Scientific and Medical Knowledge Production, 1796-1918

Book excerpt: This volume is divided according to moral themes within medicine and science. The sources represent dominant notes within the culture of knowledge production that capture the moral/emotional/social justification for the making of expertise through experiment. This volume focuses on curiosity, given as the scientist’s chief motivating factor for the finding of new facts, and as an essential character trait for anyone entering the scientific life. It is also the source of controversy and criticism, since curiosity alone increasingly looked amoral at best and immoral at worst, as the nineteenth century wore on.