Changing Disciplines: John Ryle and the Making of Social Medicine in Britain in the 1940s

Ryle J. A. , Changing disciplines (London, 1948), p. vi.

Ryle J. A. , “Social medicine”, British medical journal, 1942, i, 801.

A wide historiography has developed concerning the idea that scientific disciplines are historically constructed, institutionalized and legitimated. The story of social medicine will be discussed within this context below. See for example Lemaine G. (eds), Perspectives on the emergence of scientific disciplines (Paris, 1977); Graham L. (eds), Functions and uses of disciplinary histories (Dordrecht, 1983).

Virchow Rudolf , Public health reports, ed. by Rather L. J. (2 vols, Baltimore, 1986), i, 307–19; Ackerknecht E. H. , Rudolf Virchow: Doctor, statesman, anthropologist (Madison, 1953), 105–18; Pridan David , “Rudolf Virchow and social medicine in historical perspective”, Medical history, ix (1964), 274–8.

Viseltear A. J. , “Milton C. Winternitz and the Yale Institute of Human Relations: A brief chapter in the history of social medicine”, Yale journal of biology and medicine, lvii (1984), 869–89.

ibid., 887–9; Rosen George , “Social science and health in the United States in the twentieth century”, Clio medica, xi (1976), 245–68.

Sand René , The advance to social medicine (London, 1952), 541.

ibid., 538–44.

Oswald N. T. A. , “A social health service without social doctors”, Social history of medicine, iv (1991), 295–315.

Institute of Social Medicine Oxford, First annual report 1945 (Oxford, 1946).

Institute of Social Medicine Oxford, Second annual report 1946 (Oxford, 1947), 12.

ibid., 5–11.

René Sand to Ryle, 9 January 1950; McKeown Thomas to Ryle , 1 February 1950; Crew Francis to Ryle , 6 May 1950. This and all other Ryle letters cited in this article are owned by and are in the possession of Dr Anthony Ryle. I am extremely grateful to Dr Ryle for allowing me to consult his father's private papers. I am equally grateful to him and to his brother, Dr John Ryle, for allowing me to interview them about their father, his life and his work.

Interview with John Alfred Ryle's eldest son, John Ryle, 29 November 1991.

Interview with John Alfred Ryle's youngest son, Ryle Anthony , 15 November 1991.

Shepherd Michael , “Introduction”, to Ryle J. A. , The natural history of disease (reprint London, 1988), pp. xi–xix (1st edition, Oxford, 1936; 2nd edition, 1946).

“John Alfred Ryle”, Lancet, 1950, i, 471–3; “John Alfred Ryle”, British medical journal, 1950, i, 611–13; “John Alfred Ryle”, Munk's roll, iv, 595–6.

Symonds Charles , “John Alfred Ryle”, Guy's Hospital reports, xcix (1950), 209–22; Ryle Miriam , John A. Ryle (unpublished typescript biography in the possession of Anthony Ryle), 37–40.

Ryle J. A. to his father-in-law, 7 July 1919.

Ryle J. A. to his father-in-law, 24 November 1919.

Ryle Miriam , op. cit. (ref. 18), 38; Symonds , op. cit. (ref. 18), 211–13.

See, Ryle J. A. , “Foreword”, in Hurst Arthur Sir , A twentieth century physician, being the reminiscences of Sir Arthur Hurst (London, 1949), pp. iii–v.

Shepherd , op. cit. (ref. 16), p. xiv.

Rook Arthur Carlton Margaret and Cannon W. Graham , The history of Addenbrooke's Hospital Cambridge (Cambridge, 1991), 321–3, 338.

Witts Leslie , “John Alfred Ryle”, British medical journal, 1950, i, 612. Miriam Ryle disliked Witts's obituary and complained to numerous friends and colleagues that it dismissed Ryle as an impractical idealist. She gave Charles Symonds, however, every assistance with his obituary providing him with primary materials. See Miriam Ryle to Blacker C. P. , 29 March 1950.

