How Gods and Saints Became Transplant Surgeons: The Scientific Article as a Model for the Writing of History

Cooter R. , review of: Lawrence C. (ed.), Medical theory, surgical practice: Studies in the history of surgery (London and New York, 1992), Social history of medicine, vi (1992), 289–90, see p. 290.

Cf. Lepenies W. Weingart P. , “Introduction”, in: Graham L. Lepenies W. Weingart P. (eds), Functions and uses of disciplinary history (Sociology of the Sciences, vii; Dordrecht, 1983), p. xvi, on disciplinary history.

Lawrence C. , “Democratic, divine and heroic: The history and historiography of surgery”, in: Lawrence (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 1), 1–47, pp. 10, 12, 14.

See e.g. Terasaki P. I. (ed.), History of transplantation: Thirty-five recollections (Los Angeles, 1991).

The classic work is: Fox R. C. Swazey J. P. , The courage to fail: A social view of organ transplant and dialysis (Chicago, 1974).

See e.g. Tröhler U. , “Surgery (modern)”, in: Bynum W. F. Porter Roy (eds), The companion encyclopedia of the history of medicine, ii (London and New York, 1993), 984–1028, on pp. 1022–24. The History of Twentieth Century Medicine Group of the Wellcome Institute in London organized a witness seminar in September 1994. There, the pioneers of renal transplant surgery discussed the ethical and practical problems of their work with an audience of medical historians.

See Lepenies Weingart , op. cit. (ref. 2), pp. ix–xx. Jardine N. , The scenes of inquiry: On the reality of questions in the sciences (Oxford, 1991), 130–45.

Lawrence , op. cit. (ref. 3), 2.

What is said about whole disciplines is also valid for any group of practitioners within a discipline, such as transplant surgeons, see Jardine , op. cit. (ref. 7), pp. 130–2.

Gross A. G. , The rhetoric of science (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1990), 5. See also Melia T. , essay review on the rhetoric of science, Isis , lxxxiii (1992), 100–6; and Jardine , op. cit. (ref. 7), 193–6.

For a discussion of another kind of medical service along these lines, see e.g. Doménech R. M. Medina , “Estrategias professionalizadoras en el origen de una expecialidad médica: El caso de la radioterapia española, 1895–1936”, Ph.D. thesis, University of Granada, 1993.

Woolgar S. , “Discovery: Logic and sequence in a scientific text”, in Knorr K. D. Krohn R. Whitley R. (eds), The social process of scientific investigation (Sociology of the Sciences, iv; Dordrecht, 1980), 239–68, p. 256. For the routine use of history in medical literature, see Webster C. , “The historiography of medicine”, in: Corsi P. Weindling P. (eds), Information sources in the history of science and medicine (London, 1983), 29–43, p. 30.

Woolgar , op. cit. (ref. 12), 256.

Ibid., 253–6. Idem, Science: The very idea (London, 1988), 73–77. Latour B. , Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society (Milton Keynes, 1987), 30–44, etc.

For this see Schlich T. , “Vom physiologischen Experiment zur Therapie: Die Pankreastransplantation”, Medizinhistorisches Journal, xxviii (1993), 29–54. For a more detailed account of the scientific and professional background of some of the protagonists, see Schlich T. , “Making mistakes in science: Eduard Pflüger, his scientific and professional concept of physiology, and his unsuccessful theory of diabetes”, Studies in history and philosophy of science, xxii (1993), 411–41.

For the concern of scientists with the past in connection with persuasion in science see Jardine , op. cit. (ref. 7), 124–5.

Surgery is a field where in the vast majority of cases it is actually ‘he’, not ‘she’.

See Schlich , “Die Pankreastransplantation” (ref. 15), 46–52.

Latour , op. cit. (ref. 14), 30–38. See also Gilbert G. N. , “Referencing as persuasion”, Social studies of science, vii (1977), 113–22.

