Materiality and technical conditions of possibility: photography in Argentine medical journals at the turn of the 20th Century
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
Drawing on visual studies of science and technology—an interdisciplinary approach that bridges art history and the history of science—this paper explores the technical challenges involved in incorporating photographs for scientific purposes in medical journals, focusing on the case of Argentina in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It highlights how these images played a fundamental role in medical argumentation during a period of professional consolidation. The paper examines the role of images and their systematic accumulation in scientific practice, as well as the formation of associations that led to the creation of periodicals featuring scientific proposals and debates regarding the medical profession. These journals were part of broader transformations in print visual culture at the end of the century, particularly with the spread of the halftone process, which enabled the widespread reproduction of photographic images by allowing their direct transfer to printing plates in large runs and at lower costs than other techniques.
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
References
Barisio, J. R. (2003). La cirugía de la próstata en Buenos Aires. Revista argentina de urología, 68(2), 56-62.
Bredekamp, H., Schneider, B.& Dünkel, V. (Eds.). (2015). The technical image: a history of styles in scientific imagery. University of Chicago Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226258980.001.0001
Cuarterolo, A. L. (2015). El cine científico en la Argentina de principios del siglo XX: entre la educación y el espectáculo. História da educação, 19(47), 51-73. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/2236-3459/47763
Daston, L., & Galison, P. (2010). Objectivity. Zone Books.
Dubois, P. (1986). El acto fotográfico. De la representación a la reflexión. Paidós.
Gascoigne, B. (2004). How to identify prints. Thomas & Hudson.
González Leandri, R. (1998). Asociacionismo y representación de intereses médicos en Buenos Aires, 1852–1880. Asclepio, 50(2), 187-204. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3989/asclepio.1998.v50.i2.342
Latour, B. (1990). Drawing things together. En M. Lynch & S. Woolgar (Eds.), Representation in scientific practice (pp. 19-68). MIT Press.
Pantoja, M. C. (2024). Monstruos de papel: fotografía, medicina y cultura impresa en Argentina (1870-1915). UNSAM Edita.
Pereira, C. et al. (2017). Retouching scientific photography – The glass plate negatives collection at the Natural History and Science Museum – University of Port. Ge-Conservación, (12), 101–110.
Shapin, S.& Schaffer, S. (2005). El Leviathan y la bomba de vacío: Hobbes, Boyle y la vida experimental. UNQ.
Souza, P. (2014). Una “república de las ciencias médicas” para el desierto argentino: el Círculo Médico Argentino y la producción de un programa experimental en las ciencias médicas de Buenos Aires, 1875–1914 (Tesis doctoral). Universidad de Buenos Aires, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires.
Stulik, D. & Kaplan, A. (2013). The atlas of analytical signatures of photographic processes. Getty Conservation Institute.
Szir, S. (2009). De la cultura impresa a la cultura de lo visible. Las publicaciones periódicas ilustradas en Buenos Aires en el siglo XIX. En M. Garabedian, S. Szir & M. Lida (Comps.), Prensa argentina siglo XIX. Imágenes, textos y contextos (pp. 53-84). Biblioteca Nacional, Teseo.
Szir, S. (2013). Reporte documental, régimen visual y fotoperiodismo. La ilustración de noticias en la prensa periódica de Buenos Aires (1850-1910). Caiana,(3).
Tell, V. (2017). El lado visible. Fotografía y progreso en la Argentina a fines del siglo XIX. UNSAM Edita.
West, S. (2004). Portraiture. Oxford University Press.
Zittlau, A. (2013). Pathologizing bodies: Medical portrait in 19th century America. Amerikastudien / American studies, 58(4), 545.