This paper focuses on childbirth in Japan's aristocratic households during the Heian period (794-1185). Drawing on various sources, including court diaries, visual sources, literary records, and Japan's first medical collection, with its assortment of gynaecological and obstetric prescriptions, as well as Buddhist and other ritual texts, this short excursion into the cultural...
While married female members of the Japanese aristocracy followed the ideal of bearing children, female Buddhist novices and ordained women, often belonging to the aristocracy themselves, had to abstain from sexual activity and reproduction in accordance with the ordination rules. Infertility was considered with disdain by the first group, whereas not bearing children was the...
Many medical and magical texts concerning childbirth and delivery are known from ancient Egypt. Most of them are spells, incantations, remedies and prescriptions for the woman in labour in order to accelerate the delivery or protect the unborn child and parturient. The medical and magical texts do not contain any descriptions of parturition itself, but there are some literary...
This article offers, in the first place, an overview on women's healthcare in relation to childbirth in ancient Mesopotamia, as an introduction that helps to evaluate the meaning of the 7th century Assur text BAM 248 within therapeutic cuneiform texts on childbirth. We proceed to analyse the variety of therapeutic approaches to childbirth present in BAM 248, which brings together...
This article contributes a study of Maria Serrallach Juliá (1905-1992), one of the first specialised librarians in Spain. Between 1937 and 1975, she directed the Seminary of Chemistry of the University of Barcelona (initials in Spanish, SQUB), the name given to the space that resulted from the merger of the libraries of the Faculties of Pharmacy and Chemistry of the University...
This article analyses the organisation of cancer control in Argentina, with a special focus on the initiatives, institutions, and models that targeted female or gynaecological cancers. It identifies and examines the main factors in the process of elaborating a national policy to control the disease drawing on a series of actors and instruments such as the state, medical...
The implementation of the Pap test as a primary technology in the control of cervical cancer in Brazil was the result of choices, agreements and disputes among certain professional groups, including physicians from various specialisations, pharmacists, biologists, biomedical scientists and cytotechnologists. The first part of the paper describes the process of formulating Brazil...
The Aristides Maltez Hospital in Salvador (Bahia) was inaugurated in 1952. The hospital was a philanthropic institution of the Bahian League Against Cancer. The Aristides Maltez Hospital specialised in cancer treatment, especially cervical cancer, and became a reference centre for the control of cancer in northeastern Brazil. This article follows the creation and consolidation of...
Alter Laboratories and the group of companies developed by Juan José Alonso Grijalba (1894-1962) under Franco’s regime held the Catholic social doctrine as the foundation of his business. This pharmacist was a strong advocate and propagandist of these ideas. In this paper, we outline the biography of this entrepreneur, describe his ideological principles, and analyze how these...
This essay draws attention to the role of the WHO in shaping research agendas in the biomedical sciences in the postwar era. It considers in particular the genetic studies of human populations that were pursued under the aegis of the WHO from the late 1950s to 1970s. The study provides insights into how human and medical genetics entered the agenda of the WHO. At the same time...
The transnational approach of the science and technology studies (S&TS) abandons the nation as a unit of analysis in order to understand the development of science history. It also abandons Euro-US-centred narratives in order to explain the role of international collaborative networks and the circulation of knowledge, people, artefacts and scientific practices. It is precisely...
The aim of this paper is to describe the early stages of Mexican nuclearization that took place in contact with radioisotopes. This history requires a multilayered narrative with an emphasis in North-South asymmetric relations, and in the value of education and training in the creation of international asymmetrical networks. Radioisotopes were involved in exchanges with the...
Federico Olóriz introduced in Spain a method of identification based on fingerprints that is now used in various other countries. Among the numerous studies he performed for this purpose is a hitherto unpublished experiment reported in this paper. The objective was to test whether fleshy parts of fingers that undergo manipulation can maintain their dermal folds in a manner that...
In this paper, we analyse the contribution of the anatomical school of José Escolar (1913-1998) to embryology during the first two decades of the Francoist dictatorship. Special attention is paid to the process by which the Spanish group, with the support of the new Superior National Research Council, made contact with the German morphology being developed by Hugo Spatz (1888...
Penicillin's trajectory towards becoming an effective antibacterial chemotherapeutic agent took place during World War II. Its strategic military value was immediately recognised by the Allies, and mass production was undertaken with the prime objective of meeting the needs of the armed forces. News of its development came to be widely reported on in the media and is examined...
The Latin translation of Aristotle's books on animals, which was carried out during the middle ages, lead to the dissemination of new theories in the field of biology and zoology in the western culture. From the second half of the 13th century, this group of books contributed to the development of a new medical practice based on the recovery of classical authorities and natural...
The objective of this article is to analyze the background of the historiography of psychoanalysis in Rio de Janeiro. Three different phases and approaches are analyzed, based on the viewpoints of different groups of authors. The first group features authors who displayed an early interest in the subject, in the 1920's-1930's. The second refers to psychiatrists/psychoanalysts who...
For most physicians, the assessment of disability in cases of work accident or occupational disease is very relative matter, and clinical judgments are subjective and unsatisfactory in legal settings. Work accident legislation gives them the task of deciding on any causal links between accident and disease and indicating any economic compensation that should be awarded. They must...
During the first third of the 20th century, the dental profession in Spain was disputed by several groups of healthcare professionals, including surgery practitioners and dental technicians. The most intense conflict was between dentists and stomatologists. In the case of Valencia, this struggle became apparent in the attempt to create a dental school during the first Spanish...
The objective of this study was to reconstruct the professional identity of the practicante (male assistant in medicine and surgery) by analyzing three professional journals of this collective in Zaragoza (Aragón). The discourse of practicantes on their profession insists that they were the only assistants for physicians with technical qualities. This affirmation constituted a...