This article explores the language of hands and manual gestures in two of the earliest printed texts on surgery, written in German by the Strasbourg practitioners Hieronymus Brunschwig and Hans von Gersdorff. Going back to the medieval learned tradition, surgeons regularly invoke the etymological root of surgery or cirurgia in the Greek word for hand and use this trope to demarcate their expertise from that of learned physicians who were said to lack manual skill. This article offers a close reading of Brunschwig’s Buch der Cirurgia (1497) and Gersdorff’s Feldtbuch der Wundarznei (1517) alongside documents from the Strasbourg archives to explore the work done by the trope of hands and handgriffe (manual gestures). I show that such gestures were a key moment for re-negotiating the boundaries of legitimate surgical practice, especially vis-a-vis learned medicine. More importantly, I argue that hands and gestures were central to these craft surgeons’ efforts to carve out an honourable and useful place for surgery in artisanal urban society with its complex sensibilities around "body work".

Keywords: Germany, early modern, Medicine, surgery, artisans, urban society, print

In the early 20th century, anatomists discussed the specific potential of manual exercises in student teaching. The Hamburg anatomist Johannes Brodersen (1878–1970), taught his students to model muscle anatomy in his courses using clay. Similar approaches were taken by the Inns-bruck anatomists Felix Sieglbauer (1877–1974) and Gustav Sauser (1899–1969). In Vienna, Alfons Poller (1879–1930) designed an institute for performing medicine in order to give his students ‘a sense of form and colour […] through their own artistic recreation […].’ What the protagonists had in common was an idea of artistic activity that was less focussed on the product, but rather served as a means of sharpening perception and practising the senses that grasp form. They were thus following a reformist pedagogical discourse that had been gaining importance in various disciplines since the turn of the century, but was also harshly criticised.

Keywords: modeling, Didactics, Anatomy, 20th century, Germany, Hamburg, Innsbruck, Fribourg

Using the example of the use and thematization of the hands of the Viennese radiologist Guido Holzknecht, the text aims to show that the appropriate use of the hands, but also their failure, became a central component of the professional self-conception of the first generation of radio-logists. The text outlines three of these partially detached, partially overlapping compressions of collective radiological self-conceptions that developed around the use of hands: Firstly, the figure of the radiological manual worker; secondly, the figure of the X-ray manager; and, thirdly, the figure of the sick radiologist, whose infirmity was expressed above all in the so-called “X-ray hands”.

Keywords: radiology, professionalization, practices of subjectification, scientific management, Guido Holzknecht, Vienna, 1896–1931

This report takes a closer look at the relationship between blindness and massage against the background of the professional development of the massage and physiotherapy professions. On the one hand, fundamental professional development and differentiation processes of these non-medical occupational groups will be presented and, on the other hand, a very specific subgroup, its interests, arguments and negotiation processes will be examined more closely using the example of blind masseurs and their interest groups. This raises the broader question of how society in Germany has dealt with the specific concerns of a socially disadvantaged group within the healthcare professions. The example of blind masseurs is particularly interes ting because, as in many other cases, blindness was not an obstacle but an advantage in their arguments.

Keywords: Blindness, Disability History, Massage Therapy, Physical Therapy

This project report discusses a collection of Indian surgical instruments that were donated between 1907 and 1913 by the Indologist A.F. Rudolf Hoernle (1841–1918) to Karl Sudhoff (1853–1938) and which are now held in the collection of the Karl-Sudhoff-Institut für Ge-schichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften in Leipzig. As the history of indigenous Indian surgery in the colonial era is not a well-researched subject, understanding these objects is a challenge and requires recourse to multiple approaches. This project report sketches out approaches to examine these instruments based on their ma te-ri ality as well as the written documentation surrounding them and presents some preliminary findings.

Keywords: India, colonial period, surgical instruments, materiality, provenance

Schilling’s Cheiroskioscope is an almost ideal ‘question generator’ (Marion M. Ruisinger) for studying the early history of the medical application of X-rays, particularly with regard to the role of the hands of X-ray operators. Unlike using the hand as a tool to fix or move an object, X-ray operators used their hands to specify the quality of the radiation. To protect the operator’s hand from radiation, in 1903 the Nuremberg physician Schilling presented a skeleton hand in a leather glove with wax poured into it as a physically identical model of a living hand for assessing radiation quality.

Keywords: X-Ray, Radiation Damage, Radiation Protection, Dosimetry

Abortions have repeatedly been the subject of intense political and medical debates. In the 1930s, abortions were still banned in Austria (with few exceptions) and were punishable by several years in prison. This ban on abortion forced unintentionally pregnant women to break the law. However, people agreed to perform abortions on unintentionally pregnant women by injecting water into the uterus in exchange for money. Various oral abortifacients were also circulating during this time, including quinine or powder made from the leaves of the savin tree. Against this background, this research report attempts to answer the following questions by analysing court records and contemporary newspaper reports: Who were the unintentionally pregnant women? Where did they come from and how old were they at the time of their un-intended pregnancy? For what reasons did they decide to have an illegal abortion? How and where were abortions discussed and were any contacts made between the unintentionally pregnant women and the abortionists? Who were the people carrying out abortions and where did they get their medical knowledge from? Furthermore, the position of the medical profession on this subject will be explained.

Keywords: Illegal abortions, unwanted pregnancies, Tyrol, court records, Austria 1930s