Early Years of the Society for Reproductive Investigation (Formerly Society for Gynecologic Investigation), the Fetal and Neonatal Physiological Society, and Several Other Groups

Abstract

Until the mid-twentieth century, academicians in obstetrics and gynecology concentrated their study primarily on the treatment of women’s reproductive maladies and pregnancy. It is difficult to conceive of how elementary and empirical the craft was, even these few years ago. Despite the responsibility for care of the fetus as well as the pregnant mother, there was little interest in the basic biology of reproduction. Since that time, however, the specialty has matured as an academic discipline, joining departments of medicine, pediatrics, surgery, and others as a field making a serious commitment to both basic and clinical investigation of problems in its purview. By increasing the understanding of normal reproductive function and its regulation at the cellular and molecular levels, advancing the technology for diagnosis and treatment, and developing new approaches to therapy, academic obstetricians and gynecologists have dedicated themselves to the improvement of health care of women and their infants. In concert with clinical investigation, basic research has increased enormously our understanding of the regulation and interrelations of the maternal-placental-fetal complex and the relations of these functions to optimization of the course of pregnancy and to the life and health of the newborn infant.

Another feature of the scientific attitude is organized skepticism, which becomes, often enough, iconoclasm. Science may seem to challenge the “comfortable power assumptions” of other institutions, simply by subjecting them to detached scrutiny.

Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue.

(Merton 1957, pp. 547)