7th ESHS Conference Prague 2016

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7th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science Symposium 41: Textbooks and Handbooks as an Instrument of Power Organizers: Marianne Klemun (University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria), Ana Carneiro (New University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal) Historians of science have until recently paid little attention to handbooks and textbooks. No doubt the neglect of these publications reflects the relatively low academic status of this genre, for scholars have other priorities, which derive from their research topics, rather than from standard and codified knowledge. But both genres need a history of their own and they need to be analysed with reference to significant changes they have undergone. The 19th century, in particular, could be expressed as a time of the development of handbooks and textbooks, in accordance with the differentiation of distinct fields of knowledge. Various authors have reflected on textbooks. Thomas Kuhn considered the role of textbooks as a means of securing credibility, fundamental to his concept of ‘normal science’. In addition, he argued that textbooks have shaped our image of the nature of science and of the role played by discovery and invention in its progress. Historians of science, however, have subsequently envisaged textbooks not as instruments of ‘normal science’ and a means for the transmission of uncontroversial knowledge. It has been increasingly recognised that textbook authors are not neutral or passive actors, but they actually play a creative role in writing textbooks and consequently in the development of a scientific discipline. Stichweh’s concept about the process of establishing disciplines gives handbooks and textbooks a special role as one element in his sample of conditions. He argues that a corpus of knowledge represented through these books is one aspect of defining the differences and negotiation between disciplines. Thus both genres have acquired a significant power in terms of the way of establishing different fields of knowledge. They functioned as an important instrument for the self-definition of a field. At the same time, textbooks have been part of the framework of teaching and their choice has depended on those in power, be it the State, education ministries, institutional leaders and other public rulers. In this perspective, the selection of textbooks were influenced or even determined by these political powers. In this session, special attention will be given to Ludwik Fleck, in particular his concept of ’thought collective’ in analysing handbooks and textbooks. In this context, they will be envisaged as a medium to ensure success and legitimation of disciplines or special fields, particular topics, theories and distinctive methods. Thus, if on the one hand they have contributed to ensure disciplinary stability, they can also be an impediment to progress whenever their degree of standardisation and adoption over many decades conditions observation and ways of thinking, therefore constituting an obstacle to new concepts and ideas. Have these particular kind of books, with their specific selection of concepts, theories, methods and facts, acquired significant power in the dissemination of knowledge across more than one generation, within educational systems and public instruction? The relationship between these books and power will be analysed with reference to the differentiation of disciplines or special fields, and as a means of disciplinary control in the broader public domain given their role in education. Keywords: textbooks, handbooks, establishing disciplines, selfdefintion of fields, 19th century, teaching From the laboratory to the field: textbooks in building up Portuguese Tropical Medicine (1902–1935) (ID 54) Isabel Amaral (Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Caparica, Portugal) This paper addresses the power relationships entertained by the first generation of physicians committed to creating a new medical field, tropical medicine, based on the analysis of the textbooks used by Portuguese doctors in the training for clinical practice in temperate zones, during the first decades of the twentieth century. 58
Prague, Czech Republic, 22–24 September, 2016 Tropical medicine emerged as a research field in the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, with the creation of State- or private-funded specific medical schools, as it was of paramount importance colonizing successfully, especially Africa. The Portuguese School of Tropical Medicine was founded in 1902, to provide doctors with specialized training. There was a gap, however, between training in mainland Portugal and clinical practice in the tropics. In this context, textbooks were both instruments of learning and guides as they contained the basics to face the challenges posed by tropical diseases. In this paper, two foreign tropical medicine textbooks will be analyzed: the 1 st edition of Tropical diseases: a manual of the diseases of warm climates, published in 1898, by Patrick Manson, founder of the London School of Tropical Medicine, which today is in its a 23 th edition entitled Manson’s Tropical Diseases; the 2 nd edition of the Précis de médecine coloniale, published by Charles Joyeux and Adolphe Sicè, in 1937. The pocket edition of Manson’s book presents detailed information on signs and symptoms, allowing both beginners and initiated to identify each tropical disease; Joyeux and Sicè, both Pasteurian, present a “survival” manual to be used by Europeans in the tropics, namely Portuguese doctors in Africa. Each of these books addressed two distinct kinds of doctors: not only the languages differed, but also the depth in which tropical diseases were addressed; above all, they show a different rationale in legitimizing western and consequently Portuguese tropical medicine and colonialism. Keywords: Textbooks on tropical diseases, Medicine and colonialism, Portuguese tropical medicine, Climate and diseases, Medical practices References: Patrick Manson, Tropical diseases: a manual of the diseases of warm climates. London: Cassel & Caompany, 1898. Charles Joyeux and Adolphe Sicè, Précis de médecine coloniale. 2éme éd. Paris: Masson et Cie. Paris, 1937. Kathryn M. Olesko. Science Pedagogy as a Category of Historical. Analysis: Past, Present, and Future. Science & Education (2006) 15: 863–880. DOI 10.1007/s11191-005-2014-8 David Arnold, Warm Climates and Western Medicine: The Emergence of Tropical Medicine, 1500–1900. Amsterdam: Rodopi Press, 1996. Michael A. Osborne, The Emergence of Tropical Medicine in France, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. J. J. Rousseau’s Letters on botany: A subversive take on a non-elite science (ID 118) Alexandra Cook (University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong) An elementary botany text would not seem to have much to do with power. However, for Jean Jacques Rousseau the study of botany, is above all, a democratic activity, and hence one pursued in contrast with and in opposition to the elite, gentlemanly study of physics and chemistry that rely on affluence and/or patronage. Unlike elite sciences embedded in the relations of power and the cash nexus, studying botany is inherently free—it is the poor man’s science, with no strings attached, accessible to anyone with some leisure and the ability to purchase a few inexpensive instruments. Furthermore, it has nothing to do with the transmutation of base metals into precious ones, the focus of chemistry’s ancestor, alchemy. Rousseau’s botany is inclusive; he explicated botany to a female correspondent and her children in his posthumously-published Lettres élémentaires sur la botanique (1782). These ranked among the most popular botanical learning texts of the last quarter of the eighteenth century and remained so into the nineteenth century. 59
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