Download or read book Heights of Reflection written by Sean Moore Ireton and published by Camden House. This book was released on 2012 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the lure of mountains in German literature, philosophy, film, music, and culture from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century. Mountains have always stirred the human imagination, playing a crucial role in the cultural evolution of peoples around the globe and becoming infused with meaning in the process. Beyond their geographical-geological significance, mountains affect the topography of the mind, whether as objects of peril or attraction, of spiritual enlightenment or existential fulfillment, of philosophical contemplation or aesthetic inspiration. This volume challenges the oversimplified assumption that human interaction with mountains is a distinctly modern development, one that began with the empowerment of the individual in the wake of Enlightenment rationalism and Romantic subjectivity. These essays by European and North American scholars examine the lure of mountains in German literature, philosophy, film, music, and culture from the Middle Ages to the present, with a focus on the interaction between humans and the alpineenvironment. The contributors consider mountains not as mere symbolic tropes or literary metaphors, but as constituting a tangible reality that informs the experiences and ideas of writers, naturalists, philosophers, filmmakers, and composers. Overall, this volume seeks to provide multiple answers to questions regarding the cultural significance of mountains as well as the physical practice of climbing them. Contributors: Peter Arnds, Olaf Berwald, Albrecht Classen, Roger Cook, Scott Denham, Sean Franzel, Christof Hamann, Harald Höbusch, Dan Hooley, Peter Höyng, Sean Ireton, Oliver Lubrich, Anthony Ozturk, Caroline Schaumann, Heather I. Sullivan, Johannes Türk, Sabine Wilke, Wilfried Wilms. SEAN IRETON is Associate Professor of German at the University of Missouri. CAROLINE SCHAUMANN is Professor of German Studies at Emory University.

Download or read book Irritating Experiments written by Hubert Steinke and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2005 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the great medical controversies of the Enlightenment was the European debate on motion, sensation, and animal experimentation provoked by Albrecht von Haller's treatise on irritability and sensibility (1752). Irritating Experiments is the first full-length study to explore the theoretical background and the experimental process that led to Haller's description and separation of two fundamental bodily qualities: irritability, or the capacity of muscles to contract upon stimulation, and sensibility, or the capacity of the nervous system to transmit impressions that are felt as touch or pain in humans, or produce signs of pain in animals. This new concept presented a serious challenge to the reigning medical systems. Haller's animal experiments were repeated all over Europe, on a scale never seen before. The results, however, were contradictory. Haller's concept was largely rejected, and animal experimentation could not be established as a major research method in physiology. Focussing on procedural aspects of experimentation, the interaction between experiment and theory, the status of surgery, the use of medical and pathological models, and the culture of criticism, Irritating Experiments tries to explain why.

Download or read book Matter Life and Generation written by Shirley A. Roe and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-11-13 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A case-study of the interaction between philosophical context and observational data in the practice of Science.

Download or read book Profiles in Cardiology written by John Willis Hurst and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of the short biographical profiles that have appeared monthly in the journal Clinical Cardiology from 1986 up to the present. The persons who are the subjects of these profiles are individuals who have contributed in a meaningful or unique way to knowledge in the field of cardiology.

Download or read book Chinesia written by Adrian Hsia and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2010-10-13 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our perception of the Others is based on our conception of ourselves. In theory the Others should be different. If necessary, we alter their images to accommodate the apperception of ourselves. Thus Chinesia, an amalgamation of facts and fiction, was created. In order to avoid previous repetition of stereotypes and prejudices, the present study re-examines the parameters which created Chinesia and traces its development to the end of the 18th century. It discusses the reports of the European seafarers and trade embassies to China and analyzes the situation of the Jesuit missionaries and their European publications on China. These helped to develop a wondrous China during Baroque and early Enlightenment which, however, gradually became offensive to Christian pride. After Christian Wolff was dismissed from the University of Halle and banished from Prussia for eulogizing Confucianism, China was steadily downgraded, particularly by the historicists who were re-evaluating the position of Europe in World History. The white race was perceived as superior to all other races (David Hume and Kant); consequently, the complexion of the Chinese became increasingly yellower. It darkened from the Meerschaum hue (Lichtenberg) to the color of dried orange peels (Gobineau) toward the end of the 19th century. Finally, the Chinese were considered to be too stupid to have created the Chinese culture. The literary works of these periods reflect this development. The literary study begins with the analysis of European dramatization of the Manchu Conquest of China and its subsequent fictional Christianization. Then the Jesuit plays with Chinese themes are discussed, for the first time in literary history. Also analyzed is the reception of the Chinese Orphan motive in European literature which was the turning point in downgrading China, and subsequently Montesquieu's impact on Albrecht von Haller's novel "Usong" is examined. Thereafter, the study scrutinizes the contradictory positions of Herder and von Seckendorff (or Goethe, for that matter) in Weimar. The book concludes with a concise analysis of the 'eschatological sinism' of Hegel, Marx and Weber to indicate the development of the later centuries.

