Tiphaine Lours

FR/EN

Doctoral candidate in History at Sciences Po since September 2022.

My thesis examines the development of medical knowledge and operative practices related to tissue grafts and organ transplants in France between 1820 and 1920. Based on a large corpus of sources, it will shed light on the production, evaluation and circulation of skin, bone, dental, eye, thyroid, ovarian, testicular, fat, tendon, cartilage, and vascular grafts, as well as whole organ transplants. This work aims to analyse the progressive formation in the 19th century French context of the modern idea of organ transplantation, according to which a defective body part can be replaced by one taken from another person. Because of its transversal nature, transplants’ history involves many medical specialties. Without identifying the phenomenon of immune rejection, autografts, allografts, and xenografts coexist during this period, to the point of questioning boundaries between mankind and animal species. From an epistemological perspective, this thesis will also identify the controversies that this new scientific knowledge stimulated between physicians, surgeons, and physiologists. Linked to the history of institutions and society as well as body history, the history of transplantation, through the reconstruction of biographical trajectories of operated patients, also sheds light on the question of disability in the wider history of 19th century public health. Finally, this work will have the First World War as its horizon, since it will link the experience accumulated on transplants during the 19th century to the treatment of serious injuries caused by the conflict.

LATEST PUBLICATION

Lours, T. « The Logic of Xenografts: A Historical Study of Animal Tissue Grafts in Human Patients in 1870s France », Ethics, Medicine and Public Health. 1 juin 2023, vol.28. p. 100899. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jemep.2023.100899

CONFerences

[Translated Title] "History of vesico-vaginal fistulas gynecological surgery: Antoine-Joseph Jobert de Lamballe with his patients in the 1830s", International Conference Genre & Gynécologie. Savoirs, pratiques & mobilisations, Aubervilliers (Maison des Sciences des l'Homme), April 18-20, 2023