Genetics In The Madhouse

Author : Theodore M. Porter
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691203237
Total Pages : 462 pages
Book Rating : 4.32/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Genetics in the Madhouse written by Theodore M. Porter and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the early 1800s, a century before there was any concept of the gene, physicians in insane asylums began to record causes of madness in their admission books. Almost from the beginning, they pointed to heredity as the most important of these causes. As doctors and state officials steadily lost faith in the capacity of asylum care to stem the terrible increase of insanity, they began emphasizing the need to curb the reproduction of the insane. They became obsessed with identifying weak or tainted families and anticipating the outcomes of their marriages. Genetics in the Madhouse is the untold story of how the collection and sorting of hereditary data in mental hospitals, schools for 'feebleminded' children, and prisons gave rise to a new science of human heredity. In this compelling book, Theodore Porter draws on untapped archival evidence from across Europe and North America to bring to light the hidden history behind modern genetics. He looks at the institutional use of pedigree charts, censuses of mental illness, medical-social surveys, and other data techniques--innovative quantitative practices that were worked out in the madhouse long before the manipulation of DNA became possible in the lab. Porter argues that asylum doctors developed many of the ideologies and methods of what would come to be known as eugenics, and deepens our appreciation of the moral issues at stake in data work conducted on the border of subjectivity and science. A bold rethinking of asylum work, Genetics in the Madhouse shows how heredity was a human science as well as a medical and biological one"--Jacket.

Author : Carl Zimmer
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101984600
Total Pages : 672 pages
Book Rating : 4.04/5 ( download)

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Download or read book She Has Her Mother's Laugh written by Carl Zimmer and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-05-29 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Finalist "Science book of the year"—The Guardian One of New York Times 100 Notable Books for 2018 One of Publishers Weekly's Top Ten Books of 2018 One of Kirkus's Best Books of 2018 One of Mental Floss's Best Books of 2018 One of Science Friday's Best Science Books of 2018 “Extraordinary”—New York Times Book Review "Magisterial"—The Atlantic "Engrossing"—Wired "Leading contender as the most outstanding nonfiction work of the year"—Minneapolis Star-Tribune Celebrated New York Times columnist and science writer Carl Zimmer presents a profoundly original perspective on what we pass along from generation to generation. Charles Darwin played a crucial part in turning heredity into a scientific question, and yet he failed spectacularly to answer it. The birth of genetics in the early 1900s seemed to do precisely that. Gradually, people translated their old notions about heredity into a language of genes. As the technology for studying genes became cheaper, millions of people ordered genetic tests to link themselves to missing parents, to distant ancestors, to ethnic identities... But, Zimmer writes, “Each of us carries an amalgam of fragments of DNA, stitched together from some of our many ancestors. Each piece has its own ancestry, traveling a different path back through human history. A particular fragment may sometimes be cause for worry, but most of our DNA influences who we are—our appearance, our height, our penchants—in inconceivably subtle ways.” Heredity isn’t just about genes that pass from parent to child. Heredity continues within our own bodies, as a single cell gives rise to trillions of cells that make up our bodies. We say we inherit genes from our ancestors—using a word that once referred to kingdoms and estates—but we inherit other things that matter as much or more to our lives, from microbes to technologies we use to make life more comfortable. We need a new definition of what heredity is and, through Carl Zimmer’s lucid exposition and storytelling, this resounding tour de force delivers it. Weaving historical and current scientific research, his own experience with his two daughters, and the kind of original reporting expected of one of the world’s best science journalists, Zimmer ultimately unpacks urgent bioethical quandaries arising from new biomedical technologies, but also long-standing presumptions about who we really are and what we can pass on to future generations.

Author : Peter Carruthers
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521789080
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.87/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Evolution and the Human Mind written by Peter Carruthers and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-11-02 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume of essays offers an interdisciplinary examination of the evolution of the human mind.

Author : Theodore M. Porter
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691210543
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.44/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Trust in Numbers written by Theodore M. Porter and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-18 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A foundational work on historical and social studies of quantification What accounts for the prestige of quantitative methods? The usual answer is that quantification is desirable in social investigation as a result of its successes in science. Trust in Numbers questions whether such success in the study of stars, molecules, or cells should be an attractive model for research on human societies, and examines why the natural sciences are highly quantitative in the first place. Theodore Porter argues that a better understanding of the attractions of quantification in business, government, and social research brings a fresh perspective to its role in psychology, physics, and medicine. Quantitative rigor is not inherent in science but arises from political and social pressures, and objectivity derives its impetus from cultural contexts. In a new preface, the author sheds light on the current infatuation with quantitative methods, particularly at the intersection of science and bureaucracy.

