Scielo RSS http://scielo.isciii.es/rss.php?pid=0211-953620090001&lang=es vol. 29 num. lang. es http://scielo.isciii.es/img/en/fbpelogp.gif http://scielo.isciii.es http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0211-95362009000100001&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0211-95362009000100002&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es Pedro María González, un cirujano formado en el Colegio de Cádiz, participó en el verano de 1796 en la expedición fletada por el Consulado de Cádiz y que tenía por objeto iniciar relaciones comerciales con Esmirna, la más importante ciudad comercial del Imperio Otomano. A su regreso redactó un texto con el fin de facilitar a otros españoles futuras empresas comerciales, además de mostrar detalladamente los hábitos y costumbres de los diferentes grupos que habitaban en esa ciudad. En este artículo analizo la visión que los europeos de esa época tenían de los osmanlíes, y las razones ideológicas y conceptuales de su negativa opinión, para a continuación mostrar la del propio González, especialmente la de los judíos, el grupo étnico que mejor estudió. No cabe duda de que un idioma común, el castellano, facilitó sus relaciones y su cuidadoso análisis. http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0211-95362009000100003&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es This study presents an in-depth analysis of Alexander von Humboldt's descriptions and critical comments on the colonial society of the different regions he visited during his well-known expedition through the Americas (1799-1804). The criticisms of colonialism that he expressed, reflecting his personal convictions, have already been the focal point of many studies, but Humboldt also was able to offer a more differentiated assessment through comparisons of regional and local traditions and developments. This essay focuses on his personal diaries, which offer many interesting comments on colonial societies. These considerations and impressions made during the expedition are of particular scholarly value since they were not subject to censorship of any kind. http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0211-95362009000100004&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es El médico militar Felipe Ovilo Canales fue una figura destacada y representativa de los proyectos coloniales españoles en Marruecos durante la Restauración. A diferencia de las iniciativas de otros países europeos, dichos proyectos se orientaron a impulsar y controlar el proceso de reformas del Estado marroquí. En este trabajo se analizará cómo, en el plano de las ideas políticas, esta estrategia llevó a Ovilo a formular un discurso de confluencia entre España y Marruecos; en el ámbito sanitario, a tener un papel protagonista en el Consejo Sanitario de Tánger y en la Escuela de Medicina militar de Tánger; y, finalmente, en su discurso científico, a adoptar una perspectiva racial sobre los "moros" basada en consideraciones históricas y morales, más que biológicas. http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0211-95362009000100005&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es Este artículo examina el trabajo del médico alemán-peruano Max Kuczynski/Máxime Kuczynski-Godard (Berlín, 1890-Lima, 1967) en zonas rurales de Asia Central (1924-1926) y Perú (1938-1948). El texto se enfoca principalmente en el planteamiento científico que avala el gran interés de este patólogo en la antropología y el trabajo de campo con poblaciones nativas. Las reflexiones teóricas de Kuczynski son analizadas en el contexto de los debates sobre la "crisis de la medicina" que removieron la comunidad médica alemana cuando éste fue catedrático en la universidad de Berlín en la época de entreguerras. De esta manera, se pone de relieve que la determinación para salir del laboratorio y realizar el trabajo médico y científico próximo a las poblaciones nativas, fue la expresión de consideraciones epistemológicas y éticas profundas. http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0211-95362009000100006&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es Este artículo examina el trabajo del médico alemán-peruano Max Kuczynski/Máxime Kuczynski-Godard (Berlín, 1890-Lima, 1967) en zonas rurales de Asia Central (1924-1926) y Perú (1938-1948). El texto se enfoca principalmente en el planteamiento científico que avala el gran interés de este patólogo en la antropología y el trabajo de campo con poblaciones nativas. Las reflexiones teóricas de Kuczynski son analizadas en el contexto de los debates sobre la "crisis de la medicina" que removieron la comunidad médica alemana cuando éste fue catedrático en la universidad de Berlín en la época de entreguerras. De esta manera, se pone de relieve que la determinación para salir del laboratorio y realizar el trabajo médico y científico próximo a las poblaciones nativas, fue la expresión de consideraciones epistemológicas y éticas profundas. http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0211-95362009000100007&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es Francis Aston "discovered" the isotopes of the light elements at the Cavendish Laboratory in 1919 using his newly devised mass-spectrograph. With this device, a modification of the apparatus he had used as J.J. Thomson's lab assistant before the war, Aston was surprised to find that he could elicit isotopes for many of the elements. This work was contested, but Rutherford, recently appointed to head the Cavendish, was a strong supporter of Aston's work, not least because it supported his emergent programme of research into nuclear structure. This paper will explore Aston's work in the context of skilled practice at the Cavendish and in the wider disciplinary contexts of physics and chemistry. Arguing that Aston's work was made significant by Rutherford - and other constituencies, including chemists and astrophysicists - it will explore the initial construction of isotopes as scientific objects through their embodiment in material practices. It will also show how the process of constructing isotopes was retrospectively reified by the award to Aston of the 1922 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0211-95362009000100008&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es This paper presents a framework for the study of George Hevesy's research in the 1910s by distinguishing two styles of radioactivity research: the analytical (as practices in Manchester and Vienna in some extent) and the natural historical styles (as practiced in Hungary). Georg Hevesy's approach combined the two types. Indeed, by studying Hevesy's research in context, I show that the earliest applications of isotopes were born in parallel with the establishment of the isotope theory of matter. http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0211-95362009000100009&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es This paper analyses the role that patents played in the establishment of the isotope industry. In the first part I survey the number of issued patents on the production of isotopes, also arguing that the isotope industry was typified by inadequate patenting activities. Then I examine