Christoph Gradmann
Christoph Gradmann has studied history and literary studies in Hannover (Germany) and Birmingham (UK). He took his M.A. in 1987 and a Dr.phil. in 1991. A postdoctoral examination, qualifying for professorial rank, the so-called Habilitation (in history of medicine and science), was taken in 2002.
Christoph Gradmann has held academic positions Hannover (1991-1992), Heidelberg, (1992-2006) and Berlin (1997). He has been a professor at UiO since 2006.
For more information: https://www.med.uio.no/helsam/english/people/aca/ulrichcg/index.html
Phone: ++47 22850615
Address: Christoph Gradmann
University of Oslo
Institute of Health and Society
Section for Medical Anthropology and Medical History
PO Box 1130 Blindern
0318 Oslo / Norway
Christoph Gradmann has held academic positions Hannover (1991-1992), Heidelberg, (1992-2006) and Berlin (1997). He has been a professor at UiO since 2006.
For more information: https://www.med.uio.no/helsam/english/people/aca/ulrichcg/index.html
Phone: ++47 22850615
Address: Christoph Gradmann
University of Oslo
Institute of Health and Society
Section for Medical Anthropology and Medical History
PO Box 1130 Blindern
0318 Oslo / Norway
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Some papers
been the main inspiration for the World Health Organization’s Directly Observed
Treatment, Short-Course (DOTS) strategy for the control of tuberculosis, which was
implemented from 1994. The text focuses on what previously took place in Tanzanian
tuberculosis control between 1977 and the early 1990s. What was it that the
International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, which was central in the
effort, assisted in creating? In what sense was the program innovative? How could a
country whose health system was destroyed by a deepening economic crisis in the
1980s become a lighthouse of tuberculosis control? How much consideration was
given to the rise of HIV/AIDS that occurred in parallel? The paper proposes answers
to these questions, and suggests that we should see the creation of the Tanzanian program
as a laboratory of nascent global health.
to complete a transformation of hospitals that originated in the late nineteenth century. Former death sinks had become harbingers of therapeutic progress. Yet this triumph was short-lived. The arrival of pathologies caused by resistant bacteria, and of nosocomial infections whose spread was helped by antibiotic therapies, seemed to be intimately related to modern anti-infective therapy. The place where such problems culminated were hospitals, which increasingly appeared as dangerousenvironments where attempts to combat infectious diseases had instead created hothouses of disease evolution. This paper will focus on one aspect of that history. It caused clinical medicine and hospital hygiene in particular to pay attention to a
dimension of infectious disease it had previously paid little attention to thus far: The evolution of infectious disease—previously a matter of mostly theoretical interest— came to be useful in explaining many phenomena observed. This did not turn hospital hygienists into geneticists, though it did give them an awareness that the evolution of infectious disease in a broad sense was something that did matter to
them. The paper advances its argument by looking at three phases: The growing awareness of the hospital as a dangerous environment in the 1950s, comprehensive attempts at improving antibiotic therapy and hospital hygiene that followed from the 1960s and lastly the framing of such challenges as risk factors from the 1970s. In conclusion, I will argue that hospital hygiene, being inspired in particular by epidemiology
and risk factor analysis, discussed its own specific version of disease
emergence and therefore contributed to the 1980s debates around such topics. Being loosely connected to more specialized studies, it consisted of a re-interpretation of infectious disease centred around the temporality of such phenomena as they were encountered in day-to-day dealings of clinical wards.
has been a driving force in the development of new antibiotics.
Drug resistance, while being a problem for physicians and patients, offers attractive perspectives for those who research and develop new medicines. It imposes limits on the usability of older medicines and simultaneously modifies pathologies in a way that opens markets for new treatments. Studying resistance can thus be an important part of developing and marketing antibiotics.
The chosen example is that of the German pharmaceutical company Bayer. Before World War Two, Bayer had pioneered the development of anti-infective chemotherapy, sulpha drugs in particular, but had missed the boat when it came to fungal antibiotics. Exacerbated by the effects of war, Bayer’s world market presence, which had been considerable prior to the war, had plummeted. In this critical situation, the company opted for a development strategy that tried to capitalise on the problems created by the use of first-generation antibiotics. Part and parcel of this strategy was monitoring what can be called the structural change of infectious disease. In practice, this meant to focus on pathologies resulting from resistance and hospital infections. In addition, Bayer also focused on lifestyle pathologies such as athlete’s foot. This paper will follow drug development and marketing at Bayer from 1945 to about 1980. In this period, Bayer managed to regain some of its previous standing in markets but could not escape from the overall crisis of anti-infective drug development from the 1970s on.
Some books
Koch contributed to modern medicine by inventing or improving fundamental techniques such as bacterial staining, solid culture media, mass pure cultures, and the use of animal models. His discoveries, which dominated medical science at the turn of the last century, are epitomized in a set of rules named after him. "Koch's Postulates" are still invoked today in attempts to prove the causal involvement of pathogens in infectious diseases.
In a double history, Christoph Gradmann narrates the development of a discipline and the biography of a scientist. Drawing on Koch's extensive laboratory notes, Gradmann details how Koch developed his scientific method and discovered the bacterial causes of anthrax, tuberculosis, and cholera. Koch tried to bring this knowledge to clinical medicine by developing medicines that would specifically target the bacterial pathogens he identified. And Koch’s passion for personal travel developed into a career signature, as he became a pioneer in the study of tropical diseases.
A fascinating look into Koch's personality and his experimental work in medical bacteriology, Laboratory Disease reveals both the biographical and the historical roots of our modern understanding of infectious diseases.
