ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Classificatory histories of cancer and diabetes

• In Event: Shifting Perspectives on Disease Entities

English Abstract

It is well established that disease entities and classifications of disease change over time as they are shaped by their historical contexts (Rosenberg 2002). It is also noted that classifications have a conserving role, and one of the most important roles of classifications is to connect to past cases of disease. While establishing continuity, classifications also shape present studies of disease with past conceptions. As Bowker and Star (2000) expressed it about the International Classification of Diseases, ”the list folded its history in on itself”. This paper will attempt to unfold the histories of classification in the cases of the complex disease categories of cancer and diabetes.

No one is perfect and this is particularly true for disease classifications. Disease entities may be charaterized according to different dimensions such as symptoms, place of lesion, physiological function, aetiology or histology, but it is not possible to classify diseases with respect to these different dimensions at once. Classification thus involves prioritisation of particular dimensions.

Studying 18th to 21st century nosologies and classifications, the paper will trace the different classificatory trajectories of cancer and diabetes. While both diseases for instance were investigated as both patho-physiological and patho-anatomical disorders in the 19th century, they ended up being classified in different ways with cancer being understood as local histo-pathological changes while diabetes was classified as a physiological dysfunction. The paper argues that the limitations of classificatory dimensions and how they both shape and are determined by practices of detection, treatment and investigation is central to the construction of disease entities.

Author

• Karin Tybjerg, University of Copenhagen