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IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE

1 9 T H C E N T U RY , I N S T R U M E N T S
AND EXPERIMENTS ASSUMED A
N E W A N D I M P O RTA N T R O L E I N
BO T H P H Y S I O LO GY A N D
P S YC H O LO GY. C O M PA R E T H E
SUCCESS OF THE
I N S T R U M E N TA L A P P R OAC H I N
T H E S E T W O L A BO RAT O RY
DISCIPLINES.
INTRODUCTION
The nineteenth century was the scene of vast political and cultural upheaval
throughout Europe and America, as well as, in differing ways, much of the
rest of the world.1 In Europe especially turmoil following the defeat of
Napoleon led to shifts in the organisation of power in the region, and the
growing consolidation of power into newly coalesced nation-states like Italy
and Germany.2 A considerable component of the consolidation of these states
was the relatively new political force of Nationalism. Nationalism would come
to influence the majority of European nations over the course of the
nineteenth century, and would indeed spread to the United States of America
and beyond.3 This new sense of national identity and, crucially, national
competition, led to new attitudes and cultural desires, especially in the
second half of the nineteenth century.

1 Thomson, D., Europe Since Napoleon, (London, 1990)[henceforth Thomson,


(1990)].
2 Hargreaves, D., Bismark and the German Unification, (Basingstoke, 1991)
[henceforth Hargreaves, (1991)].
3 Thomson, (1990), pp. 237-8.

These new attitudes included an increased desire for the industrialisation of


the state, better education and training for the young, the mechanisation of
the state and of industry, and an overwhelming desire for precision. 4 These
desires manifested in many ways throughout the cultural, social and
technological strata of the bulk of these nations. One such manifestation was
in the increased interest in instrumentation in science. 5 Whilst the
established experimental sciences, such as physics, had already adopted
instrumentation widely by the second half of the nineteenth century, the
newly coined life sciences had yet to explore in any depth the use of
instruments in their pursuit.6
A relatively nascent but developing discipline, keen to establish itself within
the life sciences at the time, was Psychology. 7 The study of the mind had
existed in one way or another for some time, but the persistent cultural
climate of precision and of mechanisation led to a new, concerted effort to
consolidate studies of the psychic.8 There was an increased desire to
understand how the mind worked, how people thought. A desire to discover
universal laws of cognition, a generalised mind, an understanding of which
would improve education, improve soldiers, and perhaps even improve the
control the state might exert over its citizens.9
4 Benschop, R., and Draaisma., D., In pursuit of precision: the calibration of
minds and machines in late nineteenth-century psychology, Annals of
Science, 57:1, (2000), pp. 1-25 [henceforth Benschop and Draaisma, (2000);
and also Kennedy, P., The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, (London, 1989)
[henceforth Kennedy, (1989)].
5 Benschop and Draaisma, (2000), pp. 1-3, Schraven, T; The Hipp
Chronoscope, The Virtual Laboratory, (2004); accessed online on 20/5/2014
at http://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/references?id=enc13&page=p0009
[henceforth Schraven, (2004)], pp. 7.
6 Benschop and Draaisma, (2000), pp. 14-5; and also Borrell, M.,
Instrumentation and the Rise of Modern Physiology, Science and
Technology Studies, 5:2, (1987), pp. 53-62 [henceforth Borrell, (1987)] pp.
55, 60-2; and also Lawrence, C., Incommunicable Knowledge: Science,
Technology and the Clinical Art in Britain 1850-1914, Journal of
Contemporary History, 20:4, (1985), pp. 503-520 [henceforth Lawrence,
(1985)].
7 Benschop and Draaisma, (2000), pp. 1, 20.
8 Mnsterberg, The new Psychology and Harvards Equipment for Teaching
It Harvard Graduate Magazine, 1, (1893), pp. 201-209 [henceforth
Mnsterberg, (1893)].
9 Benschop and Draaisma, (2000), pp. 19; and also Mnsterberg, (1893), pp.
206; and also Smith, R, The Norton History of the Human Sciences, (London,
1997)[henceforth Smith, (1997)], pp. 501-29.

