Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften
Name	Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften
Native name	Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften
Founded	1912
Location	Berlin
Fields	History of Medicine, History of Science

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften is a German scholarly society dedicated to the historical study of medicine, natural history, physics, chemistry, biology, philosophy of science and related fields through interdisciplinary research and public outreach. Founded in 1912 and based in Berlin, the society connects historians, physicians, scientists and curators across institutions such as the Max Planck Society, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the Wellcome Trust. It maintains ties with archives, museums and libraries including the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, the Deutsches Museum, the Institute for the History of Medicine of the Charité and the British Library.

Geschichte

The society was established in the context of early 20th-century networks linking figures like Rudolf Virchow, Wilhelm Ostwald, Ernst Haeckel, Theodor Schwann and institutions such as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, the University of Göttingen, the University of Heidelberg, the University of Freiburg and the University of Tübingen. During the Weimar Republic the society engaged with scholars connected to the Berlin University of the Arts and the Prussian Academy of Sciences, while members corresponded with contemporaries at the Royal Society, the Académie des Sciences and the Smithsonian Institution. In the postwar decades its membership included historians affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, the Universität Hamburg, the Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Bonn, reflecting exchange with scholars linked to the History of Science Society, the International Academy of the History of Science and the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine.

Zweck und Aufgaben

The society aims to promote research on figures like Hippocrates, Galen, Andreas Vesalius, William Harvey, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Dmitri Mendeleev, Louis Pasteur and Emilie du Châtelet through collaboration with archives such as the Bodleian Library, the Vatican Library, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the National Library of Medicine and the Wellcome Library. It supports critical editions of works by Paracelsus, Galen of Pergamon, Avicenna, Ibn al-Nafis and Galenus and fosters projects addressing institutions like the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, the Rudolf Virchow Hospital, the Theresianum, the Hôpital de la Salpêtrière and the Mount Sinai Hospital. The society also advises collections such as the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, the Museum für Naturkunde, the Science Museum (London), the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Organisation und Mitgliedschaft

Governance includes an executive board drawn from academics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität München, Universität Leipzig, Universität zu Köln and the Universität Münster and advisory members from the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, the Robert Koch Institute, the Paul Ehrlich Institute and the Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung. Honorary members have included scholars associated with the British Museum, the Biblioteca Nacional de España, the Vatican Apostolic Library and the National Institutes of Health. Membership categories mirror practices at the Royal Society of Medicine, the American Association for the History of Medicine, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Philosophie and the Society for the Social History of Medicine.

Aktivitäten und Publikationen

The society publishes monographs, edited volumes and periodicals in collaboration with presses such as De Gruyter, Springer, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Routledge. It issues proceedings tied to conferences featuring research on subjects from Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt to the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, 19th-century Europe and 20th-century medicine. Publications address archives like the Stasi Records Agency, the Bundesarchiv, the Wellcome Collection and the National Archives and involve editorial projects on papers by Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud and Alexander von Humboldt. The society has produced thematic series on topics related to the Gutenberg Press, the Scientific Revolution, medical ethics debates involving institutions such as the European Court of Human Rights and regulatory histories involving the Food and Drug Administration and the Paul Ehrlich Institute.

Tagungen und Veranstaltungen

Annual meetings rotate among venues including the Deutsches Museum, the University of Vienna, the University of Zurich, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, the University of Cambridge, the Sorbonne, the Columbia University, the Harvard University, the Yale University and the Princeton University. The society organizes seminars and workshops with curators from the Natural History Museum, London, the Wellcome Collection, the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings, the Nobel Foundation and the Royal Society, as well as public lectures honoring figures such as Florence Nightingale, Ignaz Semmelweis, Robert Koch and Emil von Behring.

Kooperationen und Netzwerke

Longstanding partners include the Max Planck Society, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the German Research Foundation, the European Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and the National Endowment for the Humanities. International links extend to the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Science and Technology, the International Congress of the History of Science and Technology, the History of Science Society, the International Academy of the History of Science and regional bodies like the Bund Deutscher Historiker and the Verein für Geschichte der Medizin in Bayern.

Bedeutung und Forschungseinfluss

The society has influenced scholarship on figures and institutions including Paracelsus, Galen, Hippocrates, Andreas Vesalius, William Harvey, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch, Alexander von Humboldt and Max Planck and on events such as the Scientific Revolution, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution and the World War II era reorganization of science. Its work informs museums, university curricula and policy debates at the European Commission, the Bundestag and advisory bodies like the Paul Ehrlich Institute, shaping historiography deployed in exhibitions at the Deutsches Technikmuseum, the Deutsches Historisches Museum and the Science Museum (London).

Category:History of science organizations Category:History of medicine