Regions Of The Mind: Brain Research And The Quest For Scientific Certainty

Regions of the Mind REGIONS OF THE MIND Brain Research and the Quest for Scientific Certainty Susan Leigh Star Stanford University Press Stanford, California o 1989 Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 1989 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University Printed in the United States of America CIP data appear at the end of the book for Fran and Anselm Strauss beloved friends and teachers and for my parents, Glenn and Shirley Kippax with love and respect Acknowledgments All scientific work is collective. I have been lucky to conduct this research in a generous and gifted community of scholars. I am especially grateful to ¥de Clarke, Joan Fujimura, Elihu Gerson, Anselm Strauss,,and Rachel Volberg for their help. Many of the ideas here d!:aw on· their work and on discussions with t,h~. Anselm spent many hours with me analyzing and helpi,ng me to integrate my findings, and teaching me about the processes and. varieties of work. Adele, Joan, and Rachel were good friends, colleagues, .and critics. Elihu provided valuable criticism in the early s.tages of the project. Howard Becker also made many helpful suggestions on chapter drafts. ' I would also like to thank the following people for helpful and often extensive comments and discussion of the work presented here: Pauline Bart, the late Herbert Blumer, the late Rue Bucher, Kathy Charmaz, Nan Chico, M. Sue Gerson, Kathleen Gregory Huddleston, James Griesemer, Gail Hornstein, Ruth Hubbard, Bud Hutchins, Bruno Latour, John Law, Ruth Linden, Marilyn Little, Carl Hewitt, Lynda Koolish, Jane Maienschein, Sheryl Ruzek, Ken Schaffner, Lenny Schatzman, Dan Todes, Barry Wellman, and William C. Wimsatt. Wimsatt's work is pivotal to many of the concepts discussed here. I am grateful to Ralph Kellogg for discussion of'resources in the history of physiology. Muriel Bell, senior editor at Stanford University Press, added many insights and clarifications. My respondents for the pilot study graciously allowed me to observe them at work and to interview them. Sigrid Novikoff and Mirto Stone translated the work of Goltz and Panizza, respectively (Appendixes A and B). Ruth Linden provided valuable bibliographic assistance. William Goodenough House, London, provided living accommodations during my stay in London. viii o Acknuwledgments I would like to thank the staff of the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queen Square, London (formerly the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic) for allowing me to read their nineteenthcentury patient records. Special thanks are due to John Marshall, then dean, Institute of Neurology; Paula Porter, patients services officer, National Hospital for Nervous Diseases; Gladys Seville, medical records officer; and Iris Royer, Outpatients Department, for their time and assistance. The following libraries and archives generously made their resources available to me: Thane Medical Library, University College, London, with special thanks for access to Victor Horsley's casebooks; the archives of the Royal Society, London; the library of the Royal College of Physicians, London, with special thanks ·for access to David Ferrier's unpublished laboratory notebooks;' the Wellcome Library for the History of Medicine;· and the UCSF collection in the History of Medicine. Some of the original research for this project was assisted by funds from the University of California, San Francisco. Tremont Research Institute, San Francisco, "'generously provided organizational resources. A fellowship from La Fondation Fyssen allowed me to· study and compare approaches with colleagueS at the Centre de sociologic de !'innovation, Ecole des Mines, in France. Sally and Pete Becker kindly allowed me to use their printer. Several aspects of the research were conducted jointly with Tremont and the