History and social sciences as medical research tools. The SILICOSIS Project and the investigation of the pathogenic effects of dust

• Autores: Paul André, Catherine Cavalin, Michel Vincent
• Localización: Quaderni storici, ISSN 0301-6307, Anno 50, Nº 150, 2015, págs. 785-812
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The article presents a research on the potential role of silica dust in association with a range of systemic idiopathic diseases (sarcoidosis, systemic lupus, systemic scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis,...). In this interdisciplinary project, the recourse to history helps coordinating a medical knowledge which is fragmented; a) between disciplines (pulmonology); b) between specialist from the various diseases involved; c) between occupational and environmental diseases. History and the social sciences also help to understanding the "agnotological" processes of ignorance, forgetfulness and non-stabilization of knowledge. Collaboration with historians transforms, literally, the way how physicians question these diseases, whose risk factors are so transversal and heterogeneous that they become hardly visible.