Psychology portrayed itself in this way, especially in America, in order to help


propel itself into the spheres of science, where it would find better
recognition, greater interest and, crucially, more funding. 10 Its new message
of empirical, precise study of the operation of the human mind was borne on
the students of pioneering experimental psychologist Wilhelm Wundt, among
others, and the instruments of psychological experimentation that they used,
chiefly among which were chronoscopes.11
Psychologys drive to establish itself was due in no small part to its relative
novelty in the landscape of knowledge. Physiology on the other hand lacked
the same vigour of youth. As a facet of medicine it was a well-established
and institutionalised discipline.12 The rise of national identity and competition
through the strength of the state in the nineteenth century led to many
countries, especially in Europe, codifying and controlling their medical corpus
more tightly. New notions of public health and national health enforcing
desires for greater understandings of the human body, and a universalisation
of medical practice.13 It is in this context that physiologists, students of the
workings of living things, began to adopt an experimental method that
involved the use of a growing number of instruments. 14 As shall be seen
below this adoption was, for the most part, resisted by the broader medical
community. Psychology and Physiology therefore can be seen to be coming

10 Smith, (1997), pp. 501-2; and also Benschop and Draaisma, (2000), pp.
13, 20-1.
11 Smith, (1997), pp. 501-6; and also Schraven, (2004), pp. 23; and also
Schmidgen, H., Of frogs and men: the origins of psychophysiological time
experiments, 1850-1865, Endeavour, 26:4, (2002), pp 142-148 [henceforth
Schmidgen, (2002)]; and also Benschop and Draaisma, (2000), pp. 2, 11, 20.
12 Lawrence, (1985), pp. 503-4; and also Frank, R., The telltale heart:
physiological instruments, graphic methods, and clinical hopes, 1854-1914,
in Coleman, W., and Holmes, F., The Investigative Enterprise: Experimental
Physiology in Nineteenth-Century Medicine, (Berkely, 1988), pp. 211-290
[henceforth Frank, (1988)].
13 Foucault, M., The Birth of the Clinic, (London, 2003); and also Lawrence,
(1985), pp. 503-5.
14 Borrell, (1987), pp. 53-4; and also de Chadarevian, S., Graphical method
and discipline: self-recording instruments in 19 th century physiology, Studies
in History and Philosophy of Science, 24:2, (1993), pp. 267-91 [henceforth de
Chadarevian, (1993)]; and also Lawrence, (1985), pp. 505-6; and also Reiser,
S. J., Medicine and the Reign of Technology, (Cambridge, 1978)[henceforth
Reiser, (1978)].

into the second half of the nineteenth century from very different
backgrounds.
There are also questions to be raised about the title of this paper. What,
exactly, is meant by the Instrumental Approach? Furthermore, what is meant
by Success? The instrumental approach, in brief, entails a whole raft of
methodologies and practices increasingly popular in mid nineteenth-century
chemistry and physics. The approach bears a focus on the use of instruments
to enhance or supplant the human senses. It also encourages the generation
of numeric and graphical data through investigation of phenomena using
instruments, and the precision, impartiality, empiricism, and repeatability
their permanence can allow.15
Success, in the contexts being examined here, could be considered in two
ways: the success of the instrumental approach as the widespread adoption
of that approach, or as the production by that approach of substantial
meaningful data. Disciplinary success against academic success. Both of
these forms of success shall be considered when examining the instrumental
approach in both psychology and physiology.

THE SUCCESS OF THE INSTRUMENTAL APPROACH IN


PSYCHOLOGY
Among the earliest work with instruments in psychology was that of
Helmholz in the late 1840s, examining the speed of the propagation of nerve
impulses throughout living bodies. 16 His work, and those of his
contemporaries in Germany, where the work was originally centred, involved
the use of instruments to measure intervals of time imperceptible to humans,
15 de Chadarevian, (1993), pp. 288-9; and also Reiser, (1978), pp. 91-3; and
also Frank, (1988), pp. 211-2, 224-5; and also Benschop and Draaisma,
(2000), pp. 1-2, 14, 20-1.
16 Schmidgen, (2002), pp. 143-5; and also Smith, (1997), pp. 302.

