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SUMMARY:The modern rise of surgery: gloves as a technology of control - Th
 omas Schlich (McGill University)
DTSTART:20120524T153000Z
DTEND:20120524T170000Z
UID:TALK37595@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:David Thompson
DESCRIPTION:The history of surgical gloves embodies the main strategies at
  work in the modern rise of surgery. In the course of the 19th century\, s
 urgeons learned to treat numerous injuries and disorders by interventions 
 in all areas of the living body. Rather than being determined simply by th
 e power of great ideas or the logic of technical progress\, this transform
 ation of surgery was made possible by a network of control technologies th
 at enhanced manipulability and visibility. Two principles of control – m
 anual control and aseptic control – clashed in a major debate over surgi
 cal gloves. Surgeons assessed the pros and cons of the different strategie
 s as they tried to resolve the conflict by adjusting gloves' materials\, d
 esign and use. We should not dismiss these debates as if they concerned me
 re technical details\, for they reveal the dynamics of the control network
 . They show that the rise of surgery was an open-ended process\, shaped by
  a multiplicity of practical\, local concerns\, and full of contradictions
  and compromises. This analysis places surgical innovation alongside other
  areas\, such as science and industry\, in which control played a major ro
 le as part of the emergence of modern societies in the same time period.
LOCATION:Room 1\, Mill Lane Lecture Rooms
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