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The study of facial expression and its musculature undertaken by
Guillaume-Benjamin Duchenne de Boulogne in 1862, an attempt to
secure biological meaning in the natural language of the emotions,
resulted in the pioneering "Mechanisme du physiognomie humaine,"
Duchenne, who used photography to document his experiments,
inspired Charles Darwin's "Expression of the Emotions in Man and
Animals" (1872) and had a significant influence on artists (his
teachings were incorporated into the curriculum of the Ecole
Normale Superieur des Beaux Arts). Through Duchenne, Francois
Delaporte provides a remarkable philosophical and historical
examination of expressive physiology during the mid-nineteenth
century and considers the science of emotion as a means of
revealing inner life upon the surface of the face. The central
concern of "Anatomy of the Passions" is how techniques of studying
facial musculature became a point of contact between existing and
novel understandings of the body's expressive anatomy. Delaporte
shows that Duchenne entirely reordered the knowledge and limits of
expressive physiology in science and art. The face became a site
where the signs of inner life are silently revealed, not yet
betrayed by speech, but brought forth by reflexive physiology or by
technical manipulation.
Georges Canguilhem is one of France's foremost historians of
science. Trained as a medical doctor as well as a philosopher, he
combined these practices to demonstrate to philosophers that there
could be no epistemology without concrete study of the actual
development of the sciences and to historians that there could be
no worthwhile history of science without a philosophical
understanding of the conceptual basis of all knowledge. A Vital
Rationalist brings together for the first time a selection of
Canguilhem's most important writings, including excerpts from
previously unpublished manuscripts and a critical bibliography by
Camille Limoges.Organized around the major themes and problems that
have preoccupied Canguilhem throughout his intellectual career, the
collection allows readers, whether familiar or unfamiliar with
Canguilhem's work, access to a vast array of conceptual and
concrete meditations on epistemology, methodology, science, and
history. Canguilhem is a demanding writer, but Delaporte succeeds
in marking out the main lines of his thought with unrivaled
clarity; readers will come away with a heightened understanding of
the complex and crucial place he holds in French intellectual
history.Georges Canguilhem is Professor Emeritus at the Sorbonne
and former director of the Institut d'Histoire des Sciences et des
Techniques de l'Universite de Paris. His works include La
Connaissance de la Vie, Ideology and Rationality in the History of
the Life Sciences, and The Normal and the Pathological. Francois
Delaporte is a Research Associate at the Institut National de la
Sante et de la Recherche Medicale in Paris. He is the author of
Disease and Civilization and The History of Yellow Fever."
Francois Delaporte's Chagas Disease chronicles Brazilian medicine's
encounter with a disease, an insect, and a history of discovery.
Between 1909 and 1911, Carlos Chagas described an infection
(pathogenic trypanosome), its intermediate host, and the illness
that he believed it caused, parasitic thyroiditis. Chagas's work
did not lack significance: the disease that came to share his name
would be one of Latin America's most serious endemic diseases.
However, the clinical identification of the disease through
"Romana's sign" (a palpebral edema or swelling of the eyelid) some
decades later marked a transformation in the general medical
knowledge of the disease and its basis altogether. Not only was the
disease entity that Chagas had described shown to be a nosological
illusion, but twenty-five years of scientific controversy turned
out to have been based on a misunderstanding. The continued use of
the term "Chagas's Disease" even after Cecilio Romana's discovery
thus refers to a fundamental ambiguity. Delaporte dispels this
ambiguity by re-examining the various discoveries, dead ends,
controversies, and major epistemological transformations that
marked the history of the disease--a history that begins with the
creation of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute in Rio de Janeiro and ends
in the forests of Santa Fe in northern Argentina. Delaporte's study
shows how an epistemological focus can add depth to the history of
medicine and complexity to accounts of scientific discovery.
The study of facial expression and its musculature undertaken by
Guillaume-Benjamin Duchenne de Boulogne in 1862, an attempt to
secure biological meaning in the natural language of the emotions,
resulted in the pioneering "Mechanisme du physiognomie humaine,"
Duchenne, who used photography to document his experiments,
inspired Charles Darwin's "Expression of the Emotions in Man and
Animals" (1872) and had a significant influence on artists (his
teachings were incorporated into the curriculum of the Ecole
Normale Superieur des Beaux Arts). Through Duchenne, Francois
Delaporte provides a remarkable philosophical and historical
examination of expressive physiology during the mid-nineteenth
century and considers the science of emotion as a means of
revealing inner life upon the surface of the face. The central
concern of "Anatomy of the Passions" is how techniques of studying
facial musculature became a point of contact between existing and
novel understandings of the body's expressive anatomy. Delaporte
shows that Duchenne entirely reordered the knowledge and limits of
expressive physiology in science and art. The face became a site
where the signs of inner life are silently revealed, not yet
betrayed by speech, but brought forth by reflexive physiology or by
technical manipulation.
What does the infamous face transplant in France in 2005 share with
the examination of "swollen faces" in Latin America in the 1930s?
What does blood transfusion in Europe during the 17th century have
in common with the discovery of mosquitoes as parasitic vectors in
China at the close of the 19th century? And, last, how does the
reconstruction of noses using skin flaps in Bologna in the 16th
century relate to the opening of a forehead cyst in Guatemala in
1916? The six essays that form Figures of Medicine present a wealth
of symmetries. Francois Delaporte shows that each epistemological
concern demands its own mode of engagement; problems reside not
only in their objects but also in the historical situations in
which they emerge. Focusing on efforts to resolve medical problems
that are particular and nonetheless exemplary, Delaporte unpacks
these separate cases to show how multiple actors-over long periods
of time and across different geographies-must be taken into account
to remove epistemological blockages that stand in the way of
understanding. A remarkable contribution to the history of science
and medicine, this book shows the value of historical epistemology
from philosophical, historical, and anthropological perspectives.
What does the infamous face transplant in France in 2005 share with
the examination of "swollen faces" in Latin America in the 1930s?
What does blood transfusion in Europe during the 17th century have
in common with the discovery of mosquitoes as parasitic vectors in
China at the close of the 19th century? And, last, how does the
reconstruction of noses using skin flaps in Bologna in the 16th
century relate to the opening of a forehead cyst in Guatemala in
1916? The six essays that form Figures of Medicine present a wealth
of symmetries. Francois Delaporte shows that each epistemological
concern demands its own mode of engagement; problems reside not
only in their objects but also in the historical situations in
which they emerge. Focusing on efforts to resolve medical problems
that are particular and nonetheless exemplary, Delaporte unpacks
these separate cases to show how multiple actors-over long periods
of time and across different geographies-must be taken into account
to remove epistemological blockages that stand in the way of
understanding. A remarkable contribution to the history of science
and medicine, this book shows the value of historical epistemology
from philosophical, historical, and anthropological perspectives.
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