much as instrumentation in other disciplines at the time was being used to


reveal imperceptible phenomena.17 The measurement of such small periods
was only possible through extremely finely calibrated and accurate
instrumentation in the form of chronoscopes as designed by Wheatstone,
Siemens and, more successfully, Hipp.18 Whilst these instruments had
military origins, they were rapidly taken up by the psychological community
in Germany, and with the development of experimental psychology by
Helmholz and latterly by Wundt, the instrumental approach spread across
Europe and to the United States, with the instruments themselves as the
main vector.19
For many psychologists, the instrumental approach offered the ability to
compare and collate data on the thinking-time of large numbers of people,
allowing the creation of an average, a generalised mind. A greater
understanding of the ways that every human mind responds on a common
denominative level could, it was hoped, usher in a new era of education,
training, national prowess, social reform and (perhaps a little
anachronistically) mental health.20
The potential secrets revealed by the use of the instrumental approach in
psychology were much touted by the majority of the psychological
community throughout Europe and America, and experimental psychology as
a discipline spread quickly. 21 Resistance to the experimental and instrumental
approach in psychology mainly came from without, especially in America,
with philosophical chairs and departments being eaten into by this relatively
new discipline, which seemed to be answering questions philosophy could
not.22 Within psychology however, the uptake of the instrumental approach
was considerable. If one considers success to mean the broad adoption of
the instrumental method by the psychological community, then one can say
that in the second half of the nineteenth century, it was indeed successful.
17 Reiser, (1978), pp. 91; and also Frank, (1988), pp. 211.
18 Schmidgen, (2002), pp. 142; and also Schraven, (2004), pp. 23.
19 Schmidgen, (2002), pp. 142, 144-5; and also Schraven, (2004), pp. 3, 23;
and also Smith, (1997), pp. 501, 10, 20-22.
20 Smith, (1997), pp. 525-7; and also Benschop and Draaisma, (2000), pp. 13.
21 Smith, (1997), pp. 501-2, 13-4; 20-2; and also Benschop and Draaisma,
(2000), pp. 20.
22 Smith, (1997), pp. 512-5.

Psychologists were eager to establish their discipline as a science, on par


with, or even paramount to, physics and chemistry. 23 As such many claims
concerning the potential boon of the pursuit of experimental psychology
were made in a bid for attention and funding. 24 Those claims began to fall
through however, when one of the cornerstones of the instrumental
approach; the storage and dissemination of data, highlighted the fact that
almost every lab was producing different results from similar experiments. 25
Flaws in the instrumentation, particularly the chronoscopes, for which there
was now a substantial industry, were only part of the problem. 26 The human
mind, it transpired, was not so easy to generalise as had been hoped. As a
result the timing of conscious and unconscious reactions ceased to be a
fashionable or seemingly useful pursuit, and use of the chronoscope tapered
in the late 1890s.27 Beyond the initial discoveries by Helmholz
contemporaries concerning the speed of nervous impulses (his own results
were found to be flawed), little meaningful data was produced by the vast
raft of instrumental experiments conducted in the nineteenth century. 28
In sum then there are two potential answers to the question of success
concerning the instrumental approach in psychology. It was highly successful
inasmuch as it was broadly and swiftly adopted by large parts of the
international psychological community, however it was generally
unsuccessful in producing meaningful data or developments in the
disciplines body of knowledge. Despite this however, it did serve to help
establish psychology as a mainstream science going into the twentieth
century, during which psychology generally flourished. 29 In different ways
therefore, the instrumental approach in nineteenth-century psychology was
both a success and a failure.
23 Mnsterberg, (1893), pp. 209; and also Smith, (1997), pp. 520-6; and also
Benschop and Draaisma, (2000), pp. 1, 20.
24 Smith, (1997), pp. 514, 25-6; and also Benschop and Draaisma, (2000),
pp. 24-5.
25 Benschop and Draaisma, (2000), pp. 22-5.
26 Schmidgen, (2002), pp. 146-7.
27 Benschop and Draaisma, (2000), pp. 24-5; and also Schmidgen, (2002),
pp. 147; and also Schraven, (2004), pp. 26.
28 Schmidgen, (2002), pp. 146-7; and also Benschop and Draaisma, (2000),
pp. 22-5.
29 Smith, (1997), pp. 522-9; and also Benschop and Draaisma, (2000), pp.
22-5.

