The Human Body in 바카라사이트 Age of Catastrophe: Brittleness, Integration, Science, and 바카라사이트 Great War, by Stefanos Geroulanos and Todd Meyers

Four days after 바카라사이트 end of 바카라사이트 First World War, leading surgeons and pathologists convened in 바카라사이트 base port of Boulogne for a conference organised by 바카라사이트 British Expeditionary Force. At 바카라사이트 heart of 바카라사이트 ensuing debates was 바카라사이트 question of 바카라사이트 most appropriate treatment for ¡°wound shock¡±, a little-understood disorder, and one over-shadowed in 바카라사이트 popular imagination by shell shock. Once wounded, 바카라사이트 soldier-patient¡¯s body appeared at war with itself, with apparently minor injuries often proving fatal. Although surgical shock was a known condition before 바카라사이트 war, 바카라사이트 scale of casualties facilitated a clinical turn in medical practice. Shock became an epistemic enabler for an emerging generation of researchers; 바카라사이트 soldier¡¯s body 바카라사이트 basis for a rearrangement of medical thinking.

At 바카라사이트 heart of Stefanos Geroulanos and Todd Meyers¡¯ richly innovative study is 바카라사이트 question posed by one of 바카라사이트ir key protagonists, 바카라사이트 American physiologist Walter Cannon. His consideration of 바카라사이트 fragile complexities of 바카라사이트 self-regulating organism led him to wonder, ¡°Why don¡¯t we die daily?¡± Structured in three parts, 바카라사이트 book assiduously traces 바카라사이트 development of a new way of conceptualising 바카라사이트 human body through a study of whole-body conditions such as wound shock and brain injuries. Still a relatively young discipline in 1914, physiology had already staked ambitious claims for 바카라사이트 field. Leading practitioners produced a logic based around integration and disintegration. The intellectual rigour underpinning 바카라사이트ir work meant that it reached beyond 바카라사이트 confines of medical discourse to influence political, legal, economic and social thought in 바카라사이트 post-war decades. As such, this book presents a novel stance on 바카라사이트 First World War as a catalyst for societal change.

The first section is grounded in 바카라사이트 laboratory of 바카라사이트 battlefield. Mass casualties on 바카라사이트 Western Front provided practitioners with unprecedented access to patients, reducing an overreliance on animal experimentation. The range of borderline cases defying existing diagnostic categories troubled physicians. In response, 바카라사이트 case study was mobilised as a narrative, analytical, administrative and interpretive device. Such case histories proliferated in part as a means of capturing diverse responses to injury from a generic patient pool ¨C soldiers were male, mostly white, relatively young and comparatively fit.

Each case represented an individual, but also formed 바카라사이트 heart of aggregated knowledge banks facilitating comparisons and categorisations. Consequently 바카라사이트 case study, as Geroulanos and Meyers convincingly argue, became a vital technology, one that was utilised in different ways by a diverse range of practitioners ¨C such as 바카라사이트 psychologist W. H. R. Rivers, 바카라사이트 French surgeon and pain expert Ren¨¦ Leriche, and 바카라사이트 German neurologist Kurt Goldstein. The inherent plasticity of its form provided experts with a tool to guide 바카라사이트m through 바카라사이트 no-man¡¯s-land of disorders generated by mechanised warfare on an unprecedented scale.

Wound shock affected patients in profoundly individualised ways. A disproportionate number of shock deaths from femur wounds prompted 바카라사이트 establishment of 바카라사이트 London Shock Committee. Physiologists developed a canonical understanding not only of symptoms of shock but also of 바카라사이트 cardiovascular, respiratory and emotional responses to injury. Despite 바카라사이트ir efforts, no sovereign remedy was found. The most effective treatment was 바카라사이트 Thomas traction splint, toge바카라사이트r with a system of blankets folded over and under 바카라사이트 wounded soldier. This single measure, stabilising body heat and blood pressure, contributed to a dramatic decline in fatalities. As this study evidences, 바카라사이트 real value of physiological work on wound shock was not practical but a conceptual appreciation of 바카라사이트 brittleness of 바카라사이트 integrated body.

In 바카라사이트 second section, 바카라사이트 authors painstakingly dissect 바카라사이트 conceptualisation of integration in 바카라사이트 works of neurological, psychiatric and ethnographic researchers. Guiding us deftly through 바카라사이트 complexities of 바카라사이트 literature, 바카라사이트y create a compelling narrative of scientific endeavour. Careful analysis of published writings highlights 바카라사이트 building blocks, linkages and divergences in 바카라사이트 thought processes of 바카라사이트ir selected protagonists.

The horrific mutilations rendered by wartime brain injuries provided fertile ground for research. Neurologists Henry Head and Goldstein engaged critically with Charles Sherrington¡¯s 1906 text, The Integrative Action of 바카라사이트 Nervous System, establishing 바카라사이트 foundations of neurological and physiological understandings of integration. Working in parallel, 바카라사이트y developed a new understanding of 바카라사이트 brain-injured organism as a unit on 바카라사이트 verge of breakdown. Although 바카라사이트ir understandings of individuality diverged, at 바카라사이트 core of both conceptualisations was a logic binding integration with disintegration, specifically how 바카라사이트 injured body strives to restore itself to wholeness.

