Physiology in the American Context 1850–1940

403 Pages·1987·9.3 MB·English

by  Gerald L. Geison (auth.), Gerald L. Geison (eds.)

Physiology in the
American Gontext
1850-1940
PUBLICA TIONS COMMITTEE
P. C. Johnson, Chairman
J. S. Cook
W. F. Ganong
L. R. Johnson
J. McE. Marshall
S. R. Geiger, Publications Managerand Executive Editor
B. B. Rauner, Production Manager
L. S. Chambers, M. J. Carnahan, G. I. Armstrong, S. P. Mann, Editorial Staff
D. L. Witt, Indexer
Physiology in the
American Context
1850-1940
Edited by
Gerald L. Geison
SPRINGER NEW YORK
ISBN 978-1-4614-7528-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-7528-6
©Copyright 1987, American Physiological Society
Originally published by American Physiological Society in 1987
Softcoverreprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1987
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 86-32286
International Standard Book Number 0-683-03446-4
Preface
T
his book had its origins in a conference held in mid-January 1986 at the
National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland, with financial
support from the American Physiological Society. John Parascandola of the
National Library of Medicine generously offered its facilities and his help with
the local arrangements. Toby Appel, historian/archivist for the American
Physiological Society, in addition to contributing a chapter to the volume,
oversaw the local arrangements for the conference and contributed in a host
of other ways.
The American Physiological Society deserves special thanks, not only be
cause of its financial support for the conference or the contributions of Dr.
Toby Appel, but also because in its role as publisher, the Society has clone all
that an editor might wish.
No less important, the Society made no attempt whatever to influence the
content or tone of the chapters, even though the volume was conceived and
scheduled with an eye toward its centennial celebration this year. If this
volume serves in part to mark that important occasion, it is by no means a
centennial volume of the usual sort. For long stretches, the American Physi
ological Society is entirely absent from these pages; it is in fact the focus of
only one of the chapters (Appel's). The other authors and myself as editor
appreciate the Society's willingness to serve as publisher of a historical volume
in which it is not the central object of concern.
My own research in this field also received an early boost through a small
but fertile grant from the American Physiological Society in 1981. I am
grateful to Orr Reynolds, past Executive Secretary of the Society, for helping
me to secure that grant and for his encouragement ever since. The data
gathered with the support of that small grant helped lay the basis for a more
ambitious proposal to the National Library ofMedicine, which very generously
supported my research on the history of American physiology from 1983
through 1986. To the extent that the production of this volume depended on
my own time and research, it was supported in part by National Library of
Medicine Grant LM-03936; as program officer forthat grant, Jeanne Brand
was consistently helpful and supportive.
One crucial benefit of the National Library of Medicine grant was that it
allowed me to employ a series of talented part-time research assistants, all of
them graduate students in the Program in History of Science at Princeton
U niversity. They included, sequentially, Pauline Carpenter [ now Dear] , Peter
Dear, John Carson, Tom Broman, George Anastoplo, and Andrea Rusnock.
They compiled much of the data for my discussion of "domestic elites" in
chapter V. In particular, George Anastoplo provided valuable insights into
V
VI PREFACE
research productivity at the institutional Ievel and taught me a Iot about the
history of physiology at the University of Chicago. He and Andrea Rusnock
contributed in major ways to several of the tables and figures in chapter V.
Finally, I am indebted to Faye Angelozzi and Vanessa Noya for their skillful
assistance with clerical and organizational tasks.
GERALD L. GEISON
Contents
Toward a History of American Physiology 1
GERALD L. GEISON
Social and Institutional History
I American Physiologists in German Laboratories, 1865-1914 11
ROBERT G. FRANK, JR.
II Growth of American Physiology, 1850-1900 47
W. BRUCE FYE
III Physiology of the Future: Institutional Styles at Columbia 67
and Harvard
ALEJANDRA C. LASZLO
IV A. B. Macall um and Physiology at the University of Toronto 97
SANDRA F. McRAE
V International Relations and Domestic Elites in American 115
Physiology, 1900-1940
GERALD L. GEISON
Physiology in Relation to Other Fields
VI Biological and Medical Societies and the Faunding of the 155
American Physiological Society
TOBY A. APPEL
VII Physiology, Biology, and the Advent of 177
Physiological Morphology
JANE MAIENSCHEIN
VIII General Physiology and the Discipline of Physiology, 195
1890-1935
J.
PHILIP PAULY
IX Pathologists, Clinicians, and the Role of Pathophysiology 209
RUSSELL C. MAULITZ
X Industrial Fatigue and the Discipline of Physiology 237
RICHARD GILLESPIE
VII
CONTENTS
Vlll
XI Physiological Identity of American Sex Researchers Between 263
the Two World Wars
DIANA E. LONG
XII Cardiac Physiology and Clinical Medicine? Two Gase Studies 279
JOEL D. HOWELL
Instruments, Materials, and Techniques
XIII Instrumentsand an Independent Physiology: The Harvard 293
Physiological Laboratory, 1871-1906
MERRILEY BORELL
XIV Research Materials and Reproductive Science in the United 323
States, 1910-1940
ADELE E. CLARKE
XV Instruments, Techniques, and Social Units in American 351
Neurophysiology, 1870-1950
LOUISE H. MARSHALL
Contributors 371
Author Index 375
Subject Index 383
Toward a History
of American Physiology
GERALD L. GEISON
T
he history of physiology in the United States is a vast and mostly
uncharted domain. Even as the American Physiological Society (APS)
enters its centennial year, we know much less about the history of physiology
in this country than we do about such other disciplines as astronomy, chemis
try, geology, and physics, or even such related fields as biology, biochemistry,
and genetics. 1 This volume seeks to fill part of that gap. It provides a sort of
base camp from which further expeditions into the history of American
physiology can be launched. As the first book-length study of the subject, it is
bound to set part of the agenda for further research. It is therefore important
to specify both what the volume tries to accomplish and what it leaves undone.
The volume title has been chosen with some care. This is a history of
physiology in the American context from ca. 1850 to 1940, where "context"
is to be understood mainly as a shorthand way of saying "social, institutional,
and cultural context." This is not the place to Iook for any extended or
detailed account of the history of physiological research or ideas in the United
States. Except for allusions to the cultural appeal of Iabaratory science or
scientific medicine in the United States, or occasional attention to the general
intellectual style of physiology pursued in particular institutional contexts, the
conceptual and technical side of the story is largely confined to portians of
the essays in Part 3, especially Louise Marshall's chapter on the history of
American neurophysiology.
This Iack of attention to the intellectual history of American physiology is
unfortunate, for it is of course the conceptual and technical side of any
scientific discipline that ultimately distinguishes it from other activities and its
practitioners from other folk. Ye t when these conceptual and technical histo
ries come to be written, this book should serve as a useful introduction to the
social and institutional contexts in which American physiological research can
be situated. Meanwhile, the focus here on the social and institutional history
of the discipline has at least one major virtue: it gives the book an unusual
unity of theme and approach. In this introduction, I summarize the leading
concerns in each of the fifteen chapters that follow, suggesting along the way
my rationale for dividing the volume into three parts. I end by emphasizing
the extent to which many of these apparently disparate chapters in fact share
common themes. At whatever unfortunate cost to the conceptual and technical
history of American physiology, this book has a coherence that is especially
welcome in a collective volume that opens up a new field of study.
1