Exhaustion and the Pathologization of Modernity

April 9, 2018

Anna Katharina Schaffner, “Exhaustion and the Pathologization of Modernity,” Journal of Medical Humanities 37, no 3 (2016): 327-341. Argues that “exhaustion,” typically paired with other, varying symptoms, has factored into medical discourse in the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, and has functioned as a medicalized critique of technological advancement. Looks at works by George … More Exhaustion and the Pathologization of Modernity

Climate, Medicine, and Peruvian Health Resorts

March 28, 2018

Mark Carey, “Climate, Medicine, and Peruvian Health Resorts,” Science, Technology, and Human Values 39, no. 6 (2014): 795-818. Carey tells the story of Jauja, a health resort developed in mid-nineteenth century Peru. He argues that, through the veil of medico-scientific (and more specifically, climatological) discourse, physicians and other authority figures advocated for the development of … More Climate, Medicine, and Peruvian Health Resorts

March 27, 2018

“Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same.” — Michel Foucault in The Archaeology of Knowledge

Arkansas Medical Monthly (1880)

March 21, 2018

“Eureka Springs.” Arkansas Medical Monthly 1, no. 1 (1880): 1-3. “Notwithstanding, however, the ludicrous aspect placed upon the reputation of these springs in the eyes of the medical profession, induced by the enthusiastic exageration [sic] of the people, there is evidently something about them worthy of our attention and careful inquiry.” (34) “We visited the place … More Arkansas Medical Monthly (1880)

Intimate Climates

March 19, 2018

Vladimir Jankovic, “Intimate Climates: From Skins to Streets, Soirees to Societies,” in Intimate Universality: Local and Global Themes in the History of Weather and Climate eds. James Fleming, Vladimir Jankovic, and Deborah Coen, 1-34 (Sagamore Beach: Science History Publications, 2006). In this chapter, Jankovic is interested in the dichotomy of the indoor/outdoor and in understandings … More Intimate Climates

Selling Air

March 19, 2018

John Beckerson and John K. Walton, “Selling Air: Marking the Intangible at British Resorts,” in Histories of Tourism: Representation, Identity, and Conflict ed. John K. Walton, 55-68 (Channel View Publications, 2005). In this chapter, Beckerson and Walton analyze promotional material and medical/scientific opinion on air as a draw to different health resorts. They describe its … More Selling Air

The Politics of Medical Topography

March 18, 2018

Harriet Deacon, “The Politics of Medical Topography: Seeking healthiness at the Cape during the nineteenth century,” 279-297, in Pathologies of Travel eds. R. Wrigley and G. Revill (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000). Deacon focuses primarily upon the imperial, moral, and economic reasons that Cape Town faded as an important health resort spot in the 19th century. It … More The Politics of Medical Topography

The Last Resort

March 18, 2018

Vladimir Jankovic, “The Last Resort: A British Perspective on the Medical South, 1815-1870,” Journal of Intercultural Studies 27, no. 3 (2006): 271-298. In this piece on British health travel to the Mediterranean, Jankovic aims to focus on the “…ways in which the medical reasoning and disease etiology impinged on the choice of resorts and regimens, … More The Last Resort

Inventing Caribbean Climates

March 14, 2018

Mark Carey, “Inventing Caribbean Climates: How Science, Medicine and Tourism Changed Tropical Weather from Deadly to Healthy,” Osiris 26, no. 1 (2011): 129-141. In this piece, Carey traces changing European and North American perceptions of Caribbean climates from 1750-1950. He argues that these understandings were not shaped only by the climactic science; rather, they were constructed around … More Inventing Caribbean Climates