A brief history of the Japan Society for Cell Biology

The Japan Society for Cell Biology (JSCB) was first founded in 1950 as the Japan Society for Cellular Chemistry under the vigorous leadership of Seizo Katsunuma, in collaboration with Shigeyasu Amano and Satimaru Seno. The Society was provisionally named as above simply because cell biology had not yet been coined at that time in Japan, although in prospect and reality the Society was in fact for the purpose of pursuing cell biology. Later in 1964, the Society was properly renamed as the Japan Society for Cell Biology. After this renaming, the JSCB made great efforts to adapt itself to the rapid progress being made in cell biology. For this purpose the Society's constitution was created in 1966 and revised in 1969. According to the revised constitution, the President, Executive Committee and Councils were to be determined by ballot vote. The style of the annual meetings was gradually modified to incorporate general oral and poster presentations in addition to Symposia (1969-1974). The publication of annual periodicals in Japanese called Symposia of the Japan Society for Cellular Chemistry (1951-1967) and later Symposia of the Japan Society for Cell Biology (1968-1974) was replaced by a new international journal called Cell Structure and Function initiated in 1975. This reformation made it possible for the Society to participate in the Science Council of Japan in 1975 and finally in 1993 to acquire its own study section of Cell Biology with grants-in-aid from the Ministry of Education and Science, Japan. The JSCB hosted the 3rd International Congress on Cell Biology (ICCB) in 1984 and the 3rd Asian-Pacific Organization for Cell Biology (APOCB) Congress in 1998, thus contributing to the international advancement of cell biology. Now the membership of JSCB stands at approximately 1,800 and the number of presentations per meeting is 300 to 400 annually. Although a good number of interesting and important findings in cell biology have been reported from Japan, the general academic activity of the JSCB is far less than one might expect. This is simply due the fact that academic activity in the field of cell biology in Japan is divided among several other related societies such as the Japan Society for Molecular Biology and the Japan Society for Developmental Biology, among others.

"Inhumanly brought back to life and misery": Mary Wollstonecraft, Frankenstein, and the Royal Humane Society

While thorough investigation of many aspects of contemporary scientific developments and Mary Shelley's personal history have provided illuminating contexts for the study of Frankenstein, the activities of the Royal Humane Society, and other bodies and individuals who pioneered and publicized resuscitation techniques, have been comparatively neglected. Here we find a richly documented, highly conspicuous area of scientific endeavour, which generated much excitement in life and literature from the last quarter of the eighteenth century onwards. There are three major points of contact with Frankenstein: Victor Frankenstein's revival of dead tissue to make his creature; the frequent occurrences of unconsciousness and asphyxia, both in the novel and in Mary Shelley's family during the period leading up to its composition, and the widely differing degrees of competence and success with which they are treated; and the possibility that resuscitative techniques were used to revive Mary Shelley's mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, after a suicide attempt. The impact on Frankenstein of Mary Shelley's lifelong distress at the role she played in bringing about her mother's death in childbirth has been thoroughly canvassed by other critics, notably Anne Mellor, but the thought that Mary Shelley, who was herself conceived after her mother's second suicide attempt, might be, in a sense, a child of the dead adds a further turn to the Gothic screw. This study traces a hitherto unexplored intersection between Mary Shelley's first novel and her family history, as well as showing how it launches a formidable attack on the shady ethics and inconsiderate arrogance of some early resuscitators.

An epistemologically arrogant community of contending scholars: a pre-Socratic perspective on the past, present, and future of the Pavlovian Society

The paper begins with a statement of the Society's purpose and its pre-Socratic roots. The Society differs from other contemporary scientific and scientific-professional societies in that it is thoroughly apolitical, unusually open to discussion and debate, and has had a restricted scholarly written impact. I then suggest and interpret six phases in the Society's history: (1) the pre-Socratic roots; (2) Pavlov and the young Gantt; (3) the Society's Gantt score of years; (4) the Joe McGuigan decade; (5) the Stewart Wolf era; (6) reforming the Society. I conclude with the hope that even if the content of the Society's interests changes, it will preserve the pre-Socratic approach against the various forms of intellectual barbarism that continue to arise.

KEYWORDS

Pre-Socratics, disinterested discussion, conflict of ideas, contending scholars, Pavlovian procedures

Citizens and scientists: toward a gendered history of scientific practice in post-revolutionary France

Because the French Revolution failed to produce a widely acceptable definition of citizenship, the limits of manhood suffrage in the early nineteenth century were uncertain. Social practices, in particular scientific activity, served as claims to the status of citizen. By engaging in scientific pastimes, bourgeois Frenchmen asserted that they possessed the rationality and autonomy that liberal theorists associated both with manliness and with civic capacity. However, bourgeois science was never a stable signifier of masculinity or of competence. As professional science emerged, the bourgeois amateur increasingly became the feminised object of satire rather than the sober and meritorious citizen-scientist.

