Doing Medicine Together: Germany and Russia between the Wars

Extract

This book's title is emblazoned on the jacket cover over a photo of attendees at the celebration of the founding of the Deutsch-Russische Medizinische Zeitschrift in 1925. The contributors to this volume, who are themselves a transnational group (from Germany, Russia, Canada, Britain and the United States) take the reader on a journey behind the scenes of precisely these kinds of cross-border collaborative initiatives. What kinds of institutional and disciplinary connections paved the way for photos like this? What were the agendas and personal aspirations of the participants? This is a book about collaboration in academic research (epidemiology, bacteriology, genetics, neuroscience, hygiene and even veterinary science), not in everyday medical settings. Its aim is to recover the internal dynamics of cross-border collaboration during the post-Rapallo era and cast it as part of the ‘story of scientific development in both countries’ (p.11), rather than merely an instrument for pursuing broader national and international goals.