Strange Blood

Boel Berner

ISBN 10: 3837651630 / ISBN 13: 9783837651638

Published by Transcript Verlag Aug 2023, 2023

About this Item

Neuware -In the mid-1870s, the experimental therapy of lamb blood transfusion spread like an epidemic across Europe and the USA. Doctors tried it as a cure for tuberculosis, pellagra and anemia; proposed it as a means to reanimate seemingly dead soldiers on the battlefield. It was a contested therapy because it meant crossing boundaries and challenging taboos. Was the transfusion of lamb blood into desperately sick humans really defensible The book takes the reader on a journey into hospital wards and lunatic asylums, physiological laboratories and 19th century wars. It presents a fascinating story of medical knowledge, ambitions and concerns - a story that provides lessons for current debates on the morality of medical experimentation and care. 216 pp. Englisch.

Seller Inventory # 9783837651638

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Strange Blood
• Publisher: Transcript Verlag Aug 2023
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3837651630
• ISBN 13: 9783837651638
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 225W x 148H x 16D millimeters 225 millimeters width by 148 millimeters height by 16 millimeters depth
• Weight: 343 grams

About this title

Synopsis

In the mid-1870s, the experimental therapy of lamb blood transfusion spread like an epidemic across Europe and the USA. Doctors tried it as a cure for tuberculosis, pellagra and anemia; proposed it as a means to reanimate seemingly dead soldiers on the battlefield. It was a contested therapy because it meant crossing boundaries and challenging taboos. Was the transfusion of lamb blood into desperately sick humans really defensible?
The book takes the reader on a journey into hospital wards and lunatic asylums, physiological laboratories and 19th century wars. It presents a fascinating story of medical knowledge, ambitions and concerns – a story that provides lessons for current debates on the morality of medical experimentation and care.

About the Author

Boel Berner is a sociologist, historian, and professor emerita at Linköping University in Sweden. In her research she investigates the character and power of expertise, historically and today. She has studied education and work, the gendered nature of technical knowledge, household modernization, and issues of risk. Her current work is oriented towards the history of medicine. It focuses, besides questions of blood donation and transfusion, on the politics of blood group analysis in the interwar years.