Krieg und Frieden im vegetativen Nervensystem

Körpermodelle der experimentellen Physiologie im 20. Jahrhundert

Abstract

English abstract: This paper examines the circulation of political metaphors in the context of war and peace in mid‐twentieth‐century experimental physiology. The vegetative (or autonomic) nervous system provided fertile ground for the interpretation of bodily organization against the backdrop of and in dialogue with the current political situation. Walter Bradford Cannon and Walter Rudolf Hess, both prominent figures in experimental physiology in the US and in Europe, represented two sides of the vegetative in their scientific and literary work. Apart from their scientific contributions, they paved the way for specifically ‘vegetative’ body images (‘Körpermodelle’) between emergency and security. To examine the emergence of these body images, both based on the idea of internal regulation and balance, allows to put recent and contemporary concerns about such images in medicine in perspective.