The Rude Unhinging: A Study of Shock
2015-11
Loading...
View/Download File
Persistent link to this item
Statistics
View StatisticsJournal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Title
The Rude Unhinging: A Study of Shock
Authors
Published Date
2015-11
Publisher
Type
Thesis or Dissertation
Abstract
In the early 19th century, the basic intellectual tenets of medicine underwent significant change. From a practice of nosology, disease classification, and a focus on the subjective and the symptom emerged an epistemology that looked for objective clinical signs that denoted the presence in the body of disease-defining pathologic lesions. Yet this physical, tangible identity of disease was challenged by the presence of functional diseases, which were readily identified but difficult to define, as they left no diagnostic mark upon their sufferers’ bodies. Shock, a readily apparent, omnipresent phenomenon which could complicate injury, childbirth, certain disease states, and medical therapies, was one such condition. This study looks at how physicians and surgeons in the 19th century attempted to create an intellectual model for shock, so as to better define, recognize, and treat it. We will explore how technological change and social conditions affected this understanding, and how both traditional and novel theoretical models were invoked to explain it. We will also look at attempts to understand shock as examples of Kuhnian normal science, for even as technology changed in the early 20th century, and shock could be expressed and described in very modern-seeming ways, the underlying models and concepts that defined shock changed very little.
Keywords
Description
University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation.November 2015. Major: History of Medicine and Biological Sciences. Advisor: Jennifer Gunn. 1 computer file (PDF); iv, 197 pages.
Related to
Replaces
License
Collections
Series/Report Number
Funding information
Isbn identifier
Doi identifier
Previously Published Citation
Suggested citation
Bulander, Robert. (2015). The Rude Unhinging: A Study of Shock. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/177063.
Content distributed via the University Digital Conservancy may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor. By using these files, users agree to the Terms of Use. Materials in the UDC may contain content that is disturbing and/or harmful. For more information, please see our statement on harmful content in digital repositories.