Download or read book A Curious Herbal Containing Five Hundred Cuts of the Most Useful Plants which are Now Used in the Practice of Physick Engraved by Elizabeth Blackwell written by Elizabeth Blackwell and published by . This book was released on 1739 with total page 652 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book History and Bibliography of Anatomic Illustration in Its Relation to Anatomic Science and the Graphic Arts written by Ludwig Choulant and published by . This book was released on 1852 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this classical work Choulant traced the evolution of anatomical illustration from the early schematic plates up to his own time, including a valuable bibliography. This English edition, translated by Frank, is enriched by the chapter on anatomical illustration since Choulant, by Garrison. -- H.W. Orr.

Download or read book Scholars in Action written by Philippe Rogger and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Scholars in Action, an international group of 40 authors open up new perspectives on the eighteenth-century culture of knowledge, with a particular focus on scholars and their various practices.

Download or read book Albrecht Von Haller written by Charles Bert Reed and published by . This book was released on 1915 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book From Natural History to the History of Nature written by John Lyon and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of readings, published for the first time in any language, presents a selection of critical responses to the original publication of the Natural History by George Louis Le Clere, Comte de Buffon (1697-1788). Comments by Albrecht von Haller, Lamoignon de Malesherbes, H�ault de S�chelles, and anonymous reviews from leading periodicals of the period are included. Substantial selections from the first volumes of the Natural History itself, and important documents from Buffon's earlier works are also included. As much as possible, the authors have used entire selections, rather than brief excerpts. "This scholarly and conscientious book makes an important . . . contribution to the study and interpretation of Buffon, and so, too, to the Enlightenment generally. What John Lyon and Phillip Sloan have done is present English texts under four headings, so that we have successively: a selection from Buffon's writings prior to the first (1749) volumes of his Histoire naturelle; pieces from these first volumes of 1749; immediate responses by the earliest critics, writing about the 1749 texts, and finally H�rault de S�chelles' essay on Buffon, Voyage a Montbard. Much of the material is in translations made by Lyon and Sloan themselves, and in many cases the texts are ones not previously translated into English. Moreover, at every turn Lyon and Sloan have provided highly informative notes and commentary. In a substantial and original introduction, they have discussed the nature of Buffon's natural history especially from an epistemological point of view. . . . The translations by Lyon and Sloan quite rightly put accuracy before stylistic appeal. . . . Altogether, then, the book is a very welcome addition to the Buffon literature." --Medical History "[This] volume of selected translations from Buffon and his commentators focuses on Buffon as a central figure in the French Enlightenment. . . . [T]he readings are unified and enlivened by the common theme reflected in the title and highlighted in the long scholarly introduction. . . . [T]he texts trace Buffon's early work through the publication of the first three volumes of the History naturelle in 1749 and record that work's immediate reception." --Isis

Download or read book The Gestation of German Biology written by John H. Zammito and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how and when biology emerged as a science in Germany. Beginning with the debate about organism between Georg Ernst Stahl and Gottfried Leibniz at the start of the eighteenth century, John Zammito traces the development of a new research program, culminating in 1800, in the formulation of developmental morphology. He shows how over the course of the century, naturalists undertook to transform some domains of natural history into a distinct branch of natural philosophy, which attempted not only to describe but to explain the natural world and became, ultimately, the science of biology.

Download or read book A History of Nerve Functions written by Sidney Ochs and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-04-19 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent developments have extended our knowledge of the basic functions of nerves: notably, the demonstration of the mechanism within nerve fibers which transports a wide range of essential materials. In order to understand how this discovery occurred, it is necessary to examine its history. The story begins in ancient Greece when nerves were conceived of as channels through which animal spirits carried sensory impressions to the brain. As science developed, the discoveries of various physical and chemical agents supplanted the agency of animal spirits until the molecular machinery of transport was recognized. In this fascinating and complete history, Sidney Ochs begins with a chronological look at this path of discovery, followed in the second half by a thematic approach wherein the author describes the electrical nature of the nerve impulse, fiber form and its changes in degeneration and regeneration, reflexes, learning, memory and other higher functions in which transport participates.

