Nordlund, Christer (Author)
In the first half of the twentieth century, hormones took pride of place as life's master molecules, and the endocrinologist took precedence over the geneticist as the scientist offering the means to control life. But, as with genetics and biotechnology today, the status of endocrinology was not only based on contemporary scientific and medical practices but also, to a high degree, on expectations, or visions, about what endocrinologists would be able to do in the future. Inspired by the research field social studies of techno-scientific expectations, the aim of this article is to explore some of the great expectations that were connected to the development of endocrinology in the 1930s. The analysis is based on popular books written by the American endocrinologist Louis Berman, who worked in New York City most of his life, part time at Columbia University. In 1921, Berman reached fame for his book The glands regulating personality, which was a study of the glands of internal secretion in relation to what Berman called the types of human nature. In the journal Science, Berman later named his approach psycho-endocrinology. In the 1930s, Berman not only argued that it was possible to understand human nature through hormone analysis, but that endocrinologists would also be able to control and improve human nature by using hormone therapy. Furthermore, in contrast to most of the eugenics of his time, Berman suggested that the whole population of the world should be improved, not only humans within a specific race or in specific nations. As a political activist of the 1930s, Berman wanted to contribute to the development of new creations in human beings, ideal normal persons, and thereby to reach an ideal society. That such large-scale hormone replacement therapy could involve risks, such as side effects, was something that Berman seems not to have taken into account.
...More
Book
Randi Hutter Epstein;
(2018)
Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything
(/isis/citation/CBB966154025/)
Book
Subramaniam, Banu;
(2014)
Ghost Stories for Darwin. The Science of Variation and the Politics of Diversity
(/isis/citation/CBB001500575/)
Article
Nordlund, Christer;
(2007)
Endocrinology and Expectations in 1930s America: Louis Berman's Ideas on New Creations in Human Beings
(/isis/citation/CBB000771302/)
Book
Müller-Wille, Staffan;
Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg;
(2012)
A Cultural History of Heredity
(/isis/citation/CBB001251195/)
Article
Pettit, Michael;
(2013)
Becoming Glandular: Endocrinology, Mass Culture and Experimental Lives in the Interwar Age
(/isis/citation/CBB001320915/)
Article
Bonnichon, Philippe;
Charbit, Lionel;
Proye, Charles;
(2006)
Histoire de la chirurgie des glandes parathyroïdes
(/isis/citation/CBB000931802/)
Book
Amir Teicher;
(2019)
Social Mendelism: Genetics and the Politics of Race in Germany, 1900-1948
(/isis/citation/CBB585433440/)
Book
Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg;
(2010)
An Epistemology of the Concrete
(/isis/citation/CBB001023158/)
Article
Alexander von Schwerin;
(2015)
Shaping Vulnerable Bodies at the Thin Boundary between Environment and Organism: Skin, DNA Repair, and a Genealogy of DNA Care Strategies
(/isis/citation/CBB878598043/)
Book
Olby, Robert;
(2009)
Francis Crick: Hunter of Life's Secrets
(/isis/citation/CBB001021210/)
Book
Brenner, Sydney;
(2001)
A Life in Science
(/isis/citation/CBB000101007/)
Book
Bernardino Fantini;
Fabrizio Rufo;
(2017)
Il codice della vita. Una storia della genetica tra scienza e bioetica
(/isis/citation/CBB297801530/)
Article
Davies, Paul Sheldon;
(2000)
Malfunctions
(/isis/citation/CBB000111900/)
Book
Michel Morange;
(2020)
The Black Box of Biology: A History of the Molecular Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB035364586/)
Article
Powell, Alexander;
O'Malley, Maureen A.;
Müller-Wille, Staffan;
Calvert, Jane;
Dupré, John;
(2007)
Disciplinary Baptisms: A Comparison of the Naming Stories of Genetics, Molecular Biology, Genomics and Systems Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB000831324/)
Book
Ruse, Michael;
Travis, Joseph;
(2009)
Evolution: The First Four Billion Years
(/isis/citation/CBB001232307/)
Book
Nordlund, Christer;
(2011)
Hormones of Life: Endocrinology, the Pharmaceutical Industry, and the Dream of a Remedy for Sterility, 1930--1970
(/isis/citation/CBB001220738/)
Article
Hyun, Jaehwan;
(December 2019)
Racializing Chōsenjin: Science and Biological Speculations in Colonial Korea
(/isis/citation/CBB774352848/)
Book
Weiss, Sheila Faith;
(2010)
The Nazi Symbiosis: Human Genetics and Politics in the Third Reich
(/isis/citation/CBB001033360/)
Chapter
Watson, James D.;
(2010)
Genetics and Eugenics: A Personal Odyssey
(/isis/citation/CBB001035434/)
Be the first to comment!