Gerald L. Geison - US grants

This application seeks support for the preparation and publication of a monographic history of physiology in the United States from c. 1870 to c. 1940. Physiology has not yet received systematic attention from historians of American science, whose disciplinary studies have thus far focused chiefly on physics and genetics. The proposed study would thus fill a major lacuna in the history of American science. It would combine biography with institutional and intellectual history to construct a profile of American experimental physiology from its origins as an "importer" of European institutional models and research traditions through the period when it achieved full parity, and in some areas preeminence, within the international physiological community. In seeking to explain this rapid rise of American physiology, attention would be paid to the full range of contributing factors, including funding levels, institutional arrangements, and the intellectual "style" of American physiology. Consideration would also be given to the relationship of physiology to medical education and medical practice in the United States. It is hoped that the resulting monograph would be of particular value in connection with the forthcoming centennial activities of the American Physiological Society, culminating in the Society's annual meeting of 1987.

Dr. Geison is examining the history of physiology at four leading research schools in the discipline in the United States before World War II: Chicago, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Washington University, St. Louis. Despite a rapidly growing body of literature on the history of the biomedical sciences in the United States, the technical and conceptual content of physiology has attracted little attention. Of the four schools he is studying, only Harvard has been examined previously in any detail, and even in that case much remains to be done. This study represents a preliminary phase in a broader study of the social, conceptual, and technical history of American physiology. That larger study seeks to test the hypothesis that one can identify a distinctively "American" (or at least "Anglo- American") style of physiology, characterized by decentralized models of biological control hormones. The initial focus here is physiology at Chicago, partly because the research there carried out by A. J. Carlson seems to run against the grain of this alleged "American style" but also because of an accelerating activity in the history of science at Chicago as that university approaches its centennial celebration in 1992--thus allowing a comparative study of physiology with the other branches of the history of biology being studied there. If this exploratory study works out, a broader research program will be pursued.

9320251 Geison Spontaneous generation--the theory that living cells can "spontaneously" develop from inert matter--has had a long, controversial history. The "correct" view since the 19th century is that spontaneous generation does not occur. Yet, unless there was some point in the history of the universe in which spontaneous generation of life occurred, then evolutionists are confronted with two options: divine intervention or the existence of "vital" matter. While neither of these options are inconsistent with evolution, they implicitly undermine evolutionary theory and, at least in the first option, play into the hands of creationists. If a god had to intervene at least once to create life, what prevents that god from intervening again to direct the development of species? So how is it that biologists have worked so energetically to disprove spontaneous generation? This is the issue that James Strick, under the direction of Dr. Gerald Geison, is examining in his doctoral dissertation. Mr. Strick has found that the spontaneous generation controversies in Britain offer a unique window into many areas of biological theory developing in the 19th century. These areas include biological explanations of inheritance, development, evolution, generation and cell theory. The debates over spontaneous generation reveal how thoroughly entwined into a single problem complex all these areas were, to a greater extent than has been appreciated previously. In addition, ideas in biology and physics about the nature of molecules and their role as simplest elements of life underwent rapid change during this period, exemplified by the debate over the significance of Brownian motion and Brown's "active molecules." This was an integral strand of the problem complex which has been almost totally ignored. Any attempt to explain why spontaneous generation lost favor so decisively after 1880 must explore all of these clusters of ideas which were pillars of support for sponta neous generation theories. Shifts in institutional power between the medical community and programs in experimental biology also played a major part in the demise of spontaneous generation theories. The maneuvering for control of prestige and power in British science by the Darwinian "X-club" during this period involved rhetorical strategies to make evolutionary theory more respectable by actively disengaging it from the traditionally linked doctrine of spontaneous generation. In order to undertake this study, Mr. Strick is examining archives in the United States, Great Britain and France--the centers of scientific work on this issue. ***

Geison/Kellman: Doctoral Dissertation Research With the Hubble Space Telescope, the Super-conducting Super Collider, the Human Genome Project and LIGO, we frequently think that "Big" science is a product of the 20th century and principally in the area of physics or astronomy. A science with the longest history of "big" science, however, is oceanography. Even today, NSF and NOAA must spend millions of dollars to construct oceanographic vessels and equipment. Expeditions remain extremely expensive. Yet nations have invested in major ocean-going scientific expeditions for at least three centuries. The ostensible reason for these expeditions is the advance of knowledge and the concomitant economic development that comes from scientific knowledge. Yet even today, these voyages serve political and commercial as well as scientific purposes. Ocean margin drilling, for example, not only advances our understanding of the ocean floors but tells us what minerals may be on the ocean floor that our companies might "mine" and supports our positions in the negotiations over Law of the Sea treaties. Mr. Kellman, under the direction of Dr. Geison, is examining the wave of French scientific voyages that charted the Pacific and southern oceans. His focus is an analysis of the scientific projects planned in Paris and carried out on board, using the wealth of unpublished logbooks and other manuscript sources. He is exploring the meaning of science for these voyages, looking for the way individual disciplines, as well as general methodology interacted with the various forces behind the expedition. He sees these voyages in the greater context of the political, commercial and philosophical aims of French overseas exploration and development. The scientific results of these voyages often reflect the diversity of forces behind them. In natural history, a new focus on the varieties of humans led to the emergence of anthropology. In hydrography and geography, new methods and standards of mathematical r igor were adopted. A new ethos of quantification and precision served as both a motivation and a result of these expeditions. This project will give a new sense to the term "scientific voyages" and show how "science" came to stand for a particular approach and set of methods, equally useful to the academies, to the state, and to commerce.

This project will investigate the connections between the intellectual and cultural changes during the Chemical Revolution in France in order to illuminate the cultural and intellectual reasons why certain theoretical conclusions were reached, and conversely, the effect of those theoretical conclusions on the culture of chemistry in France. The project aims to broaden the evidentiary and interpretive scope of current scholarship by including the host of savants who sought to propel chemistry forward to its revolutionary conclusions as well as those who tried to stem that revolutionary tide. The study will chart the changes during the Chemical Revolution along four integrated axes of historical analysis: communities, practices, institutions, and theories. Thus, examination will be made of the competing groups in the chemical community and how these sub-communities interacted among themselves and with other intellectual and social groupings; the experimental, textual, and social practices that characterized the various chemical factions; the institutions in which chemists learned and practiced their science; and the intellectual agendas and theoretical commitments in play during the episode.