding of these questions that are heavily enmeshed with ethical and religious values. These issues also serve as a locus at which to examine how different areas of science, medicine, metaphysics, epistemology, and theology informed each other during the mid-seventeenth century. The interdisciplinary and synchronistic nature of the project means that it has broad ramifications for early modernists. The theme of the upcoming joint meeting of the British, US, and Canadian history of science societies, "Connecting Disciplines," reflects the field's recognition of the value of interdisciplinary studies. Portions of the research will be presented during 2008, both at the international meeting and at a conference on early modern chemistry, physiology and medicine. Funds for this project were provided by a joint venture of the BIO and SBE directorates known as "Impacts of Biology on Society," which is administered via the STS program.