As yet I have found no evidence that Ryle had any significant involvement with Cambridge's “visible college”. I happen to own his own copy of Bernal's J. D. , The social function of science which has Ryle's signature inside and his address as Guy's Hospital S.E.I. Since this was the second edition which was published in 1940 and Ryle left Guy's for Oxford in 1942 he may have read it between these dates and used it to help develop his conception of social medicine. Ryle's copy is not annotated. Bernal has a section on health, however, which articulated the heart of Ryle's philosophy of social medicine. Bernal emphasised that modern medicine's goal should be the improvement of health rather than the treatment of disease and for this reason medicine needed to become “in all its branches a public service in which research and practice are developed side by side”. Bernal suggested that the best route to follow would be the study of sickness through the observation of health. This was the essence of Ryle's conception of social medicine. See Bernal J. D. , The social function of science (London, 1940; first edition London, 1939), 353–6. For discussion of the political-epistemology of the book see Mikuláš Teich , “Reflecting on the golden jubilee of Bernal's Social function of science”, History of science, xxviii (1990), 411–18. For Bernal himself see Goldsmith Maurice , Sage: A life of J. D. Bernal (London, 1980). For discussion of Bernal's circle of socialist scientists see Werskey Gary , The visible college (London, 1978). In some “Notes for students talk” which Ryle gave on 16 February — no other date — “at home”, he refers to the importance of both Bernal's book and Huxley's book The uniqueness of man: “There has been a rather rude awakening of recent years to the fact that we have allowed our scientists to run away with us and our intellectual interests, at the expense of our human interests. Private ownership in knowledge can, like private ownership of wealth, lead to great injustices. (refer to Bernal's “Social Function of Science”) Now we are beginning to look ahead and see how we might do better. (refer to Julian Huxley and “scientific humanism” — Uniqueness of Man)”.

Witts , op. cit. (ref. 25).

Symonds , op. cit. (ref. 18), 214.

Brock J. F. to Patricia Asher, 6 April 1951. For discussion of the world of the biomedical sciences at Cambridge at this period see Abir-Am Pnina , “The biotheoretical gathering, trans-disciplinary authority and the incipient legitimation of molecular biology in the 1930s: New perspective on the historical sociology of science”, History of science, xxv (1987), 1–70.

In 1972, Miriam Ryle wrote to Martin L. C. who was an ex-Elmore student about who precisely they all were and what they had done in their careers since. A sample of the list demonstrates how their careers progressed: George Hadley was a consultant physician at the Middlesex Hospital; Cole Claude , a consultant at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases; McAndle Brian was on the staff of the Medical Research Council and a consultant physician at Guy's; Martin himself was a consultant physician at Addenbrooke's. See Martin L. C. Dr to Miriam Ryle, 3 July 1972.

According to Miriam Ryle, Gowland Hopkins sponsored, and Miss Wodehouse, Mistress of Girton, seconded Ryle's candidacy. Mrs Ryle also states that the invitation to take the chair at Cambridge came directly from Hopkins ( Ryle Miriam , op. cit. (ref. 18), 96). Ryle never expected to win the University Parliamentary Seat but he was urged to stand and supported by Trevelyan Charles Sir Woolf Leonard Priestley J. B. and Lewes F. L. Mrs Ryle did most of the work as his unofficial agent and suggests that all went smoothly except “The only slight hitch was that the printers of the manifesto had to be persuaded that they really could get it printed in time. I did not discover why they were so difficult but suspected that they had been told that John was a Communist — which, in fact, he never was. However after a long and quiet discussion about Democracy and all that, they agreed to print it. Predictably Hill A. V. [Ryle's opponent] was elected, but John did not lose his deposit” (Miriam Ryle, op. cit. (ref. 18), 127–8).

Opp. cit. (ref. 17); Ryle J. A. , “Medical prophylaxis of war”, British medical journal, 1939, i, 1014.

Although he was the obvious candidate for the chair Ryle himself never believed he would be chosen. As late as July 1942 Ryle wrote to Miriam, “My 1st letter was written before I went to Oxford but I think the sensible thing is to assume that ‘nothing doing”’. He was surprised that his colleagues perceived the situation very differently: “The ex-professor at Newcastle has told me that he had supposed that the chair of social medicine at Oxford had been specially created for me!” Ryle felt, however, that with the war on planning a personal future was the last priority “and anyway I oughtn't really to be worrying about my own future. … The world today is so insecure and uncertain that personal planning is really rather selfish.” But his desire to take up the Oxford post came out of a need to work in an environment where he could really achieve something valuable: “I think what I want for myself is not so much personal advantage or prestige but the scope to employ my energies and ideas. This would be considerable at Oxford and is extremely limited as we know at Cambridge” (J. A. Ryle to Miriam Ryle, 20 July 1942).

