IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB000770386

Transformasjon av liv? Rudolf Virchows oppgjør med teorien om livskraft og etableringen av den vitenskapelige medisinen (2005)

Lychnos
Pages: 63-85

Publication Date: 2005
Edition Details: Translated title: [Transforming life? Rudolf Virchow's critique of the theory of life force and the establishment of scientific medicine]. In Swedish.
Language: Swedish

Outside Links

PubMed

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Medicine Vitalism Mechanism; mechanical philosophy Psychology 19th century Germany Virchow, Rudolf Carl Müller, Johannes Peter

During the 1840s, the theory of life force was met with critique from a group of young researchers in Berlin. Common to them was that they had been students of the physiologist and physician Johannes Müller. For Müller physiology was a natural science, and the methods from the natural sciences could and should be used in it. He gave induction, empirical observation, and experiment priority, and the microscope and other technical apparatus were necessary tools for the study of physiology. Among Müller's student was Rudolf Virchow, who came to be one of the most well-known and influential German physicians during the latter part of the 19th century. Although Müller demanded an empirical foundation for theories in physiology, he still claimed that life could not be fully understood in mechanical--physical--chemical terms. Many of his students, on the other side, claimed it could. They denied the existence of a life force and opposed all sorts of theories which did not relate to an empirical reality. Why could they not, as Müller was, be empirically oriented and at the same time accept the existence of immaterial principles? The article shows that Virchow opposed the idea of a life force in order to transform medical practice. The idea of a life force included certain understandings of the human being that limited the approach Virchow was propagating. This transformation brought about different concepts of the body, life, and disease. In many ways, Virchow and his approach constituted an important foundation for modern medicine. But were these concepts as neutral as Virchow believed them to be, and was his empirical reality the only possible one?

...More

Citation URI

http://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000770386/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Book Francesco Bottaccioli; (2015)
Due vie per la medicina scientifica al suo sorgere (/isis/citation/CBB838543137/)

Chapter Carvallo, Sarah; (2006)
Histoire du tonus: ruptures ou continuité? (/isis/citation/CBB001024260/)

Article Schneck, Peter; (2007)
Die Editionsgeschichte der Wochenschrift Die medicinische Reform (1848/49) und der Briefwechsel Rudolf Virchows mit seinem Verleger Georg Reimer (/isis/citation/CBB000780193/)

Book Santos, Marco Steinert; (2009)
Virchow: medicina, ciência e sociedade no seu tempo (/isis/citation/CBB001020496/)

Article Finger, Stanley; Wade, Nicholas J.; (2002)
The Neuroscience of Helmholtz and the Theories of Johannes Müller, Part 1: Nerve Cell Structure, Vitalism, and the Nerve Impulse (/isis/citation/CBB000202036/)

Book (1993)
Das Gehirn--Organ der Seele? Zur Ideengeschichte der Neurobiologie (/isis/citation/CBB000063529/)

Article Welsh, Caroline; (2008)
Nerven-Saiten-Stimmung. Zum Wandel einer Denkfigur zwischen Musik und Wissenschaft 1750--1850 (/isis/citation/CBB000930025/)

Book Raphaele Andrault; (2016)
La Raison Des Corps: Mecanisme Et Sciences Medicales (/isis/citation/CBB538945258/)

Book Francesco Andrietti; (2013)
Vitalismo e meccanicismo in biologia: dal XVII secolo agli inizi del XIX (/isis/citation/CBB284016359/)

Article Ishizuka, Hisao; (2006)
The Elasticity of the Animal Fibre: Movement and Life in Enlightenment Medicine (/isis/citation/CBB000771569/)

Article Kaitaro, Timo; (2008)
Can Matter Mark the Hours? Eighteenth-Century Vitalist Materialism and Functional Properties (/isis/citation/CBB000831762/)

Article Wolfe, Charles T.; (2014)
Teleomechanism Redux? Functional Physiology and Hybrid Models of Life in Early Modern Natural Philosophy (/isis/citation/CBB001451908/)

Article Mario Vegetti; (2017)
Galeno contro Erasistrato (e Aristotele): Il caso della Milza (/isis/citation/CBB482059515/)

Essay Review Tatjana Buklijas; (2018)
Life Reconsidered (/isis/citation/CBB581106067/)

Article Allen, Garland E.; (2005)
Mechanism, Vitalism and Organicism in Late Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Biology: The Importance of Historical Context (/isis/citation/CBB000770690/)

Book Erik L. Peterson; (2017)
The Life Organic: The Theoretical Biology Club and the Roots of Epigenetics (/isis/citation/CBB675901053/)

Article Loison, Laurent; (2011)
French Roots of French Neo-Lamarckisms, 1879--1985 (/isis/citation/CBB001220959/)

Article Erlingsson, Steinór J.; (2002)
From Haeckelian Monist to Anti-Haeckelian Vitalist: The Transformation of the Icelandic Naturalist Thorvaldur Thoroddsen (1855--1921) (/isis/citation/CBB000300488/)

Article Allesch, Christian G.; (2012)
Hans Driesch and the Problems of “Normal Psychology”. Rereading His Crisis in Psychology (1925) (/isis/citation/CBB001221628/)

Article Dupont, Jean-Claude; (2007)
Sources et implications physiologiques du discours psychologique chez Bain (/isis/citation/CBB000954379/)