E.g. Podolsky S. , “Lipoatrophic diabetes and miscellaneous conditions related to diabetes mellitus”, in Marble A. White P. Bradley R. F. Krall L. P. (eds), Joslin's diabetes mellitus , 11th edn (Philadelphia, 1971), 722–66; Lillehei R. C. Ruiz J. Octavio , “Pancreas”, in Najarian J. S. Simmons R. L. (eds), Transplantation (Munich, Berlin, Vienna, 1972), 627–45.

Woolgar , op. cit. (ref. 14), 76–77, and op. cit. (ref. 12), 256–7.

Woolgar , op. cit. (ref. 14), 76.

Turning the earlier papers “more into facts or more into fictions”, Latour , op. cit. (ref. 14), 35.

Ibid.

Busnardo A. C. DiDio L. J. A. Tidrick R. T. Thomford N. R. , “History of the pancreas”, The American journal of surgery, cxlvi (1983), 539–50, p. 546.

Bottin J. , “Transplantation du pancréas sur la circulation carotico-jugutaire chez le chien. Survie de l'animal. Causes de la mort”, Comptes rendues des séances de la Société de Biologie, cxxi (1936), 872–4, 873.

Lillehei Ruiz Octavio , op. cit. (ref. 20), 628–9.

Ivy A. C. Farrell J. I. , “Contributions to the physiology of the pancreas, I. A method for the subcutaneous auto-transplantation of the tail of the pancreas”, American journal of physiology, lxxvii (1926), 49–53.

See Schlich , “Die Pankreastransplantation” (ref. 15), 33–35, and “Making mistakes” (ref. 15), 415.

See, e.g., Podolsky , op. cit. (ref. 20).

Hédon E. , “Sur la sécrétion interne du pancréas et la pathogénèse du diabète pancréatique”, Archives internationales de physiologie, xiii (1913), 4–35, 255–88. See also Schlich , “Die Pankreastransplantation” (ref. 15).

Bottin , op. cit. (ref. 26).

E.g. La Barre J. , “Le système nerveux intervient-il dans la régulation de l'insulinémie physiologique?”, Comptes rendues des séances de la Société de Biologie, xcvii (1927), 1184–7; Houssay B.-A. , “Technique de la greffe pancréatico-duodénale au cou”, ibid., c (1929), 138–40.

On the identification of things from the past with the things we find in the present see Collingwood's allegoric nightmare about the man who insisted on identifying the ancient Greek triremes with modern steamers. Collingwood R. G. , An autobiography (Oxford, 1978; orig. publ. 1939), 64.

Interestingly the 1936 paper was cited by most of the later articles on pancreas transplantation following this interpretation of the earlier experiments.

Cf. Collingwood , op. cit. (ref. 34), 59, on this approach in the history of philosophy and political history. According to Collingwood the history of political theory is “not the history of different answers given to one and the same question, but the history of a problem more or less constantly changing, whose solution was changing with it”, ibid., 62, see also pp. 29–76.

After Butterfield H. , The Whig interpretation of history (London, 1931).

Woolgar , op. cit. (ref. 12), 258.

“The sense of individual activities and events … depends on their location in a common collection of relevancies”, ibid., 259.

Latour , op. cit. (ref. 14), 37–40.

Woolgar , op. cit. (ref. 12), 251–3.

See Law J. Williams R. J. , “Putting facts together: A study of scientific persuasion”, Social studies of science, xii (1982), 535–58, p. 551.

Fleck L. , Genesis and development of a scientific fact (Chicago and London, 1979; orig. publ. 1935), 119 (note that here ‘we’ is not meant to include the reader but refers to a collective of producers of scientific facts). For another sociological account of how in the scientific paper “scientists themselves create that appearance of impersonality, detachment and universality which sociologists have customarily regarded as literally descriptive of social action and technical belief in science”, see Gilbert N. Mulkay M. , “Contexts of scientific discourse: Social accounting in experimental papers”, in Knorr Krohn Whitley (eds), op. cit. (ref. 12), 269–94, p. 270, and for the usage of an impersonal style see p. 272.