Not any longer according to Ryle, see Ryle , op. cit. (ref. 1), 11–13; Ryle J. A. , “Social medicine: Its meaning and its scope”, British medical journal, 1943, ii, 633–6.

Ryle Miriam , op. cit. (ref. 18), 95.

Booth Christopher C. Sir , Doctors in science and society: Essays of a clinical scientist (London, 1987), 238–62; idem, “Clinical research”, in Austoker Joan and Bryder Linda (eds), Historical perspectives on the role of the MRC (Oxford, 1989), 205–41.

Trotter Wilfred , “Observation and experiment and their use in the medical sciences”, British medical journal, 1930, ii, 129–34.

Ryle J. A. , “Opening remarks at a discussion on research in clinical medicine”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, xxiv (1930), 151–7, reproduced in Ryle J. A. , The natural history of disease (ref. 16), 384–91.

Ryle J. A. , “The Hippocratic ideal”, Lancet, 1934, ii, 1263–8.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 38). For discussion of the importance of natural history and field science amongst British intellectuals, see Allen David E. , The naturalist in Britain: A social history (London, 1976).

Ryle J. A. , “The physician as naturalist”, Guy's Hospital reports, lxxxi (1931), 278–96, reproduced in Ryle J. A. , The natural history of disease (ref. 16), 1–19.

ibid., 11.

ibid., 16–17.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 39), 1263. For contemporary historical discussion of the disappearance of the ‘sick-man’ from the clinical view see Jewson N. , “The disappearance of the sick man from medical cosmology 1770–1870”, Sociology, x (1976), 225–44.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 39), 1267.

Ryle J. A. , “Medicine 1910–1935”, Lancet, 1935, i, 1049–51, p. 1050; Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 38), 389.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 39), 1267.

Ryle J. A. to Blacker C. P. , 22 October 1946, Archives of the Eugenics Society, at the Contemporary Archives Medical Centre, Wellcome Institute Library, ref: SA/Eug/C.303. For earlier collaboration between Blacker and Ryle on a volume of collected essays on recent eugenic research see letters between Ryle and Blacker from 8 January to 10 August 1931 (SA/EUG/C. 303).

Ryle J. A. , “The future of medical education as seen by a teacher”, British medical journal, 1941, ii, 323–7.

Op. cit. (ref. 14).

Lawrence Christopher , “Incommunicable knowledge: Science, technology and the clinical art in Britain”, Journal of contemporary history, xx (1985), 503–20; idem, “Moderns and ancients: The ‘new cardiology’ in Britain 1880–1930”, in Bynum W. F. Lawrence C. , and Nutton V. (eds), The emergence of modern cardiology (Medical history, supplement no. 5 (1985)), 1–33.

Ryle J. A. , “Angina pectoris and allied seizures”, Clinical journal, lvi (1927), 613–23; reproduced in Ryle J. A. , The natural history of disease (ref. 16), 282–98; see pp. 290–1.

Ryle J. A. , “The training and use of the senses in clinical work”, Guy's Hospital gazette, xlvii (1933), 421–31; reproduced in Ryle J. A. , The natural history of disease (ref. 16), 20–30.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 38), 386. This is Ryle's own view of Lewis and McKenzie. Christopher Lawrence recently pointed out to me, however, how Ryle's perception was idiosyncratic. While enthusiastic about the value of laboratory biomedical science, Lewis equally advocated the restricted use of technology in clinical practice. Lawrence has pointed out Lewis's ambivalence about the relationship of laboratory science to clinical practice. See Lawrence C. , “‘Definite and material’: Coronary thrombosis and the cardiologists in the 1920s”, in Rosenberg C. (ed.), Framing disease (New Jersey, forthcoming); idem, “Cinema vérité?: The image of William Harvey's experiments in 1928”, in Rupke Nicolaas A. (ed.), Vivisection in historical perspective (London, 1987), 295–313.