The volume proposes an encompassing view of the transition from international public health to global health, bringing together historians and anthropologists to analyse why new modes of "interventions on the life of others" recently appeared and how they blur the classical divides between North and South. The contributors argue that not only does the global health enterprise signal a significant departure from the postwar targets and modes of operations typical of international public health, but that new configurations of action have moved global health beyond concerns with infectious diseases and state-based programs.
The book will appeal to academics, students and health professionals interested in new discussions about the transnational circulation of drugs, bugs, therapies, biomedical technologies and people in the context of the "neo-liberal turn" in development practices.
been the main inspiration for the World Health Organization’s Directly Observed
Treatment, Short-Course (DOTS) strategy for the control of tuberculosis, which was
implemented from 1994. The text focuses on what previously took place in Tanzanian
tuberculosis control between 1977 and the early 1990s. What was it that the
International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, which was central in the
effort, assisted in creating? In what sense was the program innovative? How could a
country whose health system was destroyed by a deepening economic crisis in the
1980s become a lighthouse of tuberculosis control? How much consideration was
given to the rise of HIV/AIDS that occurred in parallel? The paper proposes answers
to these questions, and suggests that we should see the creation of the Tanzanian program
as a laboratory of nascent global health.
to complete a transformation of hospitals that originated in the late nineteenth century. Former death sinks had become harbingers of therapeutic progress. Yet this triumph was short-lived. The arrival of pathologies caused by resistant bacteria, and of nosocomial infections whose spread was helped by antibiotic therapies, seemed to be intimately related to modern anti-infective therapy. The place where such problems culminated were hospitals, which increasingly appeared as dangerousenvironments where attempts to combat infectious diseases had instead created hothouses of disease evolution. This paper will focus on one aspect of that history. It caused clinical medicine and hospital hygiene in particular to pay attention to a
dimension of infectious disease it had previously paid little attention to thus far: The evolution of infectious disease—previously a matter of mostly theoretical interest— came to be useful in explaining many phenomena observed. This did not turn hospital hygienists into geneticists, though it did give them an awareness that the evolution of infectious disease in a broad sense was something that did matter to
them. The paper advances its argument by looking at three phases: The growing awareness of the hospital as a dangerous environment in the 1950s, comprehensive attempts at improving antibiotic therapy and hospital hygiene that followed from the 1960s and lastly the framing of such challenges as risk factors from the 1970s. In conclusion, I will argue that hospital hygiene, being inspired in particular by epidemiology
and risk factor analysis, discussed its own specific version of disease
emergence and therefore contributed to the 1980s debates around such topics. Being loosely connected to more specialized studies, it consisted of a re-interpretation of infectious disease centred around the temporality of such phenomena as they were encountered in day-to-day dealings of clinical wards.
has been a driving force in the development of new antibiotics.
Drug resistance, while being a problem for physicians and patients, offers attractive perspectives for those who research and develop new medicines. It imposes limits on the usability of older medicines and simultaneously modifies pathologies in a way that opens markets for new treatments. Studying resistance can thus be an important part of developing and marketing antibiotics.
The chosen example is that of the German pharmaceutical company Bayer. Before World War Two, Bayer had pioneered the development of anti-infective chemotherapy, sulpha drugs in particular, but had missed the boat when it came to fungal antibiotics. Exacerbated by the effects of war, Bayer’s world market presence, which had been considerable prior to the war, had plummeted. In this critical situation, the company opted for a development strategy that tried to capitalise on the problems created by the use of first-generation antibiotics. Part and parcel of this strategy was monitoring what can be called the structural change of infectious disease. In practice, this meant to focus on pathologies resulting from resistance and hospital infections. In addition, Bayer also focused on lifestyle pathologies such as athlete’s foot. This paper will follow drug development and marketing at Bayer from 1945 to about 1980. In this period, Bayer managed to regain some of its previous standing in markets but could not escape from the overall crisis of anti-infective drug development from the 1970s on.
Koch contributed to modern medicine by inventing or improving fundamental techniques such as bacterial staining, solid culture media, mass pure cultures, and the use of animal models. His discoveries, which dominated medical science at the turn of the last century, are epitomized in a set of rules named after him. "Koch's Postulates" are still invoked today in attempts to prove the causal involvement of pathogens in infectious diseases.
In a double history, Christoph Gradmann narrates the development of a discipline and the biography of a scientist. Drawing on Koch's extensive laboratory notes, Gradmann details how Koch developed his scientific method and discovered the bacterial causes of anthrax, tuberculosis, and cholera. Koch tried to bring this knowledge to clinical medicine by developing medicines that would specifically target the bacterial pathogens he identified. And Koch’s passion for personal travel developed into a career signature, as he became a pioneer in the study of tropical diseases.
A fascinating look into Koch's personality and his experimental work in medical bacteriology, Laboratory Disease reveals both the biographical and the historical roots of our modern understanding of infectious diseases.
The volume proposes an encompassing view of the transition from international public health to global health, bringing together historians and anthropologists to analyse why new modes of "interventions on the life of others" recently appeared and how they blur the classical divides between North and South. The contributors argue that not only does the global health enterprise signal a significant departure from the postwar targets and modes of operations typical of international public health, but that new configurations of action have moved global health beyond concerns with infectious diseases and state-based programs.
The book will appeal to academics, students and health professionals interested in new discussions about the transnational circulation of drugs, bugs, therapies, biomedical technologies and people in the context of the "neo-liberal turn" in development practices.