Papers by Christian Bonah
Christian Bonah, Jean-Marc Mouillie, Anne-Laurence Penchaud, Tzvetan Todorov (eds.): Sciences humaines, médecine et santé. Manuel du Collège des enseignants de SHS en médecine et santé, Paris, pp. 340-349., 2011
Social Studies of Science, 2008
... qui ne relate pas un des aspects de la « théorie de Steinach » : rajeunissement, transplantat... more ... qui ne relate pas un des aspects de la « théorie de Steinach » : rajeunissement, transplantation de glandes ... des sexes, fondée en nature par le discours scientifique, au rajeunissement rendu possible ... La période historique s'y prête, même si ce programme singulier ne sera pas ...
Social History of Medicine, 2002
In 1930, the large-scale introduction of the BCG vaccination in the city of Lübeck in northern Ge... more In 1930, the large-scale introduction of the BCG vaccination in the city of Lübeck in northern Germany led to a major scandal that focused public attention on medical experimentation with human beings as well as reviving criticism of the medical profession that had been voiced before. The trial following the catastrophe raised the first clearly identifiable public discussions on medical ethics in Europe, and led to the establishment of the first regulations for medical research on human beings in the western hemisphere; the German 'Richtlinien' of 1931. In 1935, Ludwik Fleck (1896-1961) published a now classic monograph entitled Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. The central hypothesis of this article is that, when Fleck published his book four years after the Lübeck trial, he was proposing answers to questions raised, at least partially, by the Lübeck case, although he never explicitly mentions it. Most interestingly, Fleck proposed a different approach to the fundamental dilemma of modern experimental medicine, the potential opposition between an individual's well-being, and the production and application of scientific knowledge in medicine. Where the standard answer to these questions has, since the 1930s, become moral reasoning and ethical regulation, known today as bioethics, Fleck portrays a different approach that could be characterized as the attempt to foster a deeper and more democratic understanding of science through an examination of its intimate functioning.
Science in Context, 2008
Using the example of the anti-tuberculosis vaccine BCG during the 1920s and 1930s, this article a... more Using the example of the anti-tuberculosis vaccine BCG during the 1920s and 1930s, this article asks how a labile laboratory-modified bacteria was transformed into a genuine standard vaccine packaged and commercialized as a pharmaceutical product. At the center of the analysis lies the notion of standardization inquiring why and how a local laboratory process with standard operating procedures (SOPs) reached its limits and was transformed when the product faced international distribution. Moving from Paul Ehrlich's initial technological notion of Wertbestimmung referring to a practice physiologically testing the effects of ill-defined antitoxins, the concept of standardization is extended to pharmaceutical and economical meanings implying quality control for biological therapeutic agents produced by a variety of industrial entrepreneurs. Following the request for product uniformity, two ways to maintain levels of compatibility and commonality are depicted opposing SOPs and end-product control. Furthermore, standardization is understood as a spiral, never ending process where progressive transformation of the vaccine in its production and medical uses periodically recreated the necessity of standardization. Developments analyzed are thus understood as a stabilization process aligning laboratory settings, products, and practices with medical theories and practices through technical, bureaucratic, and organizational systems. A paradox of the analysis is that standardization as a historical phenomenon and moment in the history of drug development was initially linked to a problem of under-determination of what was to be standardized and to a knowledge gap before it could become a central concept for quality control.
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Papers by Christian Bonah