Ryle J. A. , “The clinical study of pain, with special reference to the pains of visceral disease”, British medical journal, 1928, i, 537–41; reproduced in Ryle J. A. , The natural history of disease (ref. 16), 31–43. See also Ryle J. A. , Fears may be liars (London, 1941), 55–65.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 49); Ryle J. A. , “The future of clinical teaching”, Lancet, 1940, i, 157–61; “Letters to the Editor”, Lancet, 1940, i, 429; Ryle J. A. , “To-day and to-morrow”, British medical journal, 1940, ii, 657–9.

Ryle J. A. , “Aetiology: A plea for wider concepts and new study”, Lancet, 1942, ii, 29–31. Professor Jane Lewis has suggested that Ryle's ‘aetiological’ based conception of social medicine narrowed its scope to the pursuit of social pathology grounding it too firmly within a model of clinical medicine. I believe that Lewis exactly characterizes the importance of clinical medicine to Ryle's concept of social medicine. Further, Lewis is correct to contrast Ryle with Richard Titmuss who, as a social scientist, had a concept of social medicine more firmly grounded in the British tradition of empirical sociology. I argue below, however, that a crucial feature of Ryle's concept of social medicine is its adherence to a philosophy of ‘holism’ in science which was directly linked to his political belief in the social function of science as ‘scientific humanism’. See Lewis Jane , What price community medicine? (Brighton, 1986), 35–45; idem, “The public's health: Philosophy and practice in Britain in the twentieth century”, in Fee Elizabeth and Acheson Roy (eds), A history of education in public health: Health that mocks the doctors' rules (Oxford, 1991), 195–229.

See Acheson Roy , “Medicine and the community, and the university: A century of Cambridge history”, British medical journal, 1978, ii, 1737–41, p. 1739.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 57), 30.

Ryle J. A. , “Coronary disease”, Lancet, 1946, ii, 692–3, p. 693.

See his “Social pathology”, Lancet, 1947, i, 413–14; Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 1), 1–24. The title of this first chapter in Changing disciplines is revealing: “Social pathology and the new age in medicine.” It was originally an address to the New York Academy of Medicine given on 6 March 1947 as part of Ryle's lecture tour of the United States funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Ryle acknowledged that Major Greenwood had pointed this out earlier that year. See Greenwood Major , “Social medicine”, British medical journal, 1946, i, 117–19.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 57), 30.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 1), 26–47.

Ryle J. A. , “Socio-medical surveys”, Lancet, 1946, i, 64–66; idem, op. cit. (ref. 1), 5–6. See M'Gonigle G. C. M. and Kirby J. , Poverty and public health (London, 1936).

Ryle J. A. , “Socio-medical surveys” (ref. 65), 64.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 1), 5–11; idem, op. cit. (ref. 34), 633–6.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 1), p. vii. I have not yet discovered any evidence that Ryle was widely erudite in the social sciences or in the history of their development. However Ryle's conception of social science had many parallels with British and American progressive evolutionary sociologists who linked social science with humanist ethics. At the turn of the twentieth century some of the founders of sociology in Britain and the United States, such as Hobhouse L. T. , Albion Small and the early Chicago sociologists, believed that social evolution was based on ‘mutual aid’. In their view the sociologist was both a social philosopher and a social scientist who permanently confronted the dialectical tension between evolution and progress. They believed that purposive social evolution could be achieved through rational, scientific political decision making. Progressive evolutionism attempted to develop a synthetic, naturalistic account of man and society which incorporated idealism, moralism and religious thought into a scientific framework. This chimed with Ryle's conception of holistic social inquiry into the historical evolutionary rhythms of human development which fuelled his perception of the new social physician as a natural historian of man in his ecological habitat, with a mission to use knowledge to educate and improve. Ryle believed that social medicine built upon social science would turn medicine into scientific humanism. For discussion of Hobhouse see Collini Stefan , Liberalism and sociology: Hobhouse L. T. and political argument in England 1880–1914 (Cambridge, 1979). On Chicago sociology see Bannister Robert C. , Sociology and scientism: The American quest for objectivity 1880–1940 (Chapel Hill, 1987); Kurtz Lester R. , Evaluating Chicago sociology (Chicago, 1984); Lewis J. David and Smith Richard L. , American sociology and pragmatism: Mead, Chicago sociology and symbolic interaction (Chicago, 1978); Weinberg Julius , Edward Alsworth Ross and the sociology of progressivism (Madison, 1972); Smith Dennis , The Chicago school: A liberal critique of capitalism (London, 1988).

