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"The Other Dark Matter: The Science and Business of Turning Waste into Wealth and Health" by Lina Zeldovich explores the multifaceted nature of human waste and its implications for sanitation, hygiene, and cultural attitudes. Zeldovich, drawing from personal experiences and scientific insights, advocates for a renewed relationship with waste and its potential for transformation. The book covers historical, present, and future perspectives on waste in relation to health and commerce, highlighting the impact of waste on ecosystems and the potential for innovative solutions. While the historical section lacks contextualization, the contemporary case studies provide valuable insights into current practices and attitudes towards waste management. Overall, the book offers a fascinating exploration of the diverse meanings and practices associated with waste. [Extracted from the article]

Networks in Tropical Medicine: Internationalism, Colonialism, and the Rise of a Medical Specialty, 1890-1930 Deborah J. Neill Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012, 312 p., $65.00 The birth and institutional [...]

From the late nineteenth century onwards there emerged an increasingly diverse response to escalating patenting activity. Inventors were generally supportive of legislation that made patenting more accessible, while others, especially manufacturers, saw patenting culture as an impediment. The medical profession claimed that patenting represented ‘a barrier to medical treatment’ and was thus detrimental to the nation's health, yet, as I argue, the profession's development of strict codes of conduct forbidding practitioners from patenting resulted in rebellion from some members, who increasingly sought protection for their inventions. Such polarized opinions within the medical trade continue to affect current medical practice today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attitudes of physicians and drug manufacturers in the US toward patenting pharmaceuticals changed dramatically from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth. Formerly, physicians and reputable manufacturers argued that pharmaceutical patents prioritized profit over the advancement of medical science. Reputable manufactures refused to patent their goods and most physicians shunned patented products. However, moving into the early twentieth century, physicians and drug manufacturers grew increasingly comfortable with the idea of pharmaceutical patents. In 1912, for example, the American Medical Association dropped the prohibition on physicians holding medical patents. Shifts in wider patenting cultures therefore transformed the ethical sensibilities of physicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The origins of contemporary exclusion of surgical methods from patenting lie in the complexities of managing credit claims in operative surgery, recognized in the nineteenth century. While surgical methods were not deemed patentable, surgeons were nevertheless embedded within patent culture. In an atmosphere of heightened awareness about the importance of ‘inventors’, how surgeons should be recognized and rewarded for their inventions was an important question. I examine an episode during the 1840s which seemed to concretize the inapplicability of patents to surgical practice, before looking at alternatives to patenting, used by surgeons to gain social and financial credit for inventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secret, owned, Georgian medicines were normally known as patent medicines, though few had a current patent. Up to 1830, just 117 medicines had been patented, whilst over 1,300 were listed for taxation as ‘patent medicines’. What were the benefits of patenting? Did medicine patenting affect consumer perception, and how was this used as a marketing tool? What were the boundaries of medical patenting? Patents for therapeutic preparations provided an apparent government guarantee on the source and composition of widely available products, while the patenting of medical devices seems to have been used to grant a temporary monopoly for the inventor's benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]