Medical metaphors

BMJ ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 340 (may05 3) ◽  
pp. c2415-c2415
Author(s):  
T. Greenhalgh
Keyword(s):  
Medical Metaphors

Medical Metaphors of Women's Bodies: Menstruation and Menopause

1988 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Martin
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Reproductive Organs ◽  
Central Control ◽  
Centralized Control ◽  
Medical Texts ◽  
Women's Bodies ◽  
Waste Products ◽  
Bureaucratic Organization ◽  
Medical Metaphors ◽  
Female Reproductive Organs

Implicit, underlying imagery in medical descriptions of menstruation and menopause is exposed, beginning with 19th century views. Contemporary medical texts and teaching reveal two fundamental assumptions about women's bodies. First, they assume that female reproductive organs are organized as if they form a hierarchical, bureaucratic organization under centralized control. Given this assumption, menopause comes to be described negatively, as a process involving breakdown of central control. Second, they assume that women's bodies are predominantly for the purpose of production of desirable substances, primarily babies. Given this assumption, menstruation comes to be seen negatively, as a process involving failed production, waste products, and debris. Alternative imagery that works from our current understanding of physiology, but avoids denigration of women's bodies, is suggested.

Alinsky revisited: ‘rubbing raw the resentments of the people’

2020 ◽  
pp. 109-124
Author(s):  
Peter Szynka
Keyword(s):  
Community Development ◽  
Mass Communication ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Public Issues ◽  
The People ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
Medical Metaphors ◽  
Political Negotiation ◽  
Common Action

This chapter analyses American community organiser Saul D. Alinsky's theoretical background and shows that his understanding of 'resentment' was drawn from the ethics of the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith and the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. 'Rubbing raw the resentments' and 'to fan the sores of discontent' are Alinsky's medical metaphors describing his technique to understand frustration and aggression, to cool down emotions and to transform its energy into common action and political negotiation. He tried to empower the people by turning personal discontents and problems into public issues. What are the lessons to be learned from Alinsky for contemporary community development responses to populism? His analysis and his confrontations with McCarthyism and proto-fascist agitator Father McCoughlin provide examples of ways of meeting the challenges we are facing in Germany today, where new prophets of deceit operating through populist politics again carry out the fine art of propaganda, using the new forms of mass communication and the opportunities of social media. Ultimately, the chapter offers a German perspective to the international discussion on community development, populism, and democratic culture.

Treating the Body Politic: The Medical Metaphor of Political Rule in Late Medieval Europe and Tokugawa Japan

2008 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takashi Shogimen
Keyword(s):  
Medical Treatment ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Perspective Drawing ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
George Lakoff ◽  
Medical Metaphors

AbstractThe essay examines medical metaphors in the discourse on government from a cross-cultural perspective. Drawing on George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's theory of metaphor, a comparison of medical metaphors in the political writings in late medieval Europe (c. 1250–c. 1450) and Tokugawa Japan (1602–1867) demonstrates that the European notion of medical treatment as the eradication of the causes of diseases magnified the coercive and punitive aspects of government, while the Japanese notion of medical treatment as the art of daily healthcare served to accentuate the government's role of preventing conflicts and maintaining stability. These differing images of medical treatment metaphorically structured contrasting conceptions of government in the two historical worlds.

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