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Zusatztext he has researched the subject so thoroughly that he has become the world authority on the subject ... For the serious student this book will be a mine of information! often presented quantitively. As a study of the Academy of Medicine! it will be the standard work for a long time to come. Klappentext This wide-ranging and imaginative book examines the social and scientific role of the French Academy of Medicine from its creation in 1820 to the outbreak of the Second World War. The first chapters focus on the institution and its activities! including the evaluation of medical innovationsand the cultivation of professional memory through eulogies and institutional art. Weisz argues that the Academy was gradually transformed from a low-status public institution that was central to French medical science in the nineteenth century to an "establishment" institution largely irrelevant tomedical science but playing a key role in public health policy. The second half of the book uses the activities and literary productions of the Academy to explore broader issues of medical history. The Academy's role in the regulation and scientific study of mineral waters illuminates processes ofdiscipline formation in medical science and explores the therapeutic specificity of French medicine. Academic debates are used to investigate the appropriation of new research techniques like animal experimentation and quantification in therapeutic reasoning. Academic eulogies provide a startingpoint for the evolving medical and scientific reputation of Laennec! the inventor of ausculation! Using techniques of prosopography applied to the membership of the Academy! Weisz goes on to analyze the role of the Parisian medical elite in French medicine and its social place within the Frenchbourgeoisie. His concluding chapter examines the emerging self-images of this Parisian elite in academic eulogies. Zusammenfassung This wide-ranging and imaginative book examines the social and scientific role of the French Academy of Medicine from its creation in 1820 to the outbreak of the Second World War. Weisz traces the Academy's history, and argues that it was gradually transformed from a low-status public institution that was central to French medical science in the nineteenth century, to an 'establishment' institution largely irrelevant to medical science, but playing a key role in public health policy.The second part of the book looks at broader issues of medical history, and shows how a scientific study of mineral waters led to the formation of disciplines within medical science. The final part examines the place and role of the medical elite - the Medical Mandarins - within French bourgeoisie.This book utilizes academic activities and sources to explore such major questions in the social and scientific history of medicine as the nature of therapeutic reasoning, the scientific specificity of French medicine, and the consequences for the medical profession of hierarchical centralization....
