Packaging radium, selling science: Boxes, bottles and other mundane things in the world of science

Rentetzi, M

dc.contributor.author	Rentetzi, M	en
dc.date.accessioned	2014-03-01T01:36:36Z
dc.date.available	2014-03-01T01:36:36Z
dc.date.issued	2011	en
dc.identifier.issn	0003-3790	en
dc.identifier.uri	https://dspace.lib.ntua.gr/xmlui/handle/123456789/21355
dc.subject	bottle	en
dc.subject	box	en
dc.subject	commercialization of science	en
dc.subject	Packaging	en
dc.subject	quackery	en
dc.subject	radiotherapy	en
dc.subject	radium products	en
dc.subject.classification	History & Philosophy Of Science	en
dc.subject.other	Art historians	en
dc.subject.other	box	en
dc.subject.other	commercialization of science	en
dc.subject.other	Consumer culture	en
dc.subject.other	Historical account	en
dc.subject.other	Medicinal products	en
dc.subject.other	Package designs	en
dc.subject.other	quackery	en
dc.subject.other	Science and cultures	en
dc.subject.other	Twentieth century	en
dc.subject.other	Bottles	en
dc.subject.other	History	en
dc.subject.other	Radium	en
dc.subject.other	Packaging	en
dc.subject.other	radium	en
dc.subject.other	advertizing	en
dc.subject.other	article	en
dc.subject.other	economics	en
dc.subject.other	history	en
dc.subject.other	packaging	en
dc.subject.other	science	en
dc.subject.other	standard	en
dc.subject.other	United States	en
dc.subject.other	Advertising as Topic	en
dc.subject.other	History, 20th Century	en
dc.subject.other	Product Labeling	en
dc.subject.other	Product Packaging	en
dc.subject.other	Radium	en
dc.subject.other	Science	en
dc.subject.other	United States	en
dc.title	Packaging radium, selling science: Boxes, bottles and other mundane things in the world of science	en
heal.type	journalArticle	en
heal.identifier.primary	10.1080/00033790.2011.587999	en
heal.identifier.secondary	http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2011.587999	en
heal.language	English	en
heal.publicationDate	2011	en
heal.abstract	This article discusses the intersection of science and culture in the marketplace and explores the ways in which radium quack and medicinal products were packaged and labelled in the early twentieth century US. Although there is an interesting growing body of literature by art historians on package design, historians of science and medicine have paid little to no attention to the ways scientific and medical objects that were turned into commodities were packaged and commercialized. Thinking about packages not as mere containers but as multifunctional tools adds to historical accounts of science as a sociocultural enterprise and reminds us that science has always been part of consumer culture. This paper suggests that far from being receptacles that preserve their content and facilitate their transportation, bottles and boxes that contained radium products functioned as commercial and epistemic devices. It was the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act that enforced such functions. Packages worked as commercial devices in the sense that they were used to boost sales. In addition, 'epistemic' points to the fact that the package is an artefact that ascribes meaning to and shapes its content while at the same time working as a device for distinguishing between patent and orthodox medicines. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.	en
heal.publisher	TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD	en
heal.journalName	Annals of Science	en
dc.identifier.doi	10.1080/00033790.2011.587999	en
dc.identifier.isi	ISI:000295452800004	en
dc.identifier.volume	68	en
dc.identifier.issue	3	en
dc.identifier.spage	375	en
dc.identifier.epage	399	en