ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Machines, Workers, and Automation in Medical Testing Laboratories, 1920-1960

• In Event: Histories of Chemistry

English Abstract

While the rise of laboratory medicine has received much attention, the development of clinical chemistry is less well-researched, and much work focuses on the internal development of biochemical methods. This paper picks up a different thread to look at clinical chemistry and its practices and, especially, the development of tools, apparatus, and methods for organizing and automating laboratory medical testing. As chemical diagnostics and testing became routine, the burden of work fell on laboratory technicians, often women, and often with little formal training. From the late 1920s onward, demand for medical tests in hospitals and clinical laboratories increased dramatically, and by mid-century how to manage the growing workload and its complexity was a central concern among clinical chemists and laboratory directors.
These workload issues and organizational challenges drove the introduction of various instruments and machines to control and streamline work processes, ranging from simple organizing tools to electrical devices and, eventually, semi-automatic analysis machines. As this paper will show, the process of automation in clinical chemistry integrated changes in 20th century manufacturing and industrial processes, post WWI and WWII electronic technologies, Cold War competition anxieties, and new ideologies of management and control emerging from cybernetics and communication and information science. In turn, automation raised the same kinds of labor questions among clinical chemists as it did in other automating industries. A workload solution became a labor issue affecting skills and qualifications, as well as the chemical technician workforce.

Author

• Elizabeth Neswald, Brock University