THE SUCCESS OF THE INSTRUMENTAL APPROACH IN


PHYSIOLOGY
The instrumental approach in physiology had a rather more difficult birth.
Interest in the use of instruments as a tool of physiological enquiry seems to
have begun to grow in earnest towards the end of the first half of the
nineteenth century with the spirometer, a device primarily for investigating
lung capacity.30 At around the same time, Ludwig developed the kymograph,
which was adapted to monitor several physiological functions over the
following decades, for each one converting the pulse or blood pressure into a
graphical representation, a curve. This for many physiologists was crucial, as
it allowed the collation, examination and communication of storable,
empirical data concerning phenomena usually only perceptible by one
person, the examining physician.31
That same physician posed a substantial obstacle to the broader adoption of
the instrumental approach across Europe and indeed further afield,
especially in Britain.32 Unlike psychology, medicine, and to a slightly lesser
extent physiology, was a long established discipline, and whilst in many
countries at the time it was being unified and codified, it remained highly
divided and for the most part, highly traditional. 33 Medical professionals (and
indeed patients) often resisted the use of instruments to produce data about
the body, especially if it could be related to the diagnosis or treatment of
disease, in no small part because it was feared that instruments would come
to invalidate the doctors specialised knowledge and the art of medicine. 34
Within physiology however, which was increasingly becoming a specialised,
experimental and scientific discipline (particularly in Europe), instruments
were rapidly adopted, and even more rapidly modified and developed to

30 Reiser, (1978), pp. 93-4.


31 Borrell, (1987), pp. 54-6; and also de Chadarevian, (1993) pp. 270-3; and
also Frank, (1988), pp. 214-8, 274-5; and also Reiser, (1978), pp. 104.
32 Lawrence, (1985); and also Borrell, (1987), pp. 54, 8.
33 Lawrence, (1985), pp. 506; Frank, (1988) pp. 221.
34 Lawrence, (1985), pp. 517.

overcome challenges and to allow interrogation of new aspects of living


things.35
Between 1850 and 1900 there was a vast growth of the types and uses of
physiological instruments, driven by an enthusiastic body of physiologists
more interested in scientific method and empirical understanding than the
prestige and art of bedside medicine.36 The work of Marey and others helped
increase the amount of useful, meaningful experiments and data that could
be conducted and generated using instruments. 37 The existence of the
kymograph and a slew of new drawing instruments allowed the production of
data in the form of curves and graphs, which led to the development of the
graphic method of presenting and storing data, forming a pseudo-language
of physiological, and to a broader extent scientific, intercourse. 38
The spread of the instrumental approach throughout physiology was rapid,
and the move toward public health and state clinical medicine throughout
much of Europe during the late nineteenth century helped encourage the use
of instrumentation into frontline medicine as well, with assistance of a few
open-minded physicians.39 The impartiality and constancy of instrumentation
helped the use of specific instruments remain salient when they were
adopted by broader medicine, and over time the number of instruments, and
physiological phenomena, used and studied in broader clinical medicine
grew.40 As physiology itself matured into an experimental life science, it
produced increasingly important data on the nature of the human body and
the effects of diseases and external environments upon it. 41
It can therefore be seen, as with psychology, that there are different ways of
reading the success of the instrumental approach in physiology. The
instrumental approach was taken up rapidly across much of the developed
35 Lawrence, (1985), pp. 504, 15-6; and also Frank, (1988), pp. 273; and also
de Chadarevian, (1993), pp. 267-70; and also Borell, (1987), pp. 54-6.
36 Lawrence, (1985), pp. 504, 17; and also Borell, (1987), pp. 53-4.
37 Borell, (1987), pp. 54-6; and also de Chadarevian, (1993), pp. 270-72.
38 Borrell, (1987), pp. 54-6; and also de Chadarevian, (1993), pp. 270-3; and
also Frank, (1988), pp. 214-8, 274-5; and also Reiser, (1978), pp. 104.
39 Foucault, (1963), pp. 48, 91; Lawrence, (1985), pp. 517.
40 Lawrence, (1985), pp. 516-8; and also Reiser, (1978), pp. 104-5, 118-9;
and also Borrell, (1987), pp. 58.
41 Borrell, (1987), pp. 53, 58, 61; and also Lawrence, (1985), pp. 516.

world within physiology, and can therefore be seen as a success, but if one
views physiology as a subset of the broader medical community, then it can
seen to be, generally, resisted and held back, in the nineteenth century at
least it could be called a failure. However, should one consider success as a
measure of the value of the data it produces, then the instrumental approach
is clearly a success, as it produced a wide range of physiological data and
discoveries about the human body and disease, despite an early lack of
international standardisation and variable manufacturing techniques. 42
Overall however, considering that physiology was actively working to
differentiate itself as an independent experimental discipline at the time, and
the instrumental approach was both widely adopted and fruitful, it can be
argued that it was a considerable success in the discipline at the time and
beyond.43

