Science and craftsmanship: the art of experiment and instrument making.
In his two-volume monograph Untersuchungen über thierische Elektricität, the Berlin physiologist Emil du Bois-Reymond described the relation between nervous electricity and muscle mechanics by way of a long series of experiments. This work is a key text in the history of the experimental life sciences. But it not only contains new findings about the functioning of muscles and its nerves. Du Bois-Reymond practiced an art of experimentation in which aesthetics of mechanical craftsmanship allied itself with the science of physiology. Experimentation, as du Bois-Reymond understood it, was simultaneously an epistemic and an aesthetic practice. The goal of his science was thus producing both knowledge and aesthetic success.
Dierig
Sven
S
Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Boltzmannstrasse 22, 14195 Berlin, Germany. dierig@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de
D001604:Berlin; D004594:Electrophysiology / Q000266:history; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006801:Humans; D009488:Neurosciences / Q000266:history* / Q000295:instrumentation