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CFP: The University's Appropriation of the Hospital 

Frowarded to STHC-L from H-SCI-MED-TECH.  

Russell Johnson


--- Begin Forwarded Message ---
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 13:13:39 GMT0
From: Iwan Morus 
Sender: "H-NET List on the History of Science, Medicine, and 
Technology" 
"Eric Engstrom"  writes:



                        CALL FOR PAPERS

In cooperation with the chair for the history of science at the Humboldt
University and the Institute for the History of Medicine at the Free
University in Berlin a symposium will be held on:

           THE UNIVERSITY'S APPROPRIATION OF THE HOSPITAL:
          SYMPOSIUM ON THE HISTORY OF THE CHARITE IN BERLIN

                 4-5 June 1999 in Berlin, Germany.


                             Expose

When the Berlin University opened in 1810 the Charite was a general
hospital and asylum which, like most other public health institutions
of the day, comprised part of the communal system of care for the
indigent sick.  By contrast, at the close of the 19th century nearly all
of the wards in the Charite had been converted to university clinics
and the Charite was considered to be the pinnacle of scientific
medicine in Germany.

This historical transition was hotly disputed and ridden with conflict.
For the Charite was an autonomous institution and its administrators
were by no means eager to subordinate the traditional goals of
Prussia's "preeminent hospital" to the interests of the Berlin medical
faculty.  Thus, the introduction of academic research and teaching
facilities into the Charite brought two worlds into conflict with one
another: on the one hand, the world of the Charite as an asylum for
indigent patients; on the other, the world of research and teaching
embodied by the university.  Historians have tended to treat this
institutional collision from the perspective of individual medical
specialties which, over the course of the 19th century, occupied
general hospitals and permeated them with the 'spirit' of academic
medicine.  Yet from the perspective of hospital administrators,
university clinics often seemed more like "cancerous tumors"
afflicting the hospital and distorting its original aims.

A number of different actors were involved in orchestrating either
support for or resistance to the transformation of the Charite into an
academic hospital: the medical faculty of the university demanded
unfettered access to the wards; the military insisted upon their right to
train army doctors; the city of Berlin drew on the resources of the
Charite to support their public welfare system; hospital administrators
sought to preserve the integrity of their institution while superordinate
officials pursued wider goals beyond the immediate context of the
Charite.  Investigating the Charite hospital allows one to explore this
network of alliances and resistances.  At the same time, however, the
thematic orientation of the symposium invites comparison with the
clinical occupation of general hospitals in other parts of Germany as
well.  For it is the chief aim of the symposium to explore the lines of
confrontation and resistance encountered as the university expanded
into the general hospital.


Topics:
Procurement of "Material":
Which patients were admitted to the hospital? Who distributed the
patients onto the different wards?  How did academic clinicians exert
their claims to 'proper' and 'useful' patients?

Disposition of Bodies:
How was the transfer of clinical patients between different wards of
the hospital negociated?  Who had the authority to discharge patients
from the hospital?  Who was allowed to perform and/or observe
autopsies?  What restrictions were enforced on the exploitation of
corpses for academic purposes?

Information and Communication Networks:
Who produced what kind of administrative and medical documents?
Who had the right to examine the documents?  How were admission
records and patient reports generated, managed, and appropriated for
the purposes of research and teaching?

Hospital Regimen:
What role did dietary regulations play on clinical wards?  Who
determined what food patients received?  How was the administration
of the hospital's regimen supervised?  What disciplinary strictures
were imposed upon ward staff?

Beds and Wards:
Who was charged with managing hospital space?  What strategies
did clinicians employ to expand their wards?  How did clinicians
achieve their demands for more research space?

Assistants and Students:
What were the responsibilities of assistant doctors?  What tactical
measures did clinicians apply against the rotation principle for
military doctors?  To whom were Subchirurgen and Unterassistenzaerzte
responsible?  How did university clinicians secure the appointment of their
assistants?

Teaching and Lecture Halls:
To what degree was the hospital ward a public space?  What could
students do in the hospital and what rooms could they visit?  How did
academicians acquire and defend rooms for clinical instruction?  Who
paid for the establishment and maintenance of the rooms?

Military Training:
What privileges did the military enjoy in terms of research and
teaching?  How did military students exploit their advantages?  How
did the military defend its privileges?

Multiple Offices:
How did medical directors negotiate between their multiple roles as
Charite physicians, faculty members, professors at the Friedrich-
Wilhelms-Institut, or privy councillors?  Were they double agents or
mediators between two worlds?


Deadlines and other Information
Submission of abstracts: 31 December 1998
Symposium program mailing: 1 February 1999
Submission of symposium papers for commentators: 1 May 1999
Symposium: 4-5 June, 1999 in Berlin

Contributions to the symposium will be published in the Jahrbuch fuer
Universitaetsgeschichte.  The deadline for submission of final
manuscripts is 1 September 1999.  The languages of the symposium
will be German and English.  While papers can be delivered in English, the
manuscripts submitted for publication should be in German.

For more information please contact one of the conference organizers:

Eric J. Engstrom, Department of History, Humboldt University of
Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany
email: eric=engstrom@geschichte.hu-berlin.de

Volker Hess, Institute for the History of Medicine, Free University of
Berlin, Klingsorstrasse 119, 12203 Berlin, Germany
email: hess@medizin.fu-berlin.de
--- End Forwarded Message ---

___________________________________________________
Russell A. Johnson        rjohnson@library.ucla.edu

Archivist              (310) 825-3191  or  206-2753
Neuroscience History Archives
Brain Research Institute, UCLA
Box 951761     Los Angeles CA  90095-1761

Special Collections Cataloger        (310) 825-6940
Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, UCLA
Box 951798     Los Angeles CA  90095-1798
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