Suchergebnisse

Alfons Labisch: "Homo Hygienicus". Gesundheit und Medizin in der Neuzeit. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1992. 340 S., geb., 68,- DM

Abstract
Today we live in a global network of knowledge–as shown recently by the worldwide interactive research on Covid-19. Nevertheless, knowledge is distributed differently around the world and is perceived and valued differently in different cultures. This also applies to different strata within societies. The fact of a global world of knowledge and its horizontally and vertically different perception, interpretation and usage raises several problems. These can be explained above all by the sociogenesis of the global knowledge world and its fundamental lines and moments of development. Even a brief look at history shows that knowledge has been and is exchanged from earliest times till nowadays. This fact in turn raises questions and problems that we want to address systematically. What is "knowledge"? Sciences? Arts and crafts? When, by whom, in what form was knowledge disseminated? What is knowledge transfer? Exchange? Is it a mere transport, a deliberate exchange, or a kind of silent appropriation of foreign knowledge? In the following, some of these questions will be dealt with systematically. The historical material as well overarching question is the exchange of knowledge in Eurasia and here specifically the transfer and exchange of knowledge between Europe and China. After a preliminary clarification of terms and questions, the transfer of knowledge between Europe and China from the earliest times up to the Yuan Dynasty will be surveyed. Subsequently, the basic concepts and questions can be discussed and sharpened for further research. An outlook on the historical phase of a deliberate transfer and finally exchange of knowledge between China and Europe since the early modern period concludes the study. The aim of this work is not primarily to describe the historical course of individual exchange processes, but to clarify questions and problems for future empirical studies regarding the research landscape.

Abstract /Summary
In light of the widely discussed issues on the modernization and industrialization of East Asia, it is sometimes overlooked that there has been a constant exchange of knowledge between East Asia and Europe. This "transfer of knowledge" during all known times was associated with the traffic of humans, animals and goods and had an input on skills and techniques, too. And it were not only goods, skills and knowledge, but religions, world views and cultures that were exchanged. Thus is it productive to speak of an "transfer of knowledge"? Is it not rather productive to speak of a constant exchange and thus of an "interchange of knowledge" - and so of a steadily ongoing process of giving and taking? So is the real question what separates East Asia and Europe or what they have in common? It is precisely this general problem that is to be pursued in a special question in time, for which there are no written sources. So it is about the earliest history, possibly even the origin of exchange processes between East and West, which can be achieved with most modern methods. Are the latest methods and results of archeology providing us with information on whether, as of when and in what areas, an exchange of knowledge between East and West existed before the time of writing? This question is being examined in a central region of the exchange, namely the "Oasis Silk Road" with the "bottle neck" of the Taklamakan. The present study / presentation is only a small, highly incomplete "florilegium" - a selection of flowers. Pilot studies with precise questions would be needed. Such preliminary investigations and pilot studies could also be made for other regions of knowledge exchange and cultural interaction in East Asia in general. On the methodical side, all methods of historiography and archeology have their specific advantages, but also their specific disadvantages. In the issue "Eurasian Interchange of Knowledge in Times before Writing", the combined results of historiography, modern archeology, and recent natural scientific and (molecular) biological archaeology are the basis for our current state of knowledge. On the long run the different methods and results from a variety of different scientific areas have to be evaluated in their meaningfulness, reach and validity for the historiography of human action. On the basis of the results from historiography and archeology in the widest sense, can be assumed that there has been an exchange of materials, products, skills and creatures - animals and humans - since the beginning of the early agrarian culture in the Neolithic Age. Exchange processes in the widest sense in the later times of writing therefore seldom meet an almost untouched field. Rather, exchange processes usually build on existing cultural peculiarities, which are already an amalgam and thus an inseparable mixture of previous exchange processes.

Der vorliegende Beitrag arbeitet heraus, daß Gesundheit auf unterschiedlichen gesellschaftlichen Aggregatebenen (Individuum, Gruppe, Verband, Kommune, Staat etc.) unterschiedlich wahrgenommen und definiert wird, so daß es zu differentiellen Problembearbeitungsversuchen kommt. Diese allgemeine Annahme wird an der historischen Entwicklung und sozialen Konstruktion des sozialen Gutes Gesundheit in unterschiedlichen Phasen des öffentlichen Gesundheitswesens in Deutschland seit dem Mittelalter veranschaulicht. Anschließend werden die verschiedenen Strategien der Gesundheitssicherung der Handlungsträger und der Gesundheitswissenschaft herausgearbeitet. Durch die "strukturelle Selektivität" dieser Perspektiven fehlt es heute in der BRD weitgehend an einem öffentlichen Gesundheitswesen, das auf die Umweltbedingungen und Lebensweisen der Individuen Einfluß nimmt, wie dies dem gesundheitspolitischen Konzept der WHO entspräche. (ICE)

Es wurde gezeigt, daß mit jedem neuen Schub gesellschaftlicher Differenfierung und Integration ein neuer, zumindest beabsichtigter Zugriff auf das Verhalten der Menschen über den Wert "Gesundheit" einhergeht. Gesundheit ist folglich kein primärer, sondern ein sekundärer Wert. Die primären Werte werden jedoch durch den Grad der gesellschaftlichen Integration und den entsprechenden Grad der Rationalisierung bestimmt. Der Gesundheitserziehung fällt damit die Aufgabe zu, die Menschen im Zusammenwirken mit anderen Institutionen der sozialen Disziplinierung in dieses Wertesystem einzuführen. Über das sekundäre Ziel der Gesundheit liefert die Medizin folglich ein in seinem Begründungszusammenhang beliebig austauschbares theoretisches Argumentationsinventar. Dieses rationalisiert einen gesellschaftlich gesetzten Anspruch an ein bestimmtes Handeln und Verhalten. Ärzte und andere medizinische Berufe schlüpfen dabei in die Rolle des Vermittlers von gesellschaftspolitischen Zwecksetzungen über das Ziel der Gesundheit. Kontrolle durch Schutz, Schutz durch Kontrolle, so könnte der grundlegende Mechanismus benannt werden. Heute scheinen individuelles Gesundheitsideal und propagierte Gesundheit zusammenzufallen, ohne daß jedoch die notwendigen Entscheidungs- und Handlungsräume entsprechend verteilt wurden. (SJ)