Latour , op. cit. (ref. 14), 31.

Latour B. Woolgar S. , Laboratory life: The social construction of scientific facts (Beverly Hills and London, 1979), 54, on neuroendocrinology (referring to Barthes R. , Mythologies (Paris, 1957)).

Lawrence , op. cit. (ref. 3), 2. On heroism in surgery see ibid., 27–29.

Carrel is mentioned in such a way e.g. by Bos M. , The diffusion of heart and liver transplantation across Europe (London, 1991), 7, 11–12, 15; Moore F. D. , Give and take: The development of tissue transplantation (Philadelphia and London, 1964), 42–46; and Hardy J. D. , “Organ transplantation”, in Mead R. H. (ed.), An introduction to the history of general surgery (Philadelphia, London, Toronto, 1968), 364–74, p. 365.

Largiadèr F. , “History of organ transplantation”, in Largiadèr F. (ed.), Organ transplantation (Stuttgart, 1970), 2–12, p. 4.

As with Pasteur in regard to bacteriology and hygiene in France, Carrel was considered to be solely responsible for a movement which he followed, accompanied, and sometimes preceded, see Latour B. , The pasteurization of France (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1988), 15. For evidence that organ transplantation had been invented before Carrel see Schlich T. , “Changing disease identities: Cretinism, politics and surgery (1844–1892)”, Medical history, xxxviii (1994), 421–43.

Hardy , op. cit. (ref. 47), 365.

Ibid. Hamilton D. , “A history of transplantation”, in Morris P. J. (ed), Tissue transplantation (London, 1982), 1–13, p. 3. Saunders J. B. deC. M. , “A conceptual history of transplantation”, in Najarian J. S. Simmons R. L. (eds), Transplantation (Munich, Berlin, Vienna, 1972), 3–25, pp. 10, 17.

Lawrence , op. cit. (ref. 3), 7. Jacyna L. S. , “Images of John Hunter in the nineteenth century”, History of science, xxi (1983), 85–108.

Journal of the American Medical Association , ccviii (1968), 2834–5, p. 2834. Hardy , op. cit. (ref. 47), 364. Hamilton , op. cit. (ref. 51), 1. Saunders , op. cit. (ref. 51), 16.

Martin C. H. , “John Hunter and tissue transplantation”, Surgery, gynecology and obstetrics, cxxxi (1970), 306–10, pp. 306 and 309.

Saunders , op. cit. (ref. 51), 16. The theory that later scientists had taken Hunter's work as a basis for what subsequently became hormone research has been refuted by historians, see Jörgensen C. Barker , John Hunter, A. A. Berthold, and the origins of endocrinology (Odense, 1971).

Converse J. M. Casson P. R. , “The historical background of transplantation”, in Rapaport F. T. Dausset J. (eds), Human transplantation (New York and London, 1968), 3–9, p. 3. Anon., “After 25 centuries, 1968 became ‘The year of transplants’”, Journal of the American Medical Association , ccvi (1968), 2834–5. Largiadèr , op. cit. (ref. 48), 2. Floersheim G. L. , Transplantationsbiologie: Eine Einführung (Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, 1971), 1. Hamilton , op. cit. (ref. 51), 1. Saunders , op. cit. (ref. 51), 7–8.

Largiadèr , op. cit. (ref. 48), 2.

Latour , op. cit. (ref. 14), 36.

See Lawrence , op. cit. (ref. 3), 2.

Ibid., 9.

Largiadèr , op. cit. (ref. 48), 2.

Ibid., 2.

Anon., op. cit. (ref. 56), 2834.

Martin , op. cit. (ref. 54), 306.

See e.g. Floersheim , op. cit. (ref. 56), 1, Hamilton , op. cit. (ref. 51), 1, Saunders , op. cit. (ref. 51), 15, and the following references.

Frey E. F. , “Saints in medical history”, Clio medica, xiv (1979), 35–70, p. 50.

On the original legend see Fichtner G. , “Das verpflanzte Mohrenbein — Zur Interpretation der Kosmas-und-Damian-Legende”, Medizinhistorisches Journal, iii (1968), 87–100.