Ryle J. A. , “Social medicine” (ref. 2), 801. For discussion of the three epochs of preventive medicine see Ryle J. A. , “Social medicine” (ref. 34).

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 1), 11–12.

Ryle J. A. , “Social medicine and hospital practice”, British medical journal, 1947, ii, 628 (originally an address given by Ryle to the Medical Society of the London County Council, held at County Hall, 2 October 1947).

Lewis , What price community medicine? (ref. 57), 41–49.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 34), 635.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 41), 9–19.

ibid., 13.

ibid., 13.

Ryle J. A. , “Diathesis, or variation and disease in man”, reproduced in Ryle J. A. , The natural history of disease (ref. 16), 375–83, p. 375.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 41), 13.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 77), 376.

Bynum W. F. , “Darwin and the doctors: Evolution, diathesis, and germs in 19th-century Britain”, Gesnerus, xl (1983), 43–53. I have, of course, plagiarized Bynum's title as an appropriate heading for this section.

Bennett T. I. and Ryle J. A. , Guy's Hospital reports, lxxi (1921), 286–318.

Ryle J. A. , “Constitution as a factor in morbidity”, Clinical journal, lx (1931), 73–81.

ibid., 81.

ibid., 81.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 77), 382.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 82), 73.

Ryle J. A. , “The meaning of the normal”, Lancet, 1947, i, 1–5.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 1), 66–83; idem, “The science of health”, British medical journal, 1942, ii, 745–8.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 87), 3.

ibid., 2.

ibid., 2. For discussion of Fisher and Haldane's population genetics see Bowler Peter , Evolution, the history of an idea (Berkeley, 1984), 291–6 and Pauline Mazumdar M. H. , Eugenics, human genetics and human failings: The Eugenics Society, its sources and its critics in Britain (London, 1992), 96–145.

Canguilhem George , The normal and the pathological (1st edition, Paris, 1943; revised 2nd edition, Paris, 1966; English translation, Dordrecht, 1978; reprinted, New York, 1988), 267–8. See also Porter Dorothy , “Georges Canguilhem on the normal and the pathological”, in Journal for the history of biology (1992, forthcoming).

Bowler , op. cit. (ref. 91), 288–316.

Ryle J. A. , “Medicine and eugenics”, Eugenics review, xxx (xi new series) (1938–39), 9–19, pp. 13–14.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 87), 3.

Ryle J. A. , “The science of health” (ref. 88), 747.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 94), 9–14.

Allen , op. cit. (ref. 40), 238, 257, 260. For a recent discussion of Huxley's life and work see Keynes Milo and Harrison G. Ainsworth (eds), Evolutionary studies: A centenary celebration of the life of Julian Huxley (London, 1989). On Huxley's eugenics see Hubback David , “Julian Huxley and eugenics”, ibid., 194–206. See also Huxley's autobiographical memoirs, Huxley J. S. , Memories (2 vols, London, 1970 and 1973).

Huxley Julian , The uniqueness of man (London, 1941), 35.

ibid., 34–39.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 94), 13–14.

Ryle J. A. to Allen Gregg, 27 May 1947.

Ryle J. A. to Miriam Ryle, 14 October 1917.

See Ryle Miriam , op. cit., (ref. 18), 164–5: “John was on the Medical Planning Commission of the National Health Service, from early in 1942. His large practice in London with many consultations in the poorer districts and his years of out-patients at Guy's had made him familiar with and sympathetic towards the great difficulties of general practitioners but also conscious of their shortcomings, particularly in the poorer areas. He had watched young and enthusiastic doctors being gradually defeated by the impossibility of doing first class work. Dirt and poverty and ignorance were ever present among the patients and fatigue and the hopelessness of doing good work weeded out most of the good doctors. Those who stayed made the best arrangements they could to enable them to survive…. The Committee of the Royal College of Physicians studying proposals for the National Health Service were on the whole critical of John's ideas, particularly of his wish to abolish the great difference in the proposed remuneration and prestige of the general practitioner and the consultant. One infuriated member's remark ‘so now that you've climbed to the top of the ladder, you want to kick it down’ amused him but it was a pointer that emphasised where much of the obstinate hostility lay”.

