scholarly journals ‘The Days of Brilliancy are Past’: Skill, Styles and the Changing Rules of Surgical Performance, ca. 1820–1920

2015 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Schlich

This paper examines how, over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the appreciation of skill in surgery shifted in characteristic ways. Skill is a problematic category in surgery. Its evaluation is embedded into wider cultural expectations and evaluations, which changed over time. The paper examines the discussions about surgical skill in a variety of contexts: the highly competitive environment of celebrity practitioners in the amphitheatres of early nineteenth-century Britain; the science-oriented, technocratic German-language university hospitals later in the century; and the elitist surgeons of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century United States with their concerns about distancing themselves from commercialism and cheap showmanship. For analysing the interaction of surgical practices with their various contexts the paper makes use of the concept of ‘performance’ and examines how the rules of surgical performance varied according to the prevailing technical, social, and moral conditions. Over the course of the century, surgical performance looked more and more recognisably modern, increasingly following the ideals of replicability, universality and standardisation. The changing ideals of surgical skill are a crucial element of the complex history of the emergence of modern surgery, but also an illuminating example of the history of skill in modern medicine.

Author(s):  
William G. Roy

This chapter reviews the history of how the modern corporation developed as a form of socialized property. It enumerates some of the important consequences of those developments and briefly mentions recent trends. The empirical focus is the corporate revolution of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the large publicly traded corporation became the dominant form of enterprise. The main point is that the socialization of property originated in the corporation when it was an extension of state power and over time retained its social character while shedding its accountability to the public.


1997 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW BANK

The fundamental preoccupation with race in later historical writing in South Africa has its origins in the Great Debate between liberals and their enemies in the early nineteenth century. Standard overviews of South African historiography date the emergence of racially structured histories to the second half of the nineteenth century. For Saunders, the making of the South African past and its thematic ordering in terms of race only began in the 1870s ‘when the first major historian [G. M. Theal] began to write his history’. Prior to Theal's monumental efforts, ‘only a few amateur historians had turned their hands to the writing of the history of particular areas or topics’. Likewise, in Smith's analysis, also published in 1988, the construction of South African history in terms of race is seen almost exclusively as the product of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In a very brief introductory section, Smith suggests that what little historical writing there was before the middle of the nineteenth century is scarcely to be taken seriously, and his study offers no more than a bare outline of historiographical developments before Theal and his heirs.


2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-107
Author(s):  
Halil Ibrahim Yenigün

This book is primarily a history of the early Kurdish movement, from itsinception in the late nineteenth century to the 1930s. Yet, its distinctivenesscomes not from the Kurdish nationalists’ more publicized products, but fromits focus on the margins of their literary attempts. This study of failed nationalism“is concerned less with how and why Kurdish nationalism did or didnot ‘catch on’ than with the efforts made by [the] Kurdish elite to constructa viable concept of Kurdish identity” (p. 1). In other words, the author’smain concern is to identify how images of the Kurds were constructed andrepresented, and how they evolved, over time, until the late 1930s.The book is divided into three parts, each of which corresponds to a differentperiod that delineates differing self-images of the Kurds. Each part,in turn, consists of six to eight chapters that provide an account of both keyevents in the Kurdish movement’s history and literary works. Part 1,“‘Awakening’ the Kurds,” deals with the movement’s background contextand early period by discussing its leaders, several publications, and organizations.In this period, the Kurds’ self-definition was predominantly negative,and obstacles to modernization abounded: tribal structures, a nomadicway of life, illiteracy, ignorance, and wildness.Yet the Turks were never the “inimical other,” except for such people asthe Ottoman sultan Abdulhamid and “a long line of Ottoman despots.” Theyhad a long list of prescriptions to awaken and literally “remake” the Kurds sothat they could be accepted by the nations of the civilized world. When theWilsonian principles granted their right to self-determination without this culturalleap, some Kurds wanted a Kurdish state. However, the vast majoritymourned for the Treaty of Sevrés along with their Turkish brethren, despitethe fact that its articles established Kurdistan. This chapter also describes howmost Kurds joined forces with the Kemalists to drive out the occupiers, onlyto be frustrated by the Kemalists’ subsequent assimilation projects ...


Author(s):  
Adam Goodman

This chapter reviews the history of the deportation machine, dating back to the late-nineteenth century when Congress gave the federal government exclusive authority over immigration. It summarizes how Democratic and Republican politicians and private third parties have contributed to the growth of the deportation machine through implementation of punitive policies and budget with an equivalent of hundreds of billions of dollars into enforcement efforts that have resulted in tens of millions of expulsions. It assesses the deportation machine's mechanisms that have largely remained the same over time and have functioned in unison, though at different levels at distinct moments. The chapter looks into persistent political economic realities, racial prejudices,and cultural concerns that have been a driving force behind anti-immigrant sentiment and restrictive measures. It also describes economic crises and wars that often led to rising xenophobia and dramatic spikes in deportations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-234
Author(s):  
Emily L Humphries ◽  
Felix Allen ◽  
Simon Grange ◽  
Andrew Goldberg ◽  
Peter Smitham

