The Birth of Naloxone: An Intellectual History of an Ambivalent Opioid

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 637-650
Author(s):  
Laura Kolbe ◽  
Joseph J. Fins
Keyword(s):  
Palliative Care ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
Opioid Antagonists ◽  
Addiction Medicine ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
History Of ◽  
Therapeutic Model

AbstractNaloxone, which reverses the effects of opioids, was synthesized in 1960, though the hunt for opioid antagonists began a half-century earlier. The history of this quest reveals how cultural and medical attitudes toward opioids have been marked by a polarization of discourse that belies a keen ambivalence. From 1915 to 1960, researchers were stymied in seeking a “pure” antidote to opioids, discovering instead numerous opioid molecules of mixed or paradoxical properties. At the same time, the quest for a dominant explanatory and therapeutic model for addiction was likewise unsettled. After naloxone’s discovery, new dichotomizing language arose in the “War on Drugs,” in increasingly divergent views between addiction medicine and palliative care, and in public debates about layperson naloxone access. Naloxone, one of the emblematic drugs of our time, highlights the ambivalence latent in public and biomedical discussions of opioids as agents of risk and relief.

MEASUREMENT AND MERITOCRACY: AN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY OF IQ

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 637-644
Author(s):  
THEODORE M. PORTER
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Intelligence Quotient ◽  
Social Role ◽  
The United States ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mind

Is intelligence a fit topic for intellectual history? The creation and institutionalization of IQ (the initials have become self-sufficient, and no longer stand for “intelligence quotient”) have been a favorite topic in the history of psychology, and have even achieved some standing in social histories of class, race, and mobility, especially in the United States. The campaign to quantify intelligence tended to remove it from the domain of intellectual history, which after all has traditionally emphasized ideas and interpretations. Measurement, and not alone of the mind, was pursued as a way to rein in the intellect by making it more rigorous. What was pushed out the door, however, returned through the window in the form of debates about what intelligence means; in what sense and with what tools it can be measured; and how these measures relate to other ways of comprehending mind, thought, and reason. Quantification, a potent strategy for releasing science from the grip of history, is itself profoundly historical, as a half-century of modern scholarship has demonstrated. This historicizing of the antihistorical embodies what we may call counterreflexivity, and, as such, is partly about puncturing illusions, though it need not take a negative view of the social role of science. The perspective of history is all the more essential because the depoliticization of merit through science entails a consequential moral and political choice. Measurement, by rationalizing and stabilizing the idea of intelligence, enabled it more readily to enter everyday discourse and to be put to work in schools, businesses, and bureaucracies.

HES PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: THE COASE THEOREM LESSONS FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT

2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEVEN G. MEDEMA
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Coase Theorem ◽  
History Of Economic Thought ◽  
Economic Discourse ◽  
Half Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Pluralistic Approach

The Coase theorem has occupied a prominent place in economic discourse for the last half-century. The debate over the theorem and the uses to which it has been put are important moments in the history of modern economics, and the analysis of them by the historians of economics sheds light on certain of the tensions in contemporary historiography. This article discusses several aspects of the intellectual history of the Coase theorem, arguing that the study of this history illustrates the necessity of a pluralistic approach, and that attempts to write history from a singular historiographic perspective leave us with histories that are both misleading and incomplete.

Hugh of St. Victor's De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris as an Accessus Treatise for the Study of the Bible

Traditio ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 111-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grover A. Zinn
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Arts Curriculum ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Biblical Commentaries

The first half of the twelfth century was, by any account, a remarkable time in the intellectual history of the medieval West. During this period the development and expansion of schools located in urban centers took place at an accelerating pace. Within these schools, masters forged new tools for organizing, analyzing, and presenting materials for their students. Not only was the rich harvest gleaned from the writings of authorities from past centuries subjected to a more organized sifting and evaluation; the results of contemporary intellectual debate were incorporated into texts that made their way into the curricula of the schools. One can see the effects of this sifting, organizing, discussing, and presenting in a wide variety of works from the half-century: the theological sententiae from the “school” of Anselm of Laon and William of Champeaux, the accessus ad auctores literature in the arts curriculum, the Sic et non of Abelard, collections of canon law, and glossed Bibles and biblical commentaries. Although the contents of these works are quite diverse, in general they were produced within a common cultural situation: the medieval school.

