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VIRUS
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Die Zeitschrift "Virus - Beiträge zur Sozialgeschichte der Medizin" ist das Publikationsorgan des Vereins für Sozialgeschichte der Medizin und erscheint einmal jährlich.
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Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Austrian Academy of Sciences Press
A-1011 Wien, Dr. Ignaz Seipel-Platz 2
Tel. +43-1-515 81/DW 3420, Fax +43-1-515 81/DW 3400 https://verlag.oeaw.ac.at, e-mail: verlag@oeaw.ac.at |
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DATUM, UNTERSCHRIFT / DATE, SIGNATURE
BANK AUSTRIA CREDITANSTALT, WIEN (IBAN AT04 1100 0006 2280 0100, BIC BKAUATWW), DEUTSCHE BANK MÜNCHEN (IBAN DE16 7007 0024 0238 8270 00, BIC DEUTDEDBMUC)
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VIRUS Band 19, pp. 155-180, 2021/06/10
Schwerpunkt: Objekte als Quellen der Medizingeschichte
Electrotherapeutic devices can be found in numerous medical and technical history collectionsand are still offered almost every month by private donors. These objects, which developedinto a social fashion article in the 1920s, open the view to a specific cultural-historical context.Against the background of a “crisis in medicine”, alternative healing methods and technologiesof self-treatment had experienced an increasing demand during the Weimar Republic. Thesemedical machines can be described as profoundly ambivalent objects: promising self-empowermenton the one hand, incorporating the actually criticised “mechanization of medical treatment”on the other hand. Being symbols of the electrified urban society, the devices also becamelifestyle accessories of a bourgeois entertainment culture. This article is devoted to the contradictoryrole of electrical healing devices as part of a specific material culture and particularlydeals with different practices of appropriation.
Keywords: Electro Therapy, Material Culture, Consumer Culture, Self Medication, Lebensreform, Weimar Republic, 20th Century, Quack Medicine, Violet Ray, Stimulation Current, Popular Science, Popularisation, Entertainment Culture