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Department of History and Philosophy of Science University of Cambridge Please join us tomorrow, Thursday 24 May 2012, at 4.30pm, in Mill Lane Lecture Room 1, for the Seventeenth Annual Hans Rausing Lecture. Professor Thomas Schlich (McGill University) will give a lecture on "The modern rise of surgery: gloves as a technology of control" The history of surgical gloves embodies the main strategies at work in the modern rise of surgery. In the course of the nineteenth century, surgeons learned to treat numerous injuries and disorders by interventions in all areas of the living body. Rather than being determined simply by the power of great ideas or the logic of technical progress, this transformation of surgery was made possible by a network of control technologies that enhanced manipulability and visibility. Two principles of control – manual control and aseptic control – clashed in a major debate over surgical gloves. Surgeons assessed the pros and cons of the different strategies as they tried to resolve the conflict by adjusting gloves' materials, design and use. We should not dismiss these debates as if they concerned mere technical details, for they reveal the dynamics of the control network. They show that the rise of surgery was an open-ended process, shaped by a multiplicity of practical, local concerns, and full of contradictions and compromises. This analysis places surgical innovation alongside other areas, such as science and industry, in which control played a major role as part of the emergence of modern societies in the same time period. Tea will be served before the lecture from 4pm, in the Department of HPS and then we will walk over to Mill Lane for 4.30pm and there will be drinks afterwards in the Saltmarsh Rooms at Kings College. Public lecture – all welcome. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tamara Hug Department of History and Philosophy of Science University of Cambridge Free School Lane Cambridge CB2 3RH Tel: 01223 334540/Fax: 334554 Mob: 07799405394 www.hps.cam.ac.uk ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~