The Social Construction of Disease: From Scrapie to Prion (Routledge Studies in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine)

A historical exploration of scientific disputes on the causation of so-called ‘prion diseases’, this fascinating book covers diseases including Scrapie, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE). Firstly tracing the twentieth-century history of disease research and biomedicine, the text then focuses on the relations between scientific practice and wider social transformations, before finally building upon the sociologically informed methodological framework. Incisive and thought-provoking, The Social Construction of Disease provides a valuable contribution to that well-established tradition of social history of science, which refers primarily to the theoretical works of the sociology of scientific knowledge. Book Cover......Page 1 Half-Title......Page 2 Series-Title......Page 3 Title......Page 6 Copyright......Page 7 Dedication......Page 8 Contents......Page 10 Illustrations......Page 13 Preface......Page 15 Acknowledgements......Page 16 Abbreviations......Page 19 1. Introduction......Page 20 2. Scrapie in Britain, 1730–1960: A brief overview......Page 30 3. Genetic research in Edinburgh, 1964–1979......Page 50 4. Radiobiological research at Compton, 1964–1978......Page 69 5. How controversy ends: Disputes on the nature of scrapie, 1967–1980......Page 84 6. American research trends: Unconventional slow viruses, 1957–1980......Page 108 7. Formulating the prion hypothesis: Stanley Prusiner's work, 1972–1982......Page 126 8. Prion controversy, 1982–1997......Page 146 9. Molecularisation of prion disease......Page 174 10. Conclusions......Page 204 Notes......Page 211 Bibliography......Page 221 Index......Page 268

A historical exploration of scientific disputes on the causation of so-called ‘prion diseases’, this fascinating book covers diseases including Scrapie, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE).

Firstly tracing the twentieth-century history of disease research and biomedicine, the text then focuses on the relations between scientific practice and wider social transformations, before finally building upon the sociologically informed methodological framework.

Incisive and thought-provoking, The Social Construction of Disease provides a valuable contribution to that well-established tradition of social history of science, which refers primarily to the theoretical works of the sociology of scientific knowledge.