Medical Science in the Light of a Flawed Study of the Holocaust: A Comment on Eva Hedfors' Paper on Ludwik Fleck (original) (raw)
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Medicine and thought-styles: on the 50th anniversary of the death of Ludwik Fleck (1896-1961)
The Israel Medical Association journal : IMAJ, 2012
l ast year, 2011, marked the 50th anniversary of the death of Ludwik Fleck, a physician, microbiologist [1] and a passionate philosopher of medicine [Figure 1]. Fleck suffered many of the humiliations that the 20th century inflicted upon the Jews of Eastern Europe [2]. He experienced racial persecution during World War II and in the years preceding it. He survived that long period of brutal antisemitism, followed by imprisonment in the Lviv Ghetto and Nazi concentration camps [3]. In science, he gained recognition [4] but not the fame that he had every right to expect: this was denied him during his lifetime and after his death. Ludwik Fleck was an exceptionally broad-minded individual and a true scholar. He gained recognition for his achievements in research on the anti-typhoid vaccine and for the discovery of leukergy, the clumping of white blood cells that accompanies some inflammations and infections [5-13]. Fleck’s unique theory of thought-styles in the field of philosophy of m...
Introduction: Ludwik Fleck’s epistemology of medicine and biomedical sciences
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 2004
Lwó w (Lemberg) changed hands many times in the twentieth century. When Fleck was a child it belonged to the Austro-Hungarian empire; between the wars, when Fleck wrote the majority of his epistemological works, it was under Polish rule. After the Second World War it was incorporated into the Soviet Union. Today it is a Ukrainian city.
Ludwik Fleck: a message to start a new discourse
Current Issues in Pharmacy and Medical Sciences
The goal of the present article is to initiate a series of papers on Ludwik Fleck’s theories of medical cognition and their contribution to contemporary research on science. I would like, however, to begin with the last statement, in which he signaled, almost half a century ahead of time, the current issues concerning scientific discourse in the socio-cultural dimension.
História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos
In this interview, Volker Roelcke explains and analyzes historical evidence refuting erroneous assumptions about medical atrocities committed by physicians during the Nazi era, provides insight into the implications of medicine during the Nazi period and the Holocaust for medicine and bioethics today, analyzes the history of the term “genocide,” and suggests formats for future teaching, among other topics.
Boston studies in the philosophy of science, 1986
Ludwik Fleck was born in Lwow on July 11, 1896. His father Maurycy ran a middle class painting establishment there. Fleck grew up in the atmosphere of the relatively extensive cultural autonomy of Galicia: Since 1867 the Polish culture which had developed during the long period of Polish division had found favorable conditions here in the Austrian-occupied territory (cf. e.g., Hartmann, 1962, 1966). The multinational state of Austria-Hungary allowed its regions a certain measure of cultural independence. There were Polish schools, and the city boasted an old university at which classes had again been held in the Polish language since 1879 (Dobrowolski, 1960). It was precisely because of these liberal politics that the culture of German-speaking territories met with great understanding: science and culture here were closely related to those of Vienna — which was also the case for the period following Poland’s becoming independent in 1918.
2008
ions. The Nazi doctors were able to manipulate their bodies, play with their brains, mutilate their future without remorse; they tortured them in a thousand ways before putting an end to their lives. 1 This thesis aims to explore a series of questions regarding whether, and if so under what circumstances, data from the Nazi medical experiments should be used in contemporary medical research. The ethical controversy surrounding the use of this data is largely due to the complex relationships between science and moral responsibility which are emotionally laden and consequently frequently misunderstood. While debate about the issue commenced soon after the Nazi Medical trials in 1946/47, it intensified during the 1960s and has continued into the twenty first century where its fundamental question of ethics as applied to medical research is still relevant today. Having seen how it was possible for ethical principles to be overridden, rendered dysfunctional, and even subverted to serve t...
Ethically Unethical: A Series of Case Studies into the Realm of Nazi Science, A Thesis
The concept of “Ethically Unethical” is the creation of a series of researched aspects of Nazi science and the implications that this has upon the regime as a whole. The lack of focus upon Nazi science creates a void in the wake of Nazi propaganda and Jewish concentration camps. With this space needing to be desperately filled, I hope to offer more insight into the overall projects of Nazi science under the regime. In looking at specific aspects of Nazi science, those focused upon are topics often glossed over in history books if they are mentioned at all. There is a serious misunderstanding of euthanasia under the Nazi regime and it is one that needs to be clearly explained. Dr. Hermann Pfannmüller, Dr. Karl Brandt, and Dr. Christian Wirth offer an in-depth look into examples of Nazi scientists overcome with promises of the regime; yet there are differences between the three as to their motivations, their roles and their impact upon the scientific community under the Reich. The Buchenwald center is a work camp that is often mentioned in passing, yet had serious implications both for the political prisoners held there and for the doctors that participated in experiments there. The overall make-up of this presentation hopes to accurately tell and justify certain aspects of the Nazi science program that have not been mentioned into common conversations when regarding the Nazi programs of World War II. Each aspect combines to create a thread of history that centralizes around a political and social regime, and in such can be found veins worth uncovering to gain more and more insight into the makeup of such a structure.
2013
http://www.orgonelab.org/cart/xdemeo.htm#IDOWR Dr. Wilhelm Reich is the man whom nearly everyone loves to hate. No other figure in 20th Century science and medicine could be named who has been so badly maligned in popular media, scientific and medical circles, nor so shabbily mistreated by power-drunk federal agencies and arrogant judges. Publicly denounced and slandered in both Europe and America by Nazis, Communists and psychoanalysts, placed on both Hitler’s and Stalin’s death lists but narrowly escaping to the USA, subjected to new public slanders and attacks by American journalists and psychiatrists who deliberately lied and provoked an “investigation” by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), imprisoned by American courts which ignored his legal writs and pleas about prosecutorial and FDA fraud, denied appeals all the way up to the US Supreme Court, which rubber-stamped the FDA’s demands for the banning and burning of his scientific books and research journals, and finally dying alone in prison – who was this man, Wilhelm Reich, and why today, some 50 years after his death, does he continue to stir up such emotional antipathy? It is a literal 80-Years’ War of continuing misrepresentation, slander and defamation. Who were and are Reich’s attackers? And what stands behind their obsession to utterly rid the world of him, and of his work? What are the facts regarding Reich’s social-sexual theories and his experimental work on the orgone energy, or life-energy? Author and Natural Scientist James DeMeo takes on the book-burners, exposing with clarity and documentation their many slanderous fabrications, half-truths and lies of omission. In so doing, he also summarizes the lesser-known facts about Reich’s important clinical and life-energetic experimental findings, now verified by scientists and physicians worldwide, and holding great promise for the future. "