Precarious Identities: Poisons and Poisonings as scientific topic 1750-1930

该项目是与电影/媒体历史的合作伙伴合作进行的，旨在了解1750年至1930年西欧毒药和中毒的实验和概念历史。我们探索毒理学作为一个国际跨学科科学领域的历史，该领域介于医学、药学、法医学科和医疗警察之间。在一般和科学公共领域经常提到引人注目的中毒案件（célèbres原因）。这些案件的科学、道德、司法问题被各种各样的话语（文学、媒体、电影、科学）和跨越学科边界的争论所提出。我们发现这些不同的话语场在论点、概念和修辞上有许多相似之处。虽然在1750年至1930年之间，科学和实验方法成倍增加，其权威性也在增长，但毒药和相关概念的多重含义并没有减少，在处理毒药和中毒时的模糊性和不确定性也没有减少。我们发现，无论是在一般公众还是科学公众中，都有生动的国际交流，信息的倍增和跨越国家和语言边界的快速知识转移。然而，也有显著的差异，例如，德语公众对定义问题的强烈兴趣，英语专家不愿相信毒药的壮观效果，以及早期开始批评工业化在法语公众中的有害影响。关于外来毒物（箭毒、古柯）或非中心消费模式（砷食者）的毒物叙述，以及关于少量/巨大影响的长期概念模式，表明在毒物和中毒周围有一个我们打算探索的想象空间。毒药是被定性为不稳定物质的主要例子（Balz / Schwerin / Stoff / Wahrig，2008年）。为了与电影/媒体史的合作，我们增加了克里斯蒂万的卑鄙的概念，不理解为一个精神分析范畴，但作为一个认识论的研究工具。

This project is performed in cooperation with partners in film/media history and aims at an experimental and conceptual history of poisons and poisonings between 1750 and 1930 in Western Europe. We explore the history of toxicology as an international and interdisciplinary scientific field which is situated between medicine, pharmacy, forensical disciplines and medical police. High-Profile poisoning cases (causes célèbres) were frequently referred to in the general and the scientific public sphere. The scientific, moral, juridical questions of these cases were raised by a variety of discourses (literature, media, film, science) and arguments criss-crossed the disciplinary borders. We find many similarities in the arguments, the concepts and the rhetoric of these different discoursive fields. Although between 1750 and 1930, scientific and experimental methods multiplied and their authority grew, the multiple meanings of poison and related concepts did not diminish, nor did the ambiguity and uncertainty in dealing with poisons and poisonings. We find a vivid international communication, both in the general and the scientific public, a multiplication of messages and rapid knowledge transfer across national and linguistic borders. Yet there are also sigificant differences, e.g. the intense interest in questions of definition in the German-speaking public, the reluctance of English experts to believe in spectacular effects of poisons, and the early onset of critique towards the deleterious effects of industrialisation in the French-speaking public. Poison narratives of the exotic (curare, coca), or of excentric consumption patterns (arsenic eaters) and the longue-durée conceptual pattern of small quantity/enormous effect show that there is an imaginary space around poisons and poisonings which we intend to explore. Poisons are key examples of what has been characterized as precarious substances (Balz / Schwerin / Stoff / Wahrig 2008). For the cooperation with film/media history we add the Kristevan concept of the abject, not understood as a psychoanalytical category, but as an epistemological tool of research.