ArgumentThis article uses four historical case studies to address epistemological issues related to the animal model of human diseases and its use in medical research on human diseases. The knowledge derived from animal models is widely assumed to be highly valid and predictive of reactions by human organisms. In this contribution, I use three significant historical cases of failure (ca. 1890, 1960, 2006), and a closer look at the emergence of the concept around 1860/70, to elucidate core assumptions related to (...) the specific practices of animal-human knowledge transfer, and to analyze the explanations provided by historical actors after each of the failures. Based on these examples, I argue that the epistemological status of the animal model changed from that of a helpful methodological tool for addressing specific questions, but with precarious validity, to an obligatory method for the production of strong knowledge on human diseases. As a result, there now exists a culture of biomedical research in human disease that, for more than a century, has taken the value of this methodological tool as self-evident, and more or less beyond question. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer Wiesbadener Internistenkongress 1949 war Bühne für eine heftige Kontroverse zu Fragen der Methodik, Epistemologie und Evidenz in der psychosomatischen Medizin. Paul Martini, Internist und Protagonist methodisch durchgeführter klinischer Studien, kritisierte in diesem Kontext die Methodik psychosomatischer Wissensproduktion und bezweifelte die Validität der postulierten Einsichten. Ausgehend von dieser Kontroverse rekonstruiert der Beitrag die Formierung und Durchführung eines Experimentalsystems zur Entstehung der Hypertonie, in welchem der Internist und Psychosomatiker Thure von Uexküll somatische Variablen, die Subjektivität des Patienten, seine Biografie und seinen (...) sozialen Kontext zu integrieren versuchte. Die Deutungen der Patienten hatten in diesem Experimentalsystem einen privilegierten Status. Empirische Belege, Nachvollziehbarkeit und Reproduzierbarkeit – Forderungen, die Martini 1949 formuliert hatte – waren für Uexküll elementare Kriterien für relevantes und valides Wissen. (shrink)

During the last decades, medical historiography has undergone considerable changes. This review attempts an outline of the developments since 1945. The first section sketches the institutional background of the discipline focusing on the characteristic features which emerged in different national traditions. The following sections—essentially restricted to the German speaking context—describe the development of the fields in research and teaching, ranging from the history of ideas to the social history of medicine, from philogical and editorial work to the philosophy and sociology (...) of medical knowledge. (shrink)