Redefining the X axis: "professionals," "amateurs" and the making of mid-Victorian biology, a progress report

A summary of revisionist accounts of the contextual meaning of "professional" and "amateur,"as applied to the mid-Victorian X Club, is followed by an analysis of the liberal goals and inner tensions of this coalition of gentlemen specialists and government teachers. The changing status of amateurs is appraised, as are the new sites for the emerging laboratory discipline of "biology." Various historiographical strategies for recovering the women's role are considered. The relationship of science journalism to professionalization, and the constructive engagement of X Club publicists with their empowering audiences, are discussed. Finally, the article assesses how far the content and boundary closure of "biology," forged by Thomas Henry Huxley, were related to 'professional' and political goals. Pure biology's social and medical roots are examined, and the way inter-professional and wider Darwinian conflicts resulted in a new lexicon of words for the X Clubbers around 1870, including "evolution" and "agnosticism," as well as "biology." Biology's role in the forging of British national identity is discussed, as are its relationship to the social strategies of liberal, Dissenting, and industrial groups in the country, whose authority sustained the new laboratory rhetoric.

Setting up a discipline: conflicting agendas of the Cambridge History of Science Committee, 1936-1950

Traditionally the domain of scientists, the history of science became an independent field of inquiry in the twentieth century and mostly after the Second World War. This process of emancipation was accompanied by a historiographical departure from previous, 'scientistic' practices, a transformation often attributed to influences from sociology, philosophy and history. Similarly, the liberal humanists who controlled the Cambridge History of Science Committee after 1945 emphasized that their contribution lay in the special expertise they, as trained historians, brought to the venture. However, the scientists who had founded the Committee in the 1930s had already advocated a sophisticated contextual approach: innovation in the history of science thus clearly came also from within the ranks of scientists who practiced in the field. Moreover, unlike their scientist predecessors on the Cambridge Committee, the liberal humanists supported a positivistic protocol that has since been criticized for its failure to properly contextualize early modern science. Lastly, while celebrating the rise of modern science as an international achievement, the liberal humanists also emphasized the peculiar Englishness of the phenomenon, In this respect, too, their outlook had much in common with the practices from which they attempted to distance their project.

'Ergonomics in the Nordic European countries--a historical perspective': paper presented at IEA 2000/HFES 2000 Congress. International Ergonomics Association

The Nordic Ergonomic Society was founded more than 30 years ago to represent Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Recently Iceland has also been included. The Nordic Ergonomics Society has, to a large extent, traditionally been oriented towards work in the area of physiology, and a large number of its members have backgrounds within such areas as work physiology, physiotherapy and rehabilitation. However, from its inception the society has had members who are experienced within, such fields as work psychology, design, engineering and occupational health and safety. Over the last decade we have also had new members from such areas as work sociology, organizational psychology, leadership, training, information technology and cybernetics. Members have been concerned mainly with the application and practice of ergonomics. The number of members involved in research has also increased over the years. The principal areas of application for such research have been within industry and government.

A history of the Teratology Society

BACKGROUND

The 39-year history of the Teratology Society is reviewed. An abbreviated history is outlined in table form, along with listings of the Warkany Lectures, the postgraduate courses, and officers of the Society.

METHODS

A year-by-year description of the events, including the scientific and social content of the annual meetings and changes in the business of the Society, is given, in many cases using comments from the past presidents. The valuable and unique diversity of the members is discussed and illustrated, presenting the disciplines and main research area of the presidents. The number of submitted abstracts and the various categories are tabulated, averaging the number and type over four periods. Within the past 10 years, a significant increase in the number of abstracts dealing with epidemiology and developmental biology is evident. The Society's development is compared with that of a human, and the question is asked: Have we reached the maturational stage of old age or senescence, or is the Society still maturing gracefully? This question needs further discussion by all the members.

RESULTS

During the past 40 years, we have developed the scientific basis to prevent birth defects caused by rubella, alcoholism, and folate deficiency, as well as many other prenatal exposures.

CONCLUSIONS

We must now engage in the political battles to obtain the resources needed to conduct further research and to implement the prevention programs, as well as to provide care and rehabilitation for persons with birth defects.

A golden age of clinical chemistry: 1948-1960

This segment of history aims to inform the new, and remind the not-so-new, members of the profession about the relatively recent period that initiated the dominant role played by technological innovation in the modern investigation of disease. The 12 years from 1948 to 1960 were notable for introduction of the Vacutainer tube, electrophoresis, radioimmunoassay, and the AutoAnalyzer. Also appearing during this interval were new organizations, publications, programs, and services that established a firm foundation for the professional status of clinical chemists. It was a golden age.

Psychological organizations in the United States

The organizations to which psychologists belonged at the turn of the 20th century were identified. The attributes of the meetings and the membership of those organizations were compared and discussed. In addition to the American Psychological Association, psychologists belonged to the American Philosophical Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science as well as to local and regional organizations. In addition, some psychologists belonged to the Society of Experimental Psychology, but membership in that organization was by invitation only. The topics presented at the meetings of the psychological and philosophical associations often were identical or very similar, and the clear disciplinary separation that is typical in 2000 was rare in 1900.