Download or read book Brain Mind and Medicine written by Harry Whitaker and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-10-27 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No books have been published on the practice of neuroscience in the eighteenth century, a time of transition and discovery in science and medicine. This volume explores neuroscience and reviews developments in anatomy, physiology, and medicine in the era some call the Age of Reason, and others the Enlightenment. Topics include how neuroscience adopted electricity as the nerve force, how disorders such as aphasia and hysteria were treated, Mesmerism, and more.

Download or read book Centres of Medical Excellence written by Ole Peter Grell and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2010 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Students notoriously vote with their feet, seeking out the best and most innovative teachers of their subject. The most ambitious students have been travelling long distances for their education since universities were first founded in the thirteenth century, making their own educational pilgrimage or peregrinatio. This volume deals with the peregrinatio medica from the viewpoint of the travelling students: who went where; how did they travel; what did they find when they arrived; what did they take back with them from their studies. Even a single individual could transform medical studies or practice back home on the periphery by trying to reform teaching and practice the way they had seen it at the best universities. Other contributions look at the universities themselves and how they were actively developed to attract students, and at some of the most successful teachers, such as Boerhaave at Leiden or the Monros at Edinburgh. The essays show how increasing levels of wealth allowed more and more students to make their pilgrimages, travelling for weeks at a time to sit at the feet of a particular master. In medicine this meant that, over the period c.1500 to 1789, a succession of universities became the medical school of choice for ambitious students: Padua and Bologna in the 1500s, Paris, Leiden and Montpellier in the 1600s, and Leiden, Gottingen and Edinburgh in the 1700s. The arrival of foreign students brought wealth to the university towns and this significant economic benefit meant that the governors of these universities tried to ensure the defence of freedom of religion and freedom of speech, thus providing the best conditions for the promotion of new views and innovation in medicine. The collection presents a new take on the history of medical education, as well as universities, travel and education more widely in ancien regime Europe.

Download or read book The Anatomist Anatomis d written by Andrew Cunningham and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2010 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The eighteenth-century practitioners of anatomy saw their own period as 'the perfection of anatomy'. This book looks at the investigation of anatomy in the 'long' eighteenth century in disciplinary terms. This means looking in a novel way not only at the practical aspects of anatomizing but also at questions of how one became an anatomist, where and how the discipline was practised, what the point was of its practice, what counted as sub-disciplines of anatomy, and the nature of arguments over anatomical facts and priority of discovery. In particular pathology, generation and birth, and comparative anatomy are shown to have been linked together as subdisciplines of anatomy. At first sight anatomy seems the most long-lived and stable of medical disciplines, from Galen and Vesalius to the present. But Cunningham argues that anatomy was, like so many other areas of knowledge, changed irrevocably around the end of the eighteenth century, with the creation of new disciplines, new forms of knowledge and new ways of investigation. The 'long' eighteenth century, therefore, was not only the highpoint of anatomy but also the endpoint of old anatomy.

Download or read book Buffon written by Jacques Roger and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography of a premier French scientist of the Enlightenment and the director of France's Royal Botanical Garden, using Buffon's enormous literary production as the major source of insight into his and his age's beliefs about the natural world. Includes bandw illustrations from his Natural History. First published in 1989 as Buffon, un philosophe au Jardin du Roi, by Librarie Artheme Fayard. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book Diderot s Part written by Andrew H. Clark and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing upon the rich heterogeneity of Denis Diderot's texts-whether scientific, aesthetic, philosophic or literary-Andrew Clark locates and examines an important epistemological shift both in Diderot's oeuvre and in the eighteenth century more generally. In Western Europe during the 1750s, the human body was reconceptualized as physiologists began to emphasize the connections, communication, and relationships among relatively autonomous somatic parts and an animated whole. This new conceptualization was part of a larger philosophical and epistemological shift in the relationship of part to whole, as discovered in that of bee to swarm; organ to body; word to phrase; dissonant chord to harmonic progression; article to encyclopedia; and individual citizen to body politic. Starting from Diderot's concept of the body as elaborated from the physiological research and speculation of contemporaries such as Haller and Bordeu, the author investigates how the logic of an unstable relationship of part to whole animates much of Diderot's writing in genres ranging from art criticism to theatre to philosophy of science. In particular, Clark examines the musical figure of dissonance, a figure used by Diderot himself, as a useful theoretical model to give insight into these complex relations. This study brings a fresh approach to the classic question of whether Diderot's work represents a consistent point of view or a series of ruptures and changes of position.