Evaluating and Standardizing Therapeutic Agents, 1890–1950

Front Matter....Pages i-xiv
Introduction: Evaluating and Standardizing Therapeutic Agents, 1890–1950....Pages 1-12
Paul Ehrlich’s Standardization of Serum: Wertbestimmung and Its Meaning for Twentieth-Century Biomedicine....Pages 13-30
Evaluation as a Practical Technique of Administration: The Regulation and Standardization of Diphtheria Serum....Pages 31-51
From Diphtheria to Tetanus: The Development of Evaluation Methods for Sera in Imperial Germany....Pages 52-70
The Construction of a Culture of Standardization at the Institut Pasteur (1885–1900)....Pages 71-88
Quality Control and the Politics of Serum Production in France....Pages 89-104
‘The Geneva serum is excellent!’ Autonomy and Isolation in the Swiss Cantons During the Early Years of Diphtheria Serum: The Case of Geneva....Pages 105-117
The State, the Serum Institutes and the League of Nations....Pages 118-138
Questions of Quality: The Danish State Serum Institute, Thorvald Madsen and Biological Standardization....Pages 139-152
‘The Wright Way’: The Production and Standardization of Therapeutic Vaccines in Britain, 1902–13....Pages 153-173
The Visible Industrialist: Standards and the Manufacture of Sex Hormones....Pages 174-201
‘We need for digitalis preparations what the state has established for serumtherapy …’ From Collecting Plants to International Standardization: The Case of Strophanthin, 1900–38....Pages 202-228
Changing Regulations and Risk Assessments: National Responses to the Introduction of Inactivated Polio Vaccine in the UK and West Germany....Pages 229-251
Standardization Before Biomedicine: On Early Forms of Regulatory Objectivity....Pages 252-261
Back Matter....Pages 262-266