The frames and functional concepts of urine diagnostics from medieval to modern times
Final Report Abstract
Several works have been published on the history of uroscopy and urine diagnostics. Thus, the field itself is well explored. However, only very few works include aspects that have an influence on paradigm shifts such as technological developments. Even fewer works include a conceptual framework or a cognitive approach when examining possible paradigm shifts. Therefore, the investigation of uroscopy represented a unique opportunity to analyze the implementation of new ideas and techniques into language as well as the interaction of language and concepts. Theories borrowed from the philosophy of science served in our project as heuristic guidelines to draw on uroscopy for cognitive and lexical analyses aimed at examining the processes underlying knowledge shifts. In the project a great number of primary literature on uroscopy in French and German from the 12th until the 19th centuries has been investigated. The literature retrieved was categorized thematically and conceptually. On the basis of Ludwik Fleck’s theories on different categories of medical and scientific literature we developed a model to classify the collected works with respect to their character and their authors’ purposes. Initial frames have been constructed and the frame model has been successfully applied to exemplify major paradigm shifts in uroscopy. Our attempt to utilize the frame model for text analysis had to overcome a series of obstacles. Classical approaches to formulating, developing and using frames for concept analyses traditionally refer to single items like "car" and "vacation" or "bird". If more complex concept frames, like Aristotle’s "physical object", are formulated, they are based on constructed attributes and values that are only synthesized indirectly by referring to a respective (tacit) knowledge of the underlying knowledge system. In contrast to these approaches, our aim was to develop a text-based frame model which accounts for the parameters of a method derived from the cognitive sciences: attribute-value sets, structural invariants and different forms of constraints. A first approximation involved using the basic frame as a screen to project further text analyses. Accordingly, it was possible to verify similarities and differences between concepts as they are verbalized in texts. Questions pertaining to the level of frames encompass the visualization of events, structural invariants, constraints etc. On the lexical level, the translation of colors into French and German or the development of verbs into functional concepts has been discussed. Finally, a system of tables has been developed for the extraction of functional concepts from the texts examined and their respective frames. The aim was to obtain an overview of which and how many functional concepts occur in the texts and to what extent the proportion of functional concepts changes over time. An unexpected intricacy was caused by the fact that we found a number of attributes lacking lexicalization. Careful reading was required to infer attributes not yet lexicalized. An indispensable prerequisite for the reconstruction of non-lexicalized attributes was data about the historical context of the source. Homonyms and synonyms had to be marked and categorized and the repetition of functional concepts with differing p- and s-arguments had to be coped with. On the basis of 14 texts from different time periods we have established a table system, with which it is possible to record functional concepts. Furthermore, the system takes into account specific problems caused by examining texts from different centuries that mirror inconsistent conceptions of urine analysis.
Publications
- (2009). Alte Texte in neuem Rahmen. Konzept- und Sprachentwicklung in französischen uroskopischen Fachtexten der frühen Neuzeit. In: Lidia Becker (ed.), Aktualität des Mittelalters und der Renaissance in der Romanistik. München, Meidenbauer, 163-189
Zaun, Stefanie
- (2009). Konvergenz- und Divergenzphänomene in der Romania: Lautentwicklung. In: Gerhard Ernst u.a. (Hg.), Romanische Sprachgeschichte. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Geschichte der romanischen Sprachen, Band 3. Berlin / New York, de Gruyter, 3255-3265
Geisler, Hans
- (2009). Medizinische Tradition und Wandel – Französische Übersetzungen der Aphorismen des Hippokrates aus dem Bereich der Uroskopie (14.-17. Jahrhundert). In: Elmar Eggert, Susanne Gramatzki, Christoph Oliver Meyer (ed.), Scientia valescit. Zur Institutionalisierung von kulturellem Wissen in romanischem Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit. München, Meidenbauer, 63-89
Zaun, Stefanie
- Technisierung der Sinne – von der Harnschau zur Urinanalyse. Das Beispiel der Harnzuckerbestimmung, in: Der Urologe 48 (2009), S.535-541
Martin, Michael; Fangerau, Heiner
- Vernetztes Wissen: Kognitive Frames, neuronale Netze und ihre Anwendung im medizinhistorischen Diskurs, in: Heiner Fangerau, Thorsten Halling (Hg.): Netzwerke Allgemeine Theorie oder Universalmetapher in den Wissenschaften? Ein transdisziplinärer Überblick, Bielefeld 2009, S.29-48
Fangerau, Heiner; Martin, Michael und Robert Lindenberg
- (2010). Networks uncover hidden lexical borrowing in Indo-European language evolution. In: Proceedings of the Royal Society B, S. 1794-1803
Nelson-Sathi, Shijulal; List, Johann-Mattis; Geisler, Hans; Fangerau, Heiner; Gray, Russell D.; Martin, William; Dagan, Tal
- Claude Bernard und der „europäische Durchschnittharn“, in: Der Urologe 49 (2010), S.855-860
Martin, Michael; Fangerau, Heiner
- (2011). Die Harnfarbbezeichnungen im Fasciculus medicine und ihre italienischen und spanischen Übersetzungen. In: Ingrid Bennewitz, Andrea Schindler (ed.): Farbe im Mittelalter. Materialität – Medialität – Semantik. 2 Bde. Berlin: Akademie Verlag 2011, Bd. 2, 969-985
Zaun, Stefanie; Geisler, Hans
- Einblicke nehmen – die Sichtbarmachung des Unsichtbaren in der Urologie. Zur Geschichte der Technik und Evidenz in der urologischen Endoskopie, in: Der Urologe 50 (2011), S.1-8
Martin, Michael; Fangerau, Heiner
- Konzepte von Gesundheit und Krankheit – die Historizität elementarer Lebenserscheinungen zwischen Qualität und Quantität, in: Viehöver, Willy und Peter Wehling (Hg.): Entgrenzung der Medizin. Von der Heilkunst zur Verbesserung des Menschen?, Bielefeld 2011, S.51-66
Fangerau, Heiner; Martin, Michael
- Die Evidenz des endoskopischen Bildes, in: Fangerau, Heiner und Irmgard Müller (Hrsg.): Faszinosum des Verborgenen. Der Harnstein und die (Re-)Präsentation des Unsichtbaren in der Urologie, Stuttgart 2012, S.47-64
Martin, Michael
- Durchsichtbarkeitsregime. Zur Semiotik radiographischer Bilder in der urologischen Diagnostik, in: Der Urologe 51 (2012), S.1450-1458
Martin, Michael; Fangerau, Heiner
