Tissue Culture in Science and Society: The Public Life of a Biological Technique in Twentieth Century Britain (Science, Technology and Medicine in Modern History)

This book charts the social and cultural history of the scientific technique known as tissue culture. It shows how tissue culture was a regular public presence in twentieth-century Britain, and argues that history can contribute to current debates surrounding research on human and animal tissue. Cover ......Page 1 Contents......Page 6 List of Figures......Page 8 List of Abbreviations......Page 9 Acknowledgements......Page 10 1 Introduction......Page 12 2 ‘Make Dry Bones Live’: Tissue Culture at the Cambridge Research Hospital......Page 15 Constructing tissue culture......Page 16 Tissue culture at the Cambridge Research Hospital......Page 19 ‘The malignant entity’: Tissue culture in the popular sphere......Page 27 Conclusions......Page 38 3 ‘Could You Love a Chemical Baby?’ Organ Culture in Interwar Britain......Page 40 The development of organ culture......Page 41 Organ culture and ‘test-tube babies’......Page 45 Conclusions......Page 63 4 Converting Human Material into Tissue Culture, c.1910–70......Page 65 Standing at the shoulder of surgeons: Acquiring human tissue c.1910–45......Page 66 Medical relevance and popular coverage in postwar Britain......Page 70 ‘An almost untapped resource’: The increasing demand for human tissue......Page 76 Conclusions......Page 79 5 ‘A Cell is Not an Animal’: Negotiating Species Boundaries in the 1960s and 1970s......Page 81 Creating hybrid cells......Page 82 Hybrid cells and The Biological Time-Bomb......Page 87 Replacing experimental animals with tissue culture......Page 92 Conclusions......Page 101 6 Nobody’s Thing? Consent, Ownership, and the Politics of Tissue Culture......Page 103 Pro-life politics and foetal tissue culture......Page 104 Who owns WI-38? Tissue culture goes to court......Page 110 Commercialism and its discontents: Struggles over consent and ownership in the 1980s......Page 112 Britain: Debating policy and surveying public opinion in the 1980s and 1990s......Page 118 Retained organs and new legislation: Human tissue in the twenty-first century......Page 122 Conclusions......Page 126 7 Epilogue: Tissues in Culture......Page 128 Notes......Page 136 References......Page 170 Index......Page 189 Tissue Culture in Science and Society sheds new light on the biological technique known as 'tissue culture', showing how it featured regularly in British newspapers, magazines and novels, and appeared in cinema and on television throughout the twentieth century. It details how tissue culture was given meaning thanks to interplay between scientific and cultural concerns, including the modernist reappraisal of lifespan, the body and reproduction, postwar enthusiasm for 'magic bullets' and more recent discussion of patient rights. By highlighting this interaction, and charting tissue culture's history through to the present day, Wilson provides much needed context and balance for current debates In 1825, an English Earl, crippled with pain and despairing of his usual physicians, invited a young and unconventional doctor into his home. Days later, the Earl was relieved, and the doctor rich. To celebrate his remarkable recovery, the nobleman re-named his favorite racehorse to honor the technique that cured him: "acupuncture." In an engaging account, Roberta Bivins vivifies the characters, texts, and events of acupuncture's (often surprising) 300 year history in Britain, and begins to explain acupuncture's enduring appeal Machine generated contents note: List of Figures Abbreviations Acknowledgments Introduction 'Make Dry Bones Live': Tissue Culture at the Cambridge Research Hospital 'Could You Love a Chemical Baby?' Organ Culture in Interwar Britain Converting Human Material into Tissue Culture, c.1910-70 'A Cell is Not an Animal': Negotiating Species in the 1960s and 1970s Nobody's Thing? Consent, Ownership and the Politics of Tissue Culture Epilogue: Tissues in Culture Notes Bibliography Index. Alternative medicine is a fifty billion dollar per year industry. It reaches a provocative conclusion: alternative therapies' whole-body approach might be just what medicine really needs right now to help crack the tough, chronic conditions seemingly untouched by the revolutions of surgery, antiseptics, antibiotics, vaccines and molecular biology. "This book charts the social and cultural history of the scientific technique known as "tissue culture." It shows how tissue culture was a regular public presence in twentieth-century Britain, and argues that history can contribute to current debates surrounding research on human and animal tissue"-- Provided by publisher