Live Blogging the ISHN

Opening Remarks
The ISHN & Cheiron open with a warm welcome from the two Presidents of the Societies, the President of the University of Calgary, and Deans from the School of Medicine and Arts. All emphasize the importance of interdisciplinarity and point to the joint meeting as an excellent example of the way in which a variety of disciplines can come together.

The President mentions a number of interdisciplinar initatives taking place at the University of Calgary. These included:

1. Research on making silicon chips talk to nerve cells
2. Research on the relationship among exercise, brain function, and mental disease
3. Research on MRI guided robotic neurosurgery

My forthcoming lecture: How Physicians Became Neurologists: The Case of Britain, 1800-2000

When: Wednesday, June 15, 2011, 4pm
Where: Health Sciences Center - Room G500, University of Calgary, Foothills Campus, 3330 Hospital Drive NW, Calgary, AB T2N 4N1

This presentation describes the specialization of British neurology. British neurology emerged in a medical culture philosophically generalist in its values for medical practice. For this reason, British physicians in the nineteenth and early twentieth century were largely opposed to medical specialization. Rather than contravening their culture’s standards, British neurologists embraced “generalism” by claiming that their specialist knowledge not only conformed to this culture but was its highest manifestation. These claims had advantages, but the result was a conflict in the idioms of medical practice. On one hand, neurologists produced and reproduced habits and dispositions that articulated and even underscored their specialty’s differences with medicine. On the other hand, they argued that they were general physicians possessing broad knowledge and sound judgment for the whole of medicine. Neurology, thus conceived in Britain, became at once the most elite of generalist medicine’s many practices. At the same time, neurology was one of its most marginal specialties.

ISHN Calgary

The history of neuroscience is fortunate to have a society, a journal, and a community of scholars dedicated to the history of neuroscience. This year's President of the International Society for the History of Neuroscience, Dr. Frank W. Stahnisch, has worked tirelessly to bring us an outstanding program for our international meeting. His work follows the great success of last year's meeting in Paris. And the Program for this year's ISHN meeting in Calgary looks equally tremendous. The full program is here and here).

The First Joint Conference of Cheiron (The international Society for the History of the Behavioral and Social Sciences) and The International Society for the History of the Neurosciences (ISHN) will be held in Calgary / Banff (Canada). The main conference will be from June 16-19 at the University of Calgary, while a post-conference retreat (with workshops) will be held at the Banff Centre for the Arts from June 19-23, in the Rocky Mountains. The program consists of ca. 130 presentations, posters and discussion contributions and also includes public outreach lectures, social, music and film events.

The five keynote speakers are: Dr. Bryan Kolb, University of Lethbridge; Dr. David Wright, McMaster University; Dr. Elizabeth Lunbeck, Vanderbilt University; Dr. Andrew T. Scull, University of California, and Dr. Frank Stahnisch, University of Calgary (~ISHN Presidential Address). Furthermore, five special lectures are featured on the program: Emily Martin (New York University) "Anthropology and the History of Experimental Psychology"; Harry Whitacker (Northern Michigan University) "Reading between the lines: An exegesis of an 18th century text"; Anne Stiles (Washington State University) "Vampire Fiction and the Emergence of the Rest Cure"; *Robert Wilson (University of Alberta) "Witnessing and complicity: Sexual crimes and wrongful accusation"; and the International CURA-Lecture (Banff Workshop): Paul Weindling (Oxford Brookes) "Sterilization Solutions: Varieties of Sterilization Policies in Twentieth-Century Europe".

Interested participants may still register until/during the conference days (June 16-23, 2011). Reduced rates for daily registration and for students are available: http://www.ucalgary.ca/ISHN_Cheiron/registration

Commonwealth Fund compares US Healthcare to Commonwealth Healthcare

Original Report Here