The Collectors of Lost Souls: Turning Kuru Scientists Into Whitemen 9780801890406, 2019010986, 9781421433608, 1421433605, 9781421433615

Table of contents :
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Preface to the Updated Edition
Introduction The Disease Europeans Catch from Kuru
Chapter 1 Stranger Relations
Chapter 2 Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Man
Chapter 3 A Contemptuous Tenderness
Chapter 4 The Scientist and His Magic
Chapter 5 Hearts of Darkness
Chapter 6 Specimen Days
Chapter 7 We Were Their People
Chapter 8 Stumbling Along the Tortuous Road
Conclusion Denouement Was a Bit Difficult
Afterward
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Praise for the First Edition

Winner, William H. Welch Medal, American Association

for the

History

of Medicine

Winner, Ludwik Fleck

Prize, Society for the Social Studies of Science

Winner, General History Award,

New South

Wales Premier’s History

Awards “lA| magisterial account... Anderson’s compelling study captures the texture of twentieth-century medical fieldwork the social dynamics

The

and

ethical realities

and provides insight into

of globalized science and medicine.

Collectors of Lost Souls persuades us that these things really

happened

and shows us why theymatter.” —Sczence

“Very

much about possession, The

sessed by everyone and craft

of history at

“Who

its

its

powers

Collectors of Lost Souls should

be pos-

to possess let loose. ‘This is the witch-

best.” —Iszs

should read Collectors? Many. ‘Transactions and translations; issues

of obligation and engagement; of power, respect and autonomy arise regularly

and

in

many

contexts, not only in development settings. Under-

graduate students will be struck by the dependence of the high-tech of con-

temporary science on fragile personal relationships. Apprentice historians can learn much from Anderson’s narration of a story where the voices are

many and

the issues grave. Especially in relation to Gaydusek,

stance exemplary.

He is chronicler,

I

find his

not biographer; he avoids the tempta-

tion to interpret, speak for, reduce to, explain away;

he accords Gajdusek

both the majesty of his achievement and the dignity of his tragedy.” —British fournal for the History of Science

“In his riveting description of the exchanges and misunderstandings that constituted the search for kuru,

Anderson has created

that rare thing:

academic page-turner.”— Fournal of the Royal Anthropological

“For a lay reader

it is

changed so profoundly. Too

fast,

in

some

up and understand that it was no longer the world—and its people—as an open adventure park for

instances, for researchers to catch

scientific

Institute

an extraordinarily rich story about how, in the twenti-

eth century, the idea of otherness

acceptable to see

an

The Australian exploration.” —

“This

is

not a textbook; the

scientific, sociological

counts are readily available elsewhere.

It is

or administrative ac-

a saga of proportions seen before

and the Whale, or the magical mystery of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Yet the kuru story is true and this book about

in tales such as Jonah

it

demands

to

be read from the beginning

New Zealand fournal

to the end.”

—Australan and

of Public Health

“Distinguished by captivating storytelling and a historiographically rigorous account of the events. Lost Souls interested layman, but

ofa remarkable

it

also provides a

scientific

is

not only enjoyable for any

thoroughly researched account

adventure that spans four decades.” —Nature

Neuroscrence

“Anderson has masterfully captured the complex, exotic and often extraordinary nature of this inquiry and the idiosyncrasies of a key scientist

This

is

“Warwick Anderson

in

The

.

.

Collectors of Lost Souls offers his readers a

profound and historically-nuanced account of kuru

modernity.”—Historical Records of Australian ““Anderson’s

book

1s

the study of science

a valuable

as a force in shaping

Scrence

and sometimes provocative contribution

and medicine

in colonial

researchers

research subjects have changed in the past 50 years.

bioethics has constructed

welcome

to

and post-colonial contexts.

He shows how the relationships between scientific ‘tribal’

.

a significant book.” —Oceanta

and

their

Modern

limits to research activities in this re-

gard, but these limits are often defined purely from the perspective of the

western world. Anderson gives an eloquent voice to other concepts and

shows the

that truly global bioethics

still

many

challenges.” —Bulletin of

World Health Organization

“Especially valuable to the field for ity

face

what

it

demonstrates about the possibil-

of writing a compelling narrative about postcolonial and postmodern

complexity in a way that is both straightforward and engaging. It should be read as a venerable model for how to bring the insights of science studies to a broader audience.”—Pauline Kusiak, East Asian Sctence, Technology Society

and

“A

strikingly original

lously researched,

and exciting work, imaginatively conceived, meticu-

and powerfully argued.

deserves to be widely read.”

It

—Social History of Medicine

“An outstanding book

that

tory of medical science. the triumph,

is

anyone interested in the hishelp place in perspective the broad influence,

must reading

It will

for

and the ultimate tragedy of the

life

of Nobel Laureate

D. Carleton Gajdusek.”— fournal of Child Neurology

“Heavily inflected by anthropological method and narrative

Anderson’s account of Gajdusek’s career

is

captivating.

style,

This master

historian of medicine has taken his expertise into the field with great

success.” —fournal of the History of Behavioral Sciences

“Hssential reading for those concerned with science studies

and biomedical

ethics.”—Annals of Science

“An

excellent,

even superb, volume, which combines great scholarly vigor

with a well-told story on a fascinating and important topic.

A highly ‘teach-

anyone studying the Pacific who is interested in learning more about kuru and/or the history of medicine.” able’

book,

it

will also

be of interest

to

—Bulletin of the Pacific Circle

“Far from offering a rational, detached, absolute

world of objects and people, larly scientific

appetites

exchange—is

as shot through with venality, avarice, outsized

and multi-layered

negotiating the thin line

the

Anderson’s treatment scilence—and particu-

and complicated entanglements

his meticulous

—JEEE

in

way of approaching

between

study,

as other

human

interactions. In

Anderson does an excellent job of

titillating details

and scholarly

analysis.”

Technology and Society Magazine

“How kuru came

to the attention of

Western

wick Anderson’s stunning [book] describes. to rermagine the

scientists is the story that [It]

deliberately forces readers

meaning of scientific discovery, colonialism, and

situates its global narrative

around sources found

in archives in

Guinea, Australia, and the United States and further develops oral histories delivered

by

scientists, anthropologists,

— Fournal of the History of the Neurosciences

War-

sorcery,

Papua it

New

through

and the Fore people.”

“An exemplary account of the discovery of the causes of a disease... a work of great theoretical insight.”— fournal of the History ofMedicine “This

is

a big story with sex, cannibalism, revolutionary scientific discover-

of unknown infectious proteins and

some of the world’s most headlinecatching diseases—kuru, scrapie, CJD and BSE. The larger-than-life central character of this exotic soap opera, Nobel Prize winner Carleton

ies

Gajdusek, died in December

last

year [2008].”—Arena Magazine

“This marvelous book deliberately forces us sojourn, scientific discovery, colonialism,

to re-imagine the

and sorcery, while

meaning of

at the

same

time providing us with an account of the discovery of Kuru, a lethal neurological disease,

—The Neuro “This book

and the science

determined

its

etiology.”

Times

is

great fun to read,

and ends with an enigmatic also

that ultimately

is

worth exploring

for

its

footnotes as well,

literary twist that is aesthetically pleasing

but

worth an anthropological recontextualizing.”—Michael M. J. Fischer,

East Asian Scrence, Technology and Society

“This book scientists,

is

a fascinating read of interest to

all

historians

and draws on Anderson’s wide ranging

of medicine in a colonial context.”—Health

and (hopefully)

interests in the practice

and History

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