CONCLUSIONS
Physology and Psychology were considerably different disciplines in the
nineteenth century. Physiology was well established, psychology wasnt.
However over the second half of the nineteenth century they both began to
move down similar paths. They both increasingly pursued the precise
gathering of data, the empirical production of knowledge and the comparison
and sharing of information to produce conclusions about common elements
shared by all people. The tools for these pursuits were, principally
instruments. In psychology and physiology the use of instruments was widely
and rapidly adopted for a variety of uses. However, physiologys parent
discipline, medicine, was considerably more conservative, and closely tied to
physiology than psychologys parent discipline, philosophy. This hindered the
spread of instrumentation into further medical practice for some time, and
the results of physiological studies were often dismissed by the broader
medical corpus. In this way, the instrumental approach could perhaps be
seen as unsuccessful in physiology. However, it was broadly adopted within
42 de Chadarevian, (1993), pp. 287-91.
43 Borrell, (1987), pp. 53-4; and also Frank, (1988) pp. 250.

physiology itself, and produced a large amount of viable studies and data
over time. Considering the growth of physiology into the twentieth century,
and the cumulative adoption of instruments in clinical medicine over time, it
can be argued that the instrumental approach was, eventually, highly
successful in physiology and clinical medicine as a whole.
Psychologys story is a little different. Whilst the instrumental approach was
widely adopted with relatively little hindrance throughout much of the
burgeoning psychological community, it produced little meaningful results of
psychological studies. In areas where it touched on physiology, like Helmholz
work with the propagation of nerve impulses, progress was made, but in
determining the make-up of the human mind and the nature of
consciousness, instrumentation yielded little result. Instrumentation did help
psychology establish itself as a science in the nineteenth century, which
helped its ascendency in the early-to-mid-twentieth century, but when it
arrived it was very much without instruments. Overall perhaps it could be
argued that the instrumental approach in psychology was also successful. In
the long run the discipline benefitted from it, and whilst it did not yield the
results that were hoped for, its broad adoption helped form a disciplinary
identity and helped guide psychological investigation in the coming decades.
The instrumental method helped secure psychologys future, and can be
seen to have been successful, in an altogether different way to that of
physiology.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Benschop, R., and Draaisma., D., In pursuit of precision: the


calibration of minds and machines in late nineteenth-century
psychology, Annals of Science, 57:1, (2000), pp. 1-25.
Borrell, M., Instrumentation and the Rise of Modern Physiology,
Science and Technology Studies, 5:2, (1987), pp. 53-62.
de Chadarevian, S., Graphical method and discipline: self-recording
instruments in 19th century physiology, Studies in History and
Philosophy of Science, 24:2, (1993), pp. 267-91.
Frank, R., The telltale heart: physiological instruments, graphic
methods, and clinical hopes, 1854-1914, in Coleman, W., and Holmes,
F., The Investigative Enterprise: Experimental Physiology in
Nineteenth-Century Medicine, (Berkely, 1988), pp. 211-290.

Foucault, M., The Birth of the Clinic, (London, 2003).


Hargreaves, D., Bismark and the German Unification, (Basingstoke,
1991).
Kennedy, P., The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, (London, 1989).
Lawrence, C., Incommunicable Knowledge: Science, Technology and
the Clinical Art in Britain 1850-1914, Journal of Contemporary History,
20:4, (1985), pp. 503-520.
Mnsterberg, The new Psychology and Harvards Equipment for
Teaching It Harvard Graduate Magazine, 1, (1893), pp. 201-209.
Reiser, S. J., Medicine and the Reign of Technology, (Cambridge, 1978).
Schmidgen, H., Of frogs and men: the origins of psychophysiological
time experiments, 1850-1865, Endeavour, 26:4, (2002), pp 142-148.
Schraven, T; The Hipp Chronoscope, The Virtual Laboratory, (2004);
accessed online on 20/5/2014 at http://vlp.mpiwgberlin.mpg.de/references?id=enc13&page=p0009.
Smith, R, The Norton History of the Human Sciences, (London, 1997).
Thomson, D., Europe Since Napoleon, (London, 1990).

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