Carl Ludwig y el fenómeno de la institucionalización como triunfo del mecanicismo fisiológico

Resumen

Carl Ludwig and the triumph of the mechanistic physiology as an institution

During the nineteenth century mechanistic materialism superseded vitalist theories and Naturephilosophie in the studies on life, especially in physiology. Three main reasons are proposed to explain this event: The Positivism of Auguste Comte; the theory of natural selection by Darwin, and advancements in physics and chemistry applied to the biological world. There is another important element considered as part of the latter progress: the phenomena of institutionalization, that is, the construction and development of laboratories to do physiological research. This paper will show the importance of this fact in displacing Vitalism from research on physiology. This requires exploring the foundation of the Leipzig Institute, built and designed by Carl Ludwig. This institute will be the model adopted by the subsequent medical research laboratories, as they spread across the mid-nineteenth century and continues today.

Key words: Carl Ludwig, Leipzig Institute, Vitalism, Materialism, Mechanistic, Naturphilosophie, physiology, laboratory, philosophy of medicine.