The Aesthetics of Laboratory Inscription: Claude Bernard'sCahier Rouge

Abstract

This essay explores the aesthetic sensibilities of the French physiologist Claude Bernard (1813-1878). In particular, it analyzes the Cahier Rouge (1850-1860), Bernard's acclaimed laboratory notebook. In this notebook, Bernard articulates the range of his experience as an experimental physiologist, juxtaposing without differentiation details of laboratory procedure and more personal queries, doubts, and reflections on experimentation, life, and art. Bernard's insights, it is argued, offer an aesthetic and phenomenological template for considering experimentation. His physiological point of view ranges from his own bodily aesthesis or sensory perception, through personal reflections on scientific discovery as an artistic process, to a broader metaphysical conception of life as an artistic creation. Such an aesthetic approach to physiology enables Bernard to reconcile his empirical methodology and his romantic idealism; it offers the history of laboratory science a framework for considering the individual, bodily, and emotional labor inherent in physiological experimentation.

Claude Bernard and life in the laboratory

“…In the Cahier rouge , whose character conveys something like the intimacy of a laboratory confession not destined for a public readership, the tendency is the other way around. Here, the poetological aspect of the laboratory prevails (Rheinberger, 1999 ; Sattar, 2013 ). What is presented in a tamed form and between the lines in the Introduction , here it finds its spontaneous expression.…”

Extracellular Acidification Induces Lysosomal Dysregulation

“…In 1860, the French physiologist Claude Bernard noted in his Cahier Rouge that “The constancy of the internal milieu is a prerequisite of all living things” [ 51 ]. Hence, the plasma membrane is the ultimate structure to divide the internal cytoplasmic milieu from the harsh extracellular microenvironment.…”

Objectifying “Pain” in the Modern Neurosciences: A Historical Account of the Visualization Technologies Used in the Development of an “Algesiogenic Pathology”, 1850 to 2000

“…In accordance with the view that subjective judgments, human perceptions, and aesthetic considerations have all become important factors in contemporary knowledge processes, such elements have likewise been reintroduced into the scholarly analysis of the modern biomedical sciences [ 83 ]. Even beyond the activities of individual researchers, the laboratory-centered technological arrangements display the aesthetic values and judgments of the respective researchers that determine the future research practices in pain neuroscience as well [ 84 ]. These experimental arrangements have come to unfold a contingent form of “laboratory life,” similar to Johannes Mueller’s preference to experiment with young puppies (which he could easily get from the street markets of Berlin), his frequent use of pinfeathers in the experiments (as these became recycled in related experiments), or the applicability of chemical substances (such as the available “Prussian blue” stains).…”