Ryle J. A. to “X”, 22 March 1942. The debate with Horder surfaced later in published form; see Ryle J. A. , “Shall we nationalise medicine?”, British medical journal, 1945, i, 456.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 34), 635.

Ryle J. A. to Miriam Ryle, 21 October 1942. The emphasis highlighted in the quotes is Ryle's.

Ryle J. A. , “The science of health” (ref. 88), 747.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 94).

Ryle J. A. to his father-in-Law, 21 December 1941.

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 34), 633.

ibid., 636.

ibid., 636.

Ryle J. A. , Fears may be liars (London, 1941).

See the discussion of Huxley's concept in Ryle , op. cit. (ref. 1), 100–19. For Ryle's discussion of Peter Kropotkin, the anarchist theorist of workers revolutionary councils, and mutual aid see Ryle J. A. , “To-day and to-morrow”, British medical journal, 1940, ii, 659. Also for Ryle's view of how philosophical holism and rational humanism can replace the need for metaphysical religion see, Ryle J. A. , Fears may be liars (London, 1941).

“Letters to the Editor”, British medical journal, 1949, ii, 388.

Crew F. A. E. , Measurements of the public health: Essays on social medicine (London, 1948), p. xiii.

See Lewis , op. cit. (ref. 57).

See Porter Dorothy , “The politics of humanity and medical holism: The influence of John Ryle on clinical and preventive medicine in Britain”, in idem and Porter Roy (eds), Doctors and politics (forthcoming).

Ryle J. A. , op. cit. (ref. 1), 19.

Pickstone John , “Physiology and experimental medicine”, in Olby R. C. (eds), Companion to the history of modern science (London, 1990), 728–42, p. 728.

See Mulkay M. , Science and the sociology of knowledge (London, 1979); Brannigan A. , The social basis of scientific discoveries (Cambridge, 1981); Collins H. , Changing order (London, 1985); Barnes B. , Interests and the growth of knowledge (London, 1977); Knorr-Cetina K. and Mulkay M. (eds), Science observed: Perspectives on the social study of science (London, 1983); Pinch T. , “The sociology of the scientific community” in Olby (eds), op. cit. (ref. 121), 87–99.

Geison G. L. , Michael Foster and the Cambridge school of physiology (Princeton, 1978); Lesch J. E. , Science and medicine in France: The emergence of experimental physiology 1790–1855 (Cambridge, Mass., 1984); Kohler R. E. , From medical chemistry to biochemistry: The making of a biomedical discipline (Cambridge, 1982); Lenoir T. , The strategy of life: Teleology and mechanics in nineteenth-century German biology (Dordrecht, 1982); Abir-Am , op. cit. (ref. 29); idem, “Themes, genres and orders of legitimation in the consolidation of new scientific disciplines: Deconstructing the historiography of molecular biology”, History of science, xxiii (1985), 73–117; Olby R. C. , The path to the double helix (London, 1974); Booth C. , op. cit. (ref. 36).

For the discussion of the moral economy of science see Shapin Steven and Schaffer Simon , Leviathan and the air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the experimental life (Princeton, 1985); Shapin Steven , “The house of experiment in seventeenth-century England”, Isis, lxxix (1988), 373–404.

Kohler Robert E. , “Drosophila and evolutionary genetics: The moral economy of scientific practice”, History of science, xxix (1991), 335–75.

Abir-Am , op. cit. (ref. 29).

Porter Dorothy , “Modern medicine and social science”, unpublished paper given at the University of Chicago and at Harvard University, February and May 1991.

Osborne Thomas , “The doctor's view: Clinical and governmental rationalities in twentieth-century general medical practice” (Ph.D thesis, Brunei University, 1991).