Eponymous orthopaedic examinations frequently appear in modern clinical examinations, yet their original description and cause for change are often omitted from medical education today. This is important to appreciate in order to understand their diagnostic relevance in modern medicine and subsequent interpretation of results by fellow clinicians. This article reviews the original description of these tests by their namesakes, how they have evolved over time and their relevance in orthopaedics today. An online literature review (PubMed) was conducted of the original descriptions and other published literature detailing their history, evolution, sensitivity and specificity. While elements of these tests have been lost naturally over time to the ‘Chinese Whispers’ effect, most have evolved positively secondary to a deepening anatomical and pathological understanding of their target conditions. They retain some usefulness in clinical medicine, however it is recognized that their diagnostic value is invariably supplanted by improvements in diagnostic imaging.


2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (S28) ◽  
pp. 197-223
Author(s):  
Samuel North

AbstractThis article examines how slavery has been remembered in the urban space of Cape Town over time. It explores how individuals and groups have commemorated the history of slavery from the late nineteenth century onwards. It outlines how memory of slavery faded as the number of people with direct experience of enslavement decreased, with burgeoning racial segregation influencing the way that the past was viewed. It then examines how post-1994 democracy in South Africa has once again changed approaches to history. Colonial-era abuses such as slavery have not always been readily remembered in an urban space where their legacies are visible, and this article examines the interplay of politics and identity at the heart of public memorialization of these contested pasts.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Downing

AbstractThis article examines how a prophetic religious tradition can exploit the gaps of indeterminacy within a biblical text, in order to develop new readings in response to changing circumstances. Using Brennan Breed’s ideas about biblical texts as “objectiles,” which are prone to change throughout their life, this article traces the interpretation of Genesis 49:10 in the history of a modern prophetic movement. The article proceeds to examine how members of the so-called Southcottian visitation – a British prophetic movement started in the early nineteenth century by the self-proclaimed prophet Joanna Southcott – have used this text to shape their identity and beliefs. By examining how Southcottian prophets of different generations have handled this text – ranging from Southcott herself to a female-led organisation called the Panacea Society established in the early twentieth century – we can see how prophetic readers have used their authority to guide interpretation of the text, and have shaped how it ought to be read within their respective communities. The article shows how Southcottian readers generate a range of different readings of Genesis 49:10, exploring a series of alternative identities and genders for “Shiloh,” and developing new reading strategies for ascertaining the meaning of the term. The article concludes by reflecting on how the text is affected by the Southcottians’ treatment, and how prophetic readers can exert their authority to even change the text itself. Examining how such idiosyncratic readers receive – and change – biblical texts is an important area for investigation by reception-historians keen to understand what texts can do when handled by their diverse readers. Looking at the reception of biblical texts within heterodox religious traditions also raises methodological challenges: it underscores how readings within a religious tradition are processual, develop over time, and can be generated through private, archival correspondence as well as in published media.


2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-55
Author(s):  
Michelle Renshaw

When the first American medical missionary to China established the first western-style hospital in Guangzhou in 1834 the political and legal environment was hostile to foreigners and to missionaries in particular but, in some respects, it was conducive to safe medical practice. Given that the early nineteenth-century hospital in the West was a very dangerous place it was important to limit risk in the hospital if the evangelical mission was to survive. An analysis of Peter Parker’s (1804–1888) reports and case studies reveals not only his superior skill and patient outcomes but also the medical and administrative strategies he employed to minimize risk. The study places Parker’s medical work in a comparative frame; moving away from a mission-centric focus to draw China medical missions into a larger narrative of the history of modern medicine.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten Jerven

A wealth of new data have been unearthed in recent years on African economic growth, wages, living standards, and taxes. In The Wealth and Poverty of African States, Morten Jerven shows how these findings transform our understanding of African economic development. He focuses on the central themes and questions that these state records can answer, tracing how African states evolved over time and the historical footprint they have left behind. By connecting the history of the colonial and postcolonial periods, he reveals an aggregate pattern of long-run growth from the late nineteenth century into the 1970s, giving way to widespread failure and decline in the 1980s, and then followed by two decades of expansion since the late 1990s. The result is a new framework for understanding the causes of poverty and wealth and the trajectories of economic growth and state development in Africa across the twentieth century.


2010 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 85-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Hochschild

Abstract The author surveys three times and places where the public history of certain events has changed radically over time. The mass killings and arrests of the Stalinist Soviet Union were deliberately ignored for decades afterwards, then drew intense attention in the Gorbachev years. The end of British Empire slavery was for a century or more ascribed to British virtue and generosity; today we pay far more attention to the role of slave revolts. And Belgium officially ignored the murderous slave labor regime King Leopold II imposed on the Congo in the late nineteenth century until the last decade or so.


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