the factors that hindered these activities by looking at the history of industrial patents in the establishment of the isotope industry. I especially focus on the consequences of the Manhattan Project on patent legislation. As the Atomic Energy Act (1946) made the isotope industry a monopoly of the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), it contributed to transform the trading of its relevant patents in a "contentious" business. Since then, inventors and assignors already in possession of isotope production patents could only claim compensation to the AEC, which was authorised to seize them. And those who might have outlined new inventions were now deprived of the economic incentive to do so, being prohibited from free-trading them in the international market. http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0211-95362009000100010&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es The development of nuclear "piles", soon called reactors, in the Manhattan Project provided a new technology for manufacturing radioactive isotopes. Radioisotopes, unstable variants of chemical elements that give off detectable radiation upon decay, were available in small amounts for use in research and therapy before World War II. In 1946, the U.S. government began utilizing one of its first reactors, dubbed X-10 at Oak Ridge, as a production facility for radioisotopes available for purchase to civilian institutions. This program of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission was meant to exemplify the peacetime dividends of atomic energy. The numerous requests from scientists outside the United States, however, sparked a political debate about whether the Commission should or even could export radioisotopes. This controversy manifested the tension in U.S. politics between scientific internationalism as a tool of diplomacy, associated with the aims of the Marshall Plan, and the desire to safeguard the country's atomic monopoly at all costs, linked to American anti-Communism. This essay examines the various ways in which radioisotopes were used as political instruments - both by the U.S. federal government in world affairs, and by critics of the civilian control of atomic energy - in the early Cold War. http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0211-95362009000100011&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es This paper aims to examine the rise and the fall of biomedicine in the public legitimization of the development of nuclear energy. Until the late 1950s, biological and medical applications of radioisotopes were presented as the most important successes of the peaceful uses of atomic energy. I will argue that despite the major financial investment, the development of the uses of radioisotopes and their important impact on biology and clinical practices, the assessment of medical uses remained relatively limited. As consequence, the place of biomedicine in the public legitimization of financial investment and civilian uses of nuclear energy began to decline from the late 1950s. http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0211-95362009000100012&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es This paper concerns the technologies used in radioisotope production in the French Atomic Energy Commission (the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique) between 1946 and 1958. Particular attention is given to the various instruments used for the bombardment of isotopes, including accelerators and reactors, and their relationship with the CEA's radioisotope preparation laboratories. Ultimately, the vast majority of bombardments took place in research reactors. These versatile machines, and the isotopes and other materials that passed through them, act as historical tracers: they shed light on the orientation of the entire atomic system in which radioisotope production is found. http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0211-95362009000100013&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es The aim of this paper is to provide an assessment of the spread of isotope-related techniques in Western Europe and the USA in the two first decades after World War II, by focusing on structural features. In particular, I analyse three major components of the European "isotope industry": radioisotope distribution networks, the establishment of training sites and publications in which isotopes played some role as the object of study or research tools. This study leads to an assessment of the importance of industrial applications of isotopes in this period, in relation to biomedical ones, and provides with a transnational comparison in terms of productivity in material resources, workforce and knowledge. http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0211-95362009000100014&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es The efforts to change the bleak image of the atom bomb galvanised the discourse on the peaceful applications of nuclear energy. This contributed to a utopian vision of nuclear energy, especially of the uses of radioactive isotopes in the immediate post-war period. Desire for peace engendered dreams of a better future based on the use of radioactivity. These dreams were first converted into reality using isotopes in medicine. These advances were subsequently applied to industry and agriculture. This article gives an overview of the peaceful applications of isotopes in industry and agriculture in Spain. It describes a period in which the initial dreams, sometimes fantastic and other times down-to-earth, gave rise to the first applications to meet the needs of economic growth in the 1960s. http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0211-95362009000100015&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es This paper is a history of iodine. To trace the trajectory of this element, goiter is used as a guideline for the articulation of a historical account, as a representation of thyroid disorders and of the spaces of knowledge and practices related to iodine. iodine's journey from goiter treatment and prophylaxis in the late interwar period took on a new course after WWII by including the element's radioactive isotopes. I intend to show how the introduction of radioiodine contributed to stabilize the epistemic role of iodine, in both its non-radioactive and radioactive form, in thyroid gland studies and in the treatment of its disorders. http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0211-95362009000100016&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es This paper is a history of iodine. To trace the trajectory of this element, goiter is used as a guideline for the articulation of a historical account, as a representation of thyroid disorders and of the spaces of knowledge and practices related to iodine. iodine's journey from goiter treatment and prophylaxis in the late interwar period took on a new course after WWII by including the element's radioactive isotopes. I intend to show how the introduction of radioiodine contributed to stabilize the epistemic role of iodine, in both its non-radioactive and radioactive form, in thyroid gland studies and in the treatment of its disorders.