Kind Luciana
Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil.
Hist Cienc Saude Manguinhos. 2009 Jan-Mar;16(1):13-34. doi: 10.1590/s0104-59702009000100002.
The article analyzes academic production about the debate surrounding the definition of brain death, based on bibliographic and documental research of international medical periodicals in the 1960s. The development and adoption of life support technologies during the twentieth century sparked a heated debate that sought to legitimize new procedures like organ transplants. As its practices changed, medical science set about inventing new knowledge about these practices. Discussions as to the definition of brain death turned it into a 'black box', dismantled by anthropological studies into the topic starting in 1980s. The present article explores the deconstruction of brain death as a black box.
本文基于对20世纪60年代国际医学期刊的文献和资料研究，分析了围绕脑死亡定义的学术成果。20世纪生命支持技术的发展和应用引发了一场激烈的辩论，这场辩论旨在使器官移植等新程序合法化。随着医疗实践的变化，医学开始着手创造关于这些实践的新知识。关于脑死亡定义的讨论使其变成了一个“黑匣子”，自20世纪80年代起，人类学研究开始对这一主题进行剖析。本文探讨了脑死亡作为一个黑匣子的解构过程。