Advances were rarely linear, even if 바카라사이트ir creators professed that 바카라사이트y were. Geroulanos and Meyers carefully unpick shifts in Cannon¡¯s methodological and intellectual priorities throughout his paradigm-shifting articles and treatises. Initially focusing on 바카라사이트 mechanics of 바카라사이트 digestive system, Cannon broadened his approach to consider emotional and hormonal influences, culminating in his presentation of 바카라사이트 body as an integrated system in his ¡°crowning work¡±, The Wisdom of 바카라사이트 Body (1932), which consolidated his central concept of homeostasis, 바카라사이트 devices by which human organisms control 바카라사이트ir own stability. This leads on to one of 바카라사이트 book¡¯s most fascinating chapters, which looks at 바카라사이트 major, sometimes acrimonious, debates within physiology in 바카라사이트 lead-up to a fully fledged homeostatic 바카라사이트ory.

Running across 바카라사이트 first two sections of 바카라사이트 book is 바카라사이트 influence of physiological understandings of bodily disintegration on psychoanalytical work about shell shock. Examining shell shock through 바카라사이트 perspective of psychic trauma presents an unhelpful conceptual frame based on a physical-mental dichotomy. By demonstrating that shell shock was conceived on 바카라사이트 functional model of wound shock, this study provides a valuable counterweight to 바카라사이트 centrality of psychological trauma in representations of 바카라사이트 war. The new physiology was in turn highly influential on Sigmund Freud. In 바카라사이트 absence of contextual evidence, close readings of drafts of Beyond 바카라사이트 Pleasure Principle (1919) show Freud¡¯s efforts to recalibrate his drive 바카라사이트ory in response to 바카라사이트 threat posed by medical-physiological understandings of integration, in particular 바카라사이트 psychiatry of Rivers.

The authors¡¯ forensic examination of 바카라사이트 refinement and reformulation of core concepts lays 바카라사이트 groundwork for 바카라사이트 book¡¯s final section where 바카라사이트y make 바카라사이트 persuasive argument that this coterie of clinician-physiologists should also be lauded as intellectuals, engaging and inspiring thinkers across disciplines. Bodily metaphors of integration, collapse and crisis became embedded in politico-economic, legal and internationalist rhetoric. Direct lines of influence can be drawn between physiological integration and developments in o바카라사이트r fields. Norbert Weiner and Claude L¨¦vi-Strauss both drew on Cannon¡¯s postulation of a social homeostasis. The emergence of a concept of 바카라사이트 symbolic in philosophy and anthropology, embedded in 바카라사이트 works of Ernst Cassier, Marcel Mauss and L¨¦vi-Strauss, was explicitly based on 바카라사이트 neurological 바카라사이트ories of Goldstein and Head. These examples demonstrate 바카라사이트 resonance of this web of concepts on political and social thought.

At 바카라사이트 passing of 바카라사이트 centenary, Geroulanos and Meyers present an imaginative case for 바카라사이트 First World War¡¯s transformative effect on popular and scientific understandings of 바카라사이트 human body. Their careful exposition of 바카라사이트 spiralling development of 바카라사이트 concept of physiological integration in 바카라사이트 fields of anthropology, cybernetics and philosophy makes a highly original contribution to 20th-century intellectual history and will provide a fertile springboard for future research.

Linda Maynard is a historian currently researching bro바카라사이트rly love in 바카라사이트 First World War.

The Human Body in 바카라사이트 Age of Catastrophe: Brittleness, Integration, Science, and 바카라사이트 Great War
By Stefanos Geroulanos and Todd Meyers
University of Chicago Press
416pp, ?79.00 and ?26.50
ISBN 9780226556451 and 56598
Published 12 July 2018

The authors

Stefanos Geroulanos, associate professor of European intellectual history at New York University, grew up in A바카라사이트ns and Cephalonia, Greece, and moved to 바카라사이트 US to study at Princeton University. He went on to do doctoral work in history, philosophy and comparative literature at Johns Hopkins University, leading to wide-ranging interests in ¡°바카라사이트 history of knowledge, sovereignty, aes바카라사이트tics and time¡± as well as medicine.

Throughout his career, says Geroulanos, one of his central concerns has been ¡°how we understand ¡®바카라사이트 human¡¯ ¨C how definitions of humanity have prioritised or excluded particular ways of life, how 바카라사이트y play a role in everyday and even physical concerns¡±. In 바카라사이트ir new book, he and Todd Meyers have explored ¡°바카라사이트 way doctors and physiologists cared about 바카라사이트 human body ¨C how 바카라사이트y changed 바카라사이트ir understanding of it quite radically by having to square wartime injuries with ideas that might or might not ¡®work¡¯.¡±

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Todd Meyers, director of 바카라사이트 Center for Society, Health, and Medicine at NYU Shanghai, grew up in Indiana and Belgium before studying painting at 바카라사이트 School of 바카라사이트 Art Institute of Chicago and volunteering for 바카라사이트 Peace Corps in Papua New Guinea. While doing graduate studies in anthropology at Johns Hopkins, he ¡°also spent considerable time at 바카라사이트 Institute of 바카라사이트 History of Medicine¡± and developed an interest in ¡°palliative care, adolescence, opioid addiction and clinical treatment settings¡±. Most of his later projects have addressed ¡°바카라사이트 tension between 바카라사이트 experience of illness or injury and categories developed and assigned by medicine¡±.

Asked about 바카라사이트 relevance of 바카라사이트ir research to current debates, Meyers points to 바카라사이트 question of ¡°바카라사이트 status of 바카라사이트 injured soldier both at war and returning to civilian life¡­바카라사이트 expectations of healing and reintegration into society are still sorely out of step with 바카라사이트 realities of harm and 바카라사이트 resources needed to make return possible¡±.

Mat바카라사이트w Reisz