Dying with dignity: the challenges of end-of-life care in patients with substance use disorders

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (11) ◽  
pp. e240945
Author(s):  
Prasun Datta ◽  
Jeffrey S Kruk ◽  
Kylie Jordan ◽  
Karen A Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Palliative Care ◽  
Substance Use ◽  
End Of Life ◽  
Addiction Medicine ◽  
Opioid Agonist ◽  
Care Services ◽  
Dying With Dignity ◽  
Palliative Care Teams ◽  
Palliative Care Services ◽  
History Of

Substance use disorder is a chronic disease carrying a high risk of morbidity and mortality. We report a case of a patient on long-term opioid agonist treatment who was diagnosed with metastatic cholangiocarcinoma and was referred to palliative care services almost contemporaneously with this diagnosis. In this report, we explore the challenges posed in offering holistic care during the end of life of a patient with a history of opioid dependence. A coordinated approach by addiction medicine and palliative care teams can allow patients from this complex cohort to ultimately die with dignity.

Professionals and the Professions in the Global South

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nitsan Chorev ◽  
Andrew Schrank
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
North American ◽  
Global South ◽  
The State ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The North ◽  
Sociological Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

In spite of the evident importance of professionals and the professions in the Global South, the sociological literature on the subject is almost entirely confined to the developed market economies. In turn, the North American literature on development has not filled the vacuum – as it has largely ignored the professions for the better part of the last half century. In this introduction, we offer a brief intellectual history of these two sub- disciplines and critically appraise this mutual neglect - of professionals in the sociology of development, and of the Global South in studies of professions. We then offer four realms of investigation where we believe the marriage of these two spheres of knowledge would be particularly useful: the relations between professionals and the state, the politicized nature of professions, the fragmentation of professions, and the transnationalized nature of professions.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Randall
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
James Madison ◽  
Modern Conception ◽  
Political World ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Constitutional Thought

The changed conception of conversation that emerged by c.1700 was about to expand its scope enormously – to the broad culture of Enlightenment Europe, to the fine arts, to philosophy and into the broad political world, both via the conception of public opinion and via the constitutional thought of James Madison (1751–1836). In the Enlightenment, the early modern conception of conversation would expand into a whole wing of Enlightenment thought. The intellectual history of the heirs of Cicero and Petrarch would become the practice of millions and the constitutional architecture of a great republic....

Reframing the Sciences of the Long Eighteenth Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 58-66
Author(s):  
Giuliano Pancaldi
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Science Policy ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
Past Half

Here I survey a sample of the essays and reviews on the sciences of the long eighteenth century published in this journal since it was founded in 1969. The connecting thread is some historiographic reflections on the role that disciplines—in both the sciences we study and the fields we practice—have played in the development of the history of science over the past half century. I argue that, as far as disciplines are concerned, we now find ourselves a bit closer to a situation described in our studies of the long eighteenth century than we were fifty years ago. This should both favor our understanding of that period and, hopefully, make the historical studies that explore it more relevant to present-day developments and science policy. This essay is part of a special issue entitled “Looking Backward, Looking Forward: HSNS at 50,” edited by Erika Lorraine Milam.

Indian Sex Life

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Durba Mitra
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Indian Society ◽  
Global History ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Indentured Servitude ◽  
History Of

During the colonial period in India, European scholars, British officials, and elite Indian intellectuals—philologists, administrators, doctors, ethnologists, sociologists, and social critics—deployed ideas about sexuality to understand modern Indian society. This book shows how deviant female sexuality, particularly the concept of the prostitute, became foundational to this knowledge project and became the primary way to think and write about Indian society. The book reveals that deviant female sexuality was critical to debates about social progress and exclusion, caste domination, marriage, widowhood and inheritance, women's performance, the trafficking of girls, abortion and infanticide, industrial and domestic labor, indentured servitude, and ideologies about the dangers of Muslim sexuality. British authorities and Indian intellectuals used the concept of the prostitute to argue for the dramatic reorganization of modern Indian society around Hindu monogamy. The book demonstrates how the intellectual history of modern social thought is based in a dangerous civilizational logic built on the control and erasure of women's sexuality. This logic continues to hold sway in present-day South Asia and the postcolonial world. Reframing the prostitute as a concept, the book overturns long-established notions of how to write the history of modern social thought in colonial India, and opens up new approaches for the global history of sexuality.

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