Author : Ina Park
Publisher : Flatiron Books
ISBN 13 : 1250206650
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.57/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Strange Bedfellows written by Ina Park and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Joyful and funny . . . Park uses science, compassion, humor, diverse stories and examples of her own shame-free living to take the stigma out of these infections." —The New York Times With curiosity and wit, Strange Bedfellows rips back the bedsheets to expose what really happens when STDs enter the sack. Sexually transmitted diseases have been hidden players in our lives for the whole of human history, with roles in everything from World War II to the growth of the Internet to The Bachelor. But despite their prominence, STDs have been shrouded in mystery and taboo for centuries, which begs the question: why do we know so little about them? Enter Ina Park, MD, who has been pushing boundaries to empower and inform others about sexual health for decades. With Strange Bedfellows, she ventures far beyond the bedroom to examine the hidden role and influence of these widely misunderstood infections and share their untold stories. Covering everything from AIDS to Zika, Park explores STDs on the cellular, individual, and population-level. She blends science and storytelling with historical tales, real life sexual escapades, and interviews with leading scientists—weaving in a healthy dose of hilarity along the way. The truth is, most of us are sexually active, yet we’re often unaware of the universe of microscopic bedfellows inside our pants. Park aims to change this by bringing knowledge to the masses in an accessible, no-nonsense, humorous way—helping readers understand the broad impact STDs have on our lives, while at the same time erasing the unfair stigmas attached to them. A departure from the cone of awkward silence and shame that so often surrounds sexual health, Strange Bedfellows is the straight-shooting book about the consequences of sex that all curious readers have been looking for.

Author : Lynn Gamwell
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 190 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Madness in America written by Lynn Gamwell and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this book, Lynn Gamwell and Nancy Tomes explore the historical roots of Americans' understanding of madness today. Drawing on a rich array of sources, the authors interweave the perceptions of medical practitioners, the mentally ill and their families, and journalists, poets, novelists, and artists. As they trace successive ways of explaining madness and treating those judged insane, Gamwell and Tomes vividly depict the political and cultural dimensions of American attitudes toward mental illness." "Gamwell and Tomes observe telling differences in the ways in which patients of different genders, races, and classes have been diagnosed and treated. The authors demonstrate how definitions of madness figured in national debates over abolitionism, women's rights, and alternative medicine. Madness in America also considers how the boundaries between sanity and insanity have been repeatedly redrawn in such areas as sexual behavior and criminality."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Author : Theodore M. Porter
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691208425
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Rise of Statistical Thinking, 1820-1900 written by Theodore M. Porter and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-18 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential work on the origins of statistics The Rise of Statistical Thinking, 1820–1900 explores the history of statistics from the field's origins in the nineteenth century through to the factors that produced the burst of modern statistical innovation in the early twentieth century. Theodore Porter shows that statistics was not developed by mathematicians and then applied to the sciences and social sciences. Rather, the field came into being through the efforts of social scientists, who saw a need for statistical tools in their examination of society. Pioneering statistical physicists and biologists James Clerk Maxwell, Ludwig Boltzmann, and Francis Galton introduced statistical models to the sciences by pointing to analogies between their disciplines and the social sciences. A new preface by the author looks at how the book has remained relevant since its initial publication, and considers the current place of statistics in scientific research.

Author : Staffan Müller-Wille
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226545709
Total Pages : 339 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Cultural History of Heredity written by Staffan Müller-Wille and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-06-26 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Heredity: knowledge and power -- Generation, reproduction, evolution -- Heredity in separate domains -- First syntheses -- Heredity, race, and eugenics -- Disciplining heredity -- Heredity and molecular biology -- Gene technology, genomics, postgenomics: attempt at an outlook.

Author : Joanna Radin
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022641731X
Total Pages : 318 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Life on Ice written by Joanna Radin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-03-27 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preface: frozen spirits -- Introduction: within cold blood -- The technoscience of life at low temperature -- Latent life in biomedicine's ice age -- Temporalities of salvage -- "As yet unknown": life for the future -- "Before it's too late": life from the past -- Collecting, maintaining, reusing, and returning -- Managing the cold chain: making life mobile -- When futures arrive: lives after time -- Epilogue: thawing spirits

Author : Andrew Scull
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674265106
Total Pages : 513 pages
Book Rating : 4.03/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Desperate Remedies written by Andrew Scull and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-01 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping history of American psychiatry--from the mental hospital to the brain lab--that reveals the devastating treatments doctors have inflicted on their patients (especially women) in the name of science and questions our massive reliance on meds. For more than two hundred years, disturbances of the mind--the sorts of things that were once called "madness"--have been studied and treated by the medical profession. Mental illness, some insist, is a disease like any other, whose origins can be identified and from which one can be cured. But is this true? In this masterful account of America's quest to understand and treat everything from anxiety to psychosis, one of the most provocative thinkers writing about psychiatry today sheds light on its tumultuous past. Desperate Remedies brings together a galaxy of mind doctors working in and out of institutional settings: psychologists and psychoanalysts, neuroscientists, and cognitive behavioral therapists, social reformers and advocates of mental hygiene, as well as patients and their families desperate for relief. Andrew Scull begins with the birth of the asylum in the reformist zeal of the 1830s and carries us through to the latest drug trials and genetic studies. He carefully reconstructs the rise and fall of state-run mental hospitals to explain why so many of the mentally ill are now on the street and why so many of those whose bodies were experimented on were women. In his compelling closing chapters, he reveals how drug companies expanded their reach to treat a growing catalog of ills, leading to an epidemic of over-prescribing while deliberately concealing debilitating side effects. Carefully researched and compulsively readable, Desperate Remedies is a definitive account of America's long battle with mental illness that challenges us to rethink our deepest assumptions about who we are and how we think and feel.