Animal cognition: 1900-2000

During the 20th century there has been considerable progress in the study of animal cognition, based on essential ideas that were developed earlier. These essential ideas include the metaphors of the animal, the questions, the sources of hypotheses, and the types of explanations. The progress cannot be generally characterized as continuous improvement, cyclic changes, or discrete steps, but the quality of the empirical results has increased substantially since the first experiments in the field. Improvements in research methods have been primarily responsible for this progress. These have included improvements in animal husbandry, stimulus control, apparatus design, the measurement of behavior, experimental procedures, and data analysis. In the last third of the century the computer has led to major improvements in all stages of the research process in animal cognition. Although they have greatly improved the quality of the empirical results, they have not led to a general theory of animal cognition. In the near future the available research methods are likely to lead to further progress in the developments of quantitative theories of animal cognition.     

The Millennium in infectious diseases: focus on the last Century 1900-2000

Among the myriad remarkable changes in the last thousand years has been the evolution of our understanding and management of infectious diseases. To encapsulate a millennium of change is a daunting task, because the progress that has been made has been monumental in scope and breadth, with individual achievments of immense proportions. Hence, I have chosen to look at a snapshot of the last century with a focus on the years 1900 and 2000, with a brief analysis of the changes that have accounted for the obvious differences in the two eras. I have chosen this period because of the remarkable changes that have occurred and because that period provided both greater and more significant advances than in the preceding 900 years.     

Reflections on the reproductive sciences in agriculture in the UK and US, ca. 1900-2000+

This paper provides a brief comparative overview of the development of the reproductive sciences especially in agriculture in the UK and the US. It begins with the establishment by F. H. A. Marshall in 1910 of the boundaries that framed the reproductive sciences as distinct from genetics and embryology. It then examines how and where the reproductive sciences were taken up in agricultural research settings, focusing on the differential development of US and UK institutions. The reproductive sciences were also pursued in medical and biological settings, and I discuss how the intersections among all three allowed the circulation of both ideas and scientists' careers. Across the twentieth century, scientific leadership in the reproductive sciences alternated between the UK and US, and these patterns are elucidated. I conclude with thoughts on future research that might emphasize the elaboration of industrialization processes in agriculture and new capacities to transform both reproductive processes and their products--life itself--as biopower comes to be more ambitiously understood as extending across all species.     

Diversity in American biology, 1900-1940

This paper argues both that the decentralized and democratic context in the United States prior to World War II encouraged the development of diverse approaches, programs, and institutional supports for the biological sciences, and that the resulting pluralism is consistent with the complex and messy ways that science is used in a democratic society. This is not a claim that only U.S. science experiences such diversity, nor that the way science plays out in our American form of modified constitutional democracy, are unique. Rather, my intention is to underline the particular character of the diversity and its implications for science and to begin further discussion of this phenomenon. I challenge others to pursue comparative analysis for other places and times, so that we can begin to explore more deeply what meaning this diversity--or the lack thereof--holds for science more generally.     

The rise of peptic ulcer, 1900-1950

The seeming increase in the incidence of peptic ulcer after 1900 quickly occupied the attention of physicians. Their understanding and treatment of peptic ulcer was shaped not only by new diagnostic tools, but by differences between contesting medical specialties, broad concepts or paradigms current in the larger medical and scientific community, and prevailing social and ideological beliefs. Surgeons and internists, for example, were often at odds over appropriate therapies; each maintained that personal experiences demonstrated the efficacy of their therapies. Nor were etiological theories derived from empirical data. The claim that peptic ulcer resulted from focal infections was simply a reflection of the popularity of germ theory. Other explanations included the role of stress, race, constitutional makeup, psychosomatic factors, and the pressures of modern industrial society. Virtually all were derivative and reflected social and intellectual currents that were common in the larger society of which medicine was but a part. Thus, the history of peptic ulcer during the first half of the 20th century provides an instructive and in many ways a typical case study in the complexities posed by the emergence of modern medicine.     

The taxonomy of Brazilian insects vectors of transmissible diseases (1900-2000)--then and now

A brief historical overview is given of the most relevant taxonomic studies of insect groups vectors of transmissible diseases in Brazil, from the "heroic" times of the foundation of the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz in Rio de Janeiro up to the present. The following orders are considered: Phthiraptera (Anoplura, Amblycera and Ischnocera), Hemiptera (Reduviidae: Triatominae), Siphonaptera and Diptera (Culicidae, Ceratopogonidae, Psychodidae: Phlebotominae, Simuliidae, Tabanidae, Chloropidae and Muscidae). The most important Brazilian collections of each group are cited.     

Politics of heredity--Germany 1900-1940, a brief overview

The paper gives a brief overview of the main stages of development of eugenics and race hygiene in Germany between 1900 and 1940. Two main stages can be differentiated: one, the formation of the eugenics movement and its development parallel to quantitative population policy before and after World War I, and the second beginning toward the end of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) when the financial crisis of the public health system favored eugenic schemes implemented by an authoritarian government, such as the Nazi regime.     

Photosynthesis: 1900-1930.

During the second half of the 19th century Julius von Sachs established the main principles of the photosynthetic production of sugars. From then, a growing number of biochemists and physiologists attended to the process, that appeared like a "black box", in order to detect what came in and what went out of it. The English group of Frederick Blackman gave a remarkable contribution in individuating the close connection between temperature, light and CO2 concentration. Later, the great importance of light was stressed by Otto Warburg, who evaluated the radiant energy necessary to the process in terms of quantum theory. The biochemical mechanism of photosynthesis was interpreted by the main European schools on the basis of Adolf Baeyer's suggestion which posed formaldehyde as the core of the process. Formaldehyde's theory hold engaged the biochemists for about fifty years although some voices rose up against it. However, nobody could put forward more coherent theories until the 1940s, when Sam Ruben and Martin Kamen individuated the cyclic pattern of the process. Ultimately, the first thirty years of the 20th century must be seen as a preliminary stage studded with light and shade even if, in spite of controversial trends, several findings of remarkable interest became to disclose that "black box" as we know today chlorophyll photosynthesis.