Tools of the Trade

Nineteenth-century medicine is characterised by rapid technological change, newmethods of diagnostics and treatments of disease, long-reaching developmentsin medical science, and professionalisation. This has led to great interest in theperiod and a large body of scholarly and popular research. However, much of thisscholarship studies British, German and French contexts. There is a pressing needto study how knowledge and practice were transferred between regions and howmedical technologies were adapted locally.Using Swedish and Danish medical journals, Kristin Halverson looks more closelyat the relationships between knowledge, practice and device between 1855 and1897. Medical devices appear frequently in journals and are often related to practicalmatters. With this in mind, this study examines four technological concerns inmedicine more closely, namely devices used to examine the nose, throat and eye;orthopaedic practice; Listerist antisepsis; and the introduction of asepsis. Thesecases highlight how technologies were adapted locally and in practice. This is ahistory of nuance that highlights the diverse landscape of nineteenth-centurymedical practice.