Kahan B. D. , “Cosmas and Damian in the 20th century”, The new English journal of medicine, cccv (1981), 280–1, p. 280.

Hardy , op. cit. (ref. 47), 364.

Frey , op. cit. (ref. 66), 50. Martin , op. cit. (ref. 54), 306.

Hardy , op. cit. (ref. 47), 364. Frey , op. cit. (ref. 66), 49.

Black K. S. , “Cosmas and Damian in the laboratory”, The New England journal of medicine, cccvi (1982), 368–9.

Martin , op. cit. (ref. 54), 306.

Kahan , op. cit. (ref. 68), 280.

Kahan B. D. , “Cosmos and Damian revisited”, Transplantation proceedings, xv (1983), no. 4, Suppl. 1, 2211–16, p. 2213. In this, his second contribution on the subject, the author regards the identification of the medieval miracle with modern transplantation much more critically, writing: “The concept of transplantation was totally alien to the times in which the miracle took place.”.

Kahan , op. cit. (ref. 68), 281.

Kahan , op. cit. (ref. 75), 2216.

Borel J. F. , “Cyclosporine: Historical perspectives”, Transplantation proceedings, xv (1983), no. 4, suppl. 1, 2219–29, p. 2219.

Ibid., 2227–8.

Lawrence , op. cit. (ref. 3), 9.

Hardy , op. cit. (ref. 47), 364.

Saunders , op. cit. (ref. 51), 5.

Woolgar , op. cit. (ref. 14), 61, 69, and chaps. 4 and 5 (pp. 53–82).

“The enduring respect for the work and achievements of ‘great men' … stems from and, in turn, reinforces the idea that agency is basically incidental to the actual character of the world 'out there’”, ibid., 27.

Fleck , op. cit. (ref. 43), 144.

Woolgar , op. cit. (ref. 12), 253–6. Woolgar , op. cit. (ref. 14), 76.

Floersheim , op. cit. (ref. 56), 1.

Largiadèr , op. cit. (ref. 48), 2.

Hardy , op. cit. (ref. 47), 364.

Floersheim , op. cit. (ref. 56), 1.

Saunders , op. cit. (ref. 51), 15.

Borel , op. cit. (ref. 78), 2219.

Kahan B. D. , “Ganesha: The primeval Hindu xenograft”, Transplantation proceedings, xxi (1989), no. 2, suppl. 1, 1–8.

Ibid., 3–4.

Ibid., 8.

Converse Casson , op. cit. (ref. 56), 3.

Largiadèr , op. cit. (ref. 48), 2.

“Eine der äußersten Verlockungen der Medizin muß es ja immer gewesen sein, kranke, verletzte oder abgenutzte Organe durch neue zu ersetzen”, Floersheim , op. cit. (ref. 56), 1.

About “translating interests” see Latour , op. cit. (ref. 14), 108–21.

Moore , op. cit. (ref. 47), p. vi.

Anon., op. cit. (ref. 56), 2834–5 (a headline occupying two pages).

Ibid., 2834.

Borel , op. cit. (ref. 78), 2219.

Ibid.

This fits in with another example of “naturalizing surgery”, the discovery of twentieth-century therapeutic aims in neolithic trephination and other procedures of primitive peoples which leads to the implicit attribution of such purposes even to animals. See Lawrence , op. cit. (ref. 3), 16.

Latour Woolgar , op. cit. (ref. 45), 106, 174–6.

Analogous to the history of science which “retrospectively construes cultural activities” as comparable with what is “presently known as science”, Woolgar , op. cit. (ref. 14), 19.

Lawrence , op. cit. (ref. 3), 15.

This is not to say that surgeons cannot contribute to writing the history of their speciality. On the contrary, they are the experts on the field. Historians and surgeons can profit from cooperation. Thus surgeons who are interested in the history of surgery will see that a genuinely historical view of the past may be more interesting and attractive for them too.