title: Between the laboratory and the museum: Claude Bernard and the problem of time.
abstract: This paper explores the relation between biological and historical time with respect to Claude Bernard's Lectures on the Phenomena of Life Common to Animals and Plants (1878). These lectures mirror Bernard's turn from the experimental physiology of animal organisms to a "general physiology" of elementary organisms, or cells, and discuss the problematic interrelation of science, life, and time. The paper argues that experimental life sciences in Bernard's sense are always also "living sciences," i.e., sciences in dynamic development. The perspectives of this conception are discussed with reference to Hans-Jörg Rheinberger's historical studies concerning the materiality and semiotics of "experimental systems."
authors.affiliation: Institut für Information und Medien, Sprache und Kultur (I:IMSK) Universitdt Regensburg, Universitditsstrasse 31, 93053 Regensburg, Germany. henning.schmidgen@sprachlit.uni-regensburg.de
authors.forename: Henning
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Schmidgen
mesh_terms: D005060:Europe; D049672:History, 19th Century; D007753:Laboratories / Q000266:history; D009144:Museums / Q000266:history; D010297:Paris; D010827:Physiology / Q000266:history*; D013995:Time