Tag: Lyman Briggs College

Lyman Briggs Instructor Sebastian Normandin, PhD, will discuss the healing potential of breath at February Brownbag

bbag-icon“Enlightened” Breath: Breathing and Biomedicine

Event flyer: Normandin Flyer

In his famous essay “What is Enlightenment” the philosopher Emmanuel Kant argued enlightenment consisted in “man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.” In his presentation, Dr. Normandin proposes that the same process is required in modern medicine in regards to the healing potential of breath. While much is known of the physiological importance of breathing in biomedicine, there is almost no appreciation of its possible therapeutic role in both psychic and somatic ailments. In this sense the modern medical paradigm remains in a state of immaturity when considering the potential of breath and breathing. Dr. Normandin argues for a new era – an age of enlightenment – in the use of breath and breathing as a healing tool. In this quest the nature of many eastern practices – anapanasati (mindfulness of breath) foremost among them – can provide a model for western biomedicine to follow. The metaphor of enlightenment in the ‘use’ of breath is not only a nod to the eventual hoped-for outcome of this practice in eastern spirituality, but also a conscious reference to some of the potential aspects to consider in implementing it more deeply in a modern context. These include awareness, awakening, individuality, insight and mindfulness. Dr. Normandin suggests that if we move beyond preconceptions about these practices (as being, for example, only spiritual or New Age) and approach them with reason – if we “dare to know” (sapere aude) – then their potential preventative and therapeutic role in medicine can be almost limitless.

feb12Join us for Sebastian Normandin’s lecture on Wednesday, February 12, 2014 from noon till 1 pm in person or online:

In person: The lecture will take place in C102 East Fee Hall on MSU’s East Lansing campus. Feel free to bring your lunch! Beverages and light snacks will be provided.

Online: Here are some instructions for your first time joining the webinar, or if you have attended or viewed them before, go to the meeting!

Sebastian Normandin, PhD, is a Visiting Instructor in Lyman Briggs College at Michigan State University. His research focuses on the history and philosophy of medicine and biology in the nineteenth and twentieth century, vitalism and alternative medicine. He also remains ever fascinated by the concept of pseudoscience and the scientific fringe. His book, with co-editor Charles T. Wolfe, Vitalism and the Scientific Image in Post-Enlightenment Life Science, 1800-2010, was published by Springer in 2013. You can follow him on Twitter @weirdhistorian.

Dr. Mark A. Largent, Associate Dean of Lyman Briggs College, joins Brownbag Webinar Series

bbag-iconReye’s Syndrome: A Medical Mystery and a Modern Dilemma

Event flyer: Largent Flyer

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, parents and physicians were terrified by the emergence of an apparently new ailment that left hundreds of children dead every year and hundreds more permanently damaged. Reye’s Syndrome, first described in the early 1960s, appeared as children were recovering from influenza and sometimes chickenpox, quickly throwing them into comas and frequently death. About half of the children diagnosed with Reye’s syndrome died and about half of the survivors were left with permanent brain or liver damage. Scientists and physicians raced to find the cause and develop treatments for Reye’s syndrome, and eventually epidemiological evidence emerged that it was caused or at least made more severe by aspirin. Since the early 1980’s, parents have been warned to avoid giving their children aspirin, especially when they suffered from a viral illness. But even before the FDA began labeling aspirin bottles, the number of Reye’s syndrome cases dropped dramatically, and it nearly disappeared before the before the Public Health Service could complete its study of the hypothesis that aspirin was to blame for the ailment. This talk will examine the history of Reye’s syndrome, the hunt to uncover its cause, and the debates that have emerged over last twenty years about the role of aspirin in Reye’s syndrome.

Oct-16-for-BlogJoin us for Dr. Largent’s lecture on Wednesday, October 16, 2013 from noon till 1 pm in person or online:

In person: The lecture will take place in C102 East Fee Hall on MSU’s East Lansing campus. Feel free to bring your lunch! Beverages and light snacks will be provided.

Online: Here are some instructions for your first time joining the webinar, or if you have attended or viewed them before, go to the meeting!

Mark Largent is an historian of science and medicine, Associate Dean of Lyman Briggs College at MSU, and an Associate Professor in James Madison College at MSU. His research and teaching focuses on the role of scientists and physicians in American public policy debates. His first book, Breeding Contempt: The History of Coerced Sterilization in the United States (Rutgers 2008) described the rise of compulsory sterilization laws in the US. Most recently, he published Vaccine: The Debate in Modern America (Johns Hopkins, 2012), which examined current debates about compulsory vaccination laws and the autism-vaccine controversy. He is currently writing a history of Reye’s syndrome.