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This paper examines discussions of intimacy and sexuality between diabetes mellitus patients and their physicians in West Germany after 1945 and considers their effect on the patient-physician relationship. As shown in the Journal Der Diabetiker, founded in 1951 as the organ of the Deutsche Diabetikerbund (German Diabetics Association), diabetic patients not only claimed acceptance of their own needs and attitudes but also, as early as 1956, brought the taboo subject of sexuality out into the open. By this means patients took issue with their physicians' traditional eugenic ideas still prevailing after 1945. With their initiative, which was soon embraced by diabetologists, they changed both the treatment and the therapeutic concepts of the disease itself. In terms of the theories of sociologist Richard Münch this account demonstrates the early democratization of medicine in West Germany within the permanent cycle of criticism and innovation.

Until today, it is still unexplored, how modern (scientific) medicine in Western Germany could negotiate its social position in the public sphere and how it was represented in the media. This paper will contribute to the analysis of this problem by investigating all entries on "medicine" in the journal "Der Spiegel" during the period 1947 to 1955, when Western Germany was built up. It is possible to show that the journal was a market place where specific public spheres as e.g. physicians, patients or journalists could discuss medical topics. This way, on the one hand, "Der Spiegel" grasped contemporary notions on medicine and the medical market, which made itself felt in later years of Western Germany. On the other hand, the journal itself molded the discussions about a scientific medicine, which was to be not only innovative but also democratic.

After 1945, Western medicine was influenced mostly by investigations from Britain and the USA. This paper deals with the presentation of German medicine in the German weekly "Der Spiegel" between 1947 and 1955, when German society changed from a post-war community focussed on survival to a modern western society. The paper will particularly focus on medicine as a service, dealing not with diagnostic and therapeutic innovations, but with troublesome every-day problems of body and soul at the border of health and disease. The paper argues that "service medicine" was an important tool for German medicine to achieve social acceptance and to integrate itself into the new German democratic society with its private market economy.

This paper deals with an important development of scientific pharmacology, focusing on the reaction of the German pharmacologist Walther Straub to the receptor concept, which was a new approach to explain the binding of drugs to cells in the young discipline of pharmacology after 1900. The article analyzes how Straub as an important representative of his field between 1900 and 1944 was influenced by nineteenth-century thinking, and how he developed a rival physical theory to combat the receptor concept. Straub is seen as a man of transition, who on the one side tackled a core question of drug research with modern experimental methods, but on the other side was hardly able to accept new results in chemistry.

Today, the concept of specific receptors for drugs and transmitters lies at the very heart of pharmacology. Less than one hundred years ago, this novel idea met with considerable resistance in the scientific community. To mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of John Newport Langley, one of the founders of the receptor concept, we highlight his most important observations, and those of Paul Ehrlich and Alfred Joseph Clark, who similarly helped to establish the receptor theory of drug action.

This paper deals with the interdependence of medicine and society in a situation of political crisis. The example of the Pathological Institute at the University of Berlin illustrates how non-scientific, political measures exerted an influence on daily scientific work via the Science Ministry as well as the director and the staff of the Institute. Not only did financial problems of the German State and difficulties of the Prussian Science Ministry in keeping the Institute running hamper successful work in Pathology; moreover, the political ambitions of its director, Otto Lubarsch, and the changes in daily life as a result of the general situation of misery had their impact on scientific work. Therefore, an examination of the interdependence between medical science and politics should not be limited to physicians who are enrolled in a political party. Furthermore, research must be undertaken on the level of laboratory communities and everyday-life with the help of archive material.

Textbooks on German medical history are a valuable source when analyzing the discipline's view on the foundation of scientific medicine. This paper deals with descriptions of the history of pathology found in textbooks between 1858 and 1945: In particular, pathological anatomy and Rudolf Virchow's "cellular pathology" were the cornerstones of the foundation of modern medicine in the 19th century. The way textbooks deal with the history of pathology mirrors the development of German history of medicine: Since the turn of the century the latter felt devoted to an ahistoric teleological approach which did not change in the "Third Reich". This situation hampered a critical histoography which would show relations of the history of pathology to cultural, social and political history.

This paper focuses on a prominent figure in medicine, one who had no visible political ambitions in terms of the NS-regime: Ludwig Aschoff (1866-1942), pathologist at the University of Freiburg from 1906 to 1936. The period between 1914 and 1933 is emphasized in order to show the development of his political and scientific ideas, which were intertwined from the beginning: Aschoff admired the Kaiserreich, and in World War I he tried to carry out a socio-political programme in that he examined the constitution of the German Volk by performing autopsies of almost every German soldier who had been killed in action. After 1918 he retained his conservative ideas and his medical programme which meant concentrating mainly on constitutional ideas. Although Aschoff tried to reestablish international cooperation and to support the new Republic, he ultimately did support anti-democratic ideas. This attitude proved to be a handicap with regard to his reaction to National Socialism in 1933: Although he did not become a member of the party and a strong supporter, he welcomed the new regime. Aschoff, without being aware of his role, supported the acceptance of the regime within the medical scientific community. It will be possible to obtain deeper insight into the NS-period by encouraging research on its 'mediators', for example, Ludwig Aschoff.

The rise of scientific medicine in the 19th century had its origins mainly in Rudolf Virchows localistic cellular pathology. As a consequence the organism as a complex system was kept in the background. In recognition of this problem, concepts of pathology, emerging in 20th century, tried in vain to establish organismic theories of illness. Pathology remained deeply indebted to Virchows work. Deficits appeared even in 19th century, when treatment of patients was mainly focussed on practicability of cure, ignoring the social background. Therefore, it is not possible to speak about progress of pathology in general, for diagnostics depends also on individual mentality, the subject, and the situation of the time.