History
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Wolf Szmuness, epidemiologist and former roommate of a future Pope John Paul II, is named in an AIDS origin theory involving his hepatitis B vaccine trials
Wolf Szmuness (1919 – 1982) was a Polish-born epidemiologist who emigrated to and worked in the United States. He conducted research at the New York Blood Center and, from 1973, he was director of the… Read more.
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Insall R. Dispatch. Dictyostelium chemotaxis: fascism through the back door? Curr Biol. 2003 Apr 29;13(9):R353-4. doi: 10.1016/s0960-9822(03)00274-4. PMID: 12725750.
Abstract Aggregating Dictyostelium cells secrete cyclic AMP to attract their neighbours by chemotaxis. It has now been shown that adenylyl cyclase is enriched in the rear of cells, and this localisation is… Read more.
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Eraso Y. Biotypology, Endocrinology, and Sterilization: The Practice of Eugenics in the Treatment of Argentinian Women During the 1930s. Bull Hist Med. 2007 Winter;81(4):793-822. doi: 10.1353/bhm.2007.0130. PMID: 18084107; PMCID: PMC2629848.
SUMMARYThis article looks at medical approaches to women’s fertility in Argentina in the 1930s and explores the ways in which eugenics encouraged the reproduction of the fit and attempted to… Read more.
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The Hormone Hustle
We’re about to embark on a time-traveling, mind-bending journey through the evolution of normalization, biopolitics, and the wild world of hormones. From Foucault’s philosophical bombshells to Nicola Pende’s hormone-fueled science experiments,… Read more.
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Beccalossi C. Sexology, sexual development, and hormone treatments in Southern Europe and Latin America, c.1920-40. Hist Human Sci. 2023 Dec;36(5):94-121. doi: 10.1177/09526951231213028. Epub 2023 Dec 6. PMID: 38077463; PMCID: PMC10700059.
AbstractDisplacing the physiological model that had held sway in 19th-century medical thinking, early 20th-century medical scientists working on hormones promoted a new understanding of the body, psychological reactions, and the… Read more.
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Beccalossi C. Italian sexology, Nicola Pende’s biotypology and hormone treatments in the 1920s. Hist Med Sante. 2017 Winter;12:73-97. doi: 10.4000/hms.1173. Epub 2018 May 28. PMID: 31501760; PMCID: PMC6733708.
AbstractThis article analyses a selection of Nicola Pende’s studies from the 1920s on ‘endocrinological abnormalities’ associated with impotence, a lack of virility in men, a lack of femininity in women,… Read more.
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BECCALOSSI C. Optimizing and normalizing the population through hormone therapies in Italian science, c.1926–1950. The British Journal for the History of Science. 2020;53(1):67-88. doi:10.1017/S0007087419000906
Abstract This essay explores how hormone treatments were used to optimize and normalize individuals under Italian Fascism. It does so by taking the activities of the Biotypological Orthogenetic Institute −… Read more.
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Quadrigen (DPT combined with the Salk polio vaccine) – random notes
In 1959, the Parke-Davis Quadrigen vaccine (DPT combined with the Salk polio vaccine) is licensed. The vaccine is alleged to be particularly reactive because of the effect of the preservative… Read more.
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Dr. Leo Stanley
Let it be known throughout the land that Dr. Leo Leonidas Stanley, a man of most peculiar proclivities, did preside over San Quentin’s medical realm from the year of our… Read more.
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The other founding fathers: the SUPERINTENDENTS of insanity
Picture this: While the rest of America was busy manifesting destiny, these thirteen madcap mind-menders were cooking up a scheme to rule the nation’s noggins. They met in Philadelphia, because… Read more.
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