User:PanosKratimenos/sandbox/BASC001/2020-21/Thursday11-12/History

History of History as a Discipline

Etymology

The term History has its roots in the Greek word ἱστορία, historia, which means 'inquiry or knowledge acquired by investigation.’ The use of "history" as a term meaning "the recorded events of the past" is believed to have emerged in Middle English in the late 15th century.

Origin

From its very beginning, History was intimately tied to literature (understood as poetry, rhetoric, or belles letters), before separating off to emerge as a science in the nineteenth century. This is due to its narrative nature and that writing history is a literary act. However, the nature of History itself causes a lot of debates between historians. For example, if History is the study of the past, when did it all begin? When does the present become the past? This causes a lot of discussion on the relationship of time and history.

Role

History plays a vital role in the society and as outlined by Professor Arthur Marwick, History has three main roles,

1. History as ‘the past’ – everything that happened
2. History as ‘the attempt made by man throughout the centuries to describe, reconstruct, interpret the past.’
3. History as ‘the attempt to do this in a scholarly fashion, sticking to certain definite rules of establishing fact, interpreting evidence, delating with source material, etc.

Methodology

Historians study History through narratives. These narratives describe past events, examine the rationale behind what has happened and allows room for analysis about a sequence of past events, its causes and effects. These narratives can be attained through historical sources, including oral accounts, historical objects and written documents. These narratives can be attained through historical sources, including oral accounts, historical objects and written documents. The historical sources, however, must undergo a process of evaluation known as sources criticism. This process is mainly divided into six inquiries:

1. When was the source written, produced? (date)
2. Where was it produced? (localisation)
3. By whom was it produced? (authorship)
4. From what pre-existing material was it produced? (analysis)
5. In what original from was it produced? (integrity)
6. What is the evidential value of its contents? (credibility)

Discipline

In the mid nineteenth century, History branched off in becoming a discipline of its own. This started in Germany, where the historians were impressed by the natural sciences, and asserted that their craft too had become a science. There are several indicators that demonstrate History has become a separate discipline. Firstly, the creation of the first historical journal in 1859, Historiche Zeitschrift. This marks the beginning of interaction within History as a network of people, such as editors contribute to the spread of historical knowledge. Secondly, in the same year, History was recognised as an academic study in Germany. This suggests a further expansion of the network of people as there is now interaction between University students and scholars, creating a student-teacher relationship.

History and other disciplines

The nature of History being concerned about the events of the past makes it inextricably linked to a lot of other disciplines. These include Political Science, International relations, Music and Anthropology. In Anthropology there has been constant debate whether Anthropology and History should be considered as two separate disciplines or the extent to which one is connected to the other. This is because of the inherent nature of both disciplines concerned about 'otherness'. That is, a concern about events, people or objects other than what the individual encounters or experiences. Yet, History is concerned with the 'otherness' of space studied through the archives, whereas Anthropology is interested in the 'otherness' of time understood through fieldwork. Although Anthropologists acknowledge the similarities between History and Anthropology, some are very keen to separate the two disciplines. For instance,Strauss claims that 'The anthropologist respects history, but he does not accord it a special value. He conceives it as a study complementary of his own..... And the difference is even less great than it might seem, since the historian strives to reconstruct the picture of vanished societies as they were at the points which for them corresponded to the present, while the ethnographer does his best to reconstruct the historical stages which temporally preceded their existing form.' This demonstrates that Anthropology and History are interconnected to each other but the aim of the discipline and the method they adapt are very different. The distinction and connection between the two disciplines is summarised clearly by Anthropologist Cohn, 'Historians and anthropologists are two academic communities which seem to me to share a great deal at the epistemological level. Historians and anthropologists have a common subject matter, “otherness”. Both fields have a concern with text and context. Both aim, whatever else they do, at explicating the meaning of actions of people rooted in one time and place, to persons in another. Both forms of knowledge entail the act of translation.'

History of Economics as a Discipline

Introduction to Economics

Economics is a social science that, at its core, attempts to address the issue of scarcity, theorising the problem of limited resources being unable to satisfy the unlimited wants of society. Economics is the study of finding the best allocation of resources to achieve the highest efficiency. Systematic analyses of society began in Ancient Greece. In particular, the Greek poet Hesoid, who lived in the middle of eight century BC, is believed to be the first Greek Economic thinker -- known for his identification of the core economic problems of scarcity, unlimited wants and systematic allocation of resources along with his proposal for the need for labour and for regulated competition in society to relieve scarcity. However, Economics as a discipline is believed to have formally began in the eighteenth century, when works that are thought to be the first formal publications on the study of Economics were published. One of them was Scottish Economist Adam Smith's 'An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations' (more commonly known as Wealth of Nations),published in 1776, which is widely acclaimed for birthing Classical Economic theory and, by extension, Economics as its own unique discipline. This thesis went on to play at least some part in the development in many Economic theories used today, whether through inspiration, adaptation or debate. Smith drew from the works of French physiocrats that shared his sentiments critiquing mercantilist ideals, nearly word for word in some cases. These French works that preceded Wealth of Nations raised minor debate on whether Smith is the true founder of Economics. In particular, Richard Cantillon has been called the "Founding Father of Modern Economics" and his work Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en General (English: Essay on the Nature of Trade in General) is believed by influential Economists to contain ideas more complete than Smith's and is said to be the "first systematic presentation of the field of Economics".

1900 also marks a significant year in the history of Economics. A revolutionary development in Economic thought occurred in the form of Neo-classical Economics, a new approach to Economics founded by Alfred Marshall, which largely defines contemporary Economics known and studied today. Neo-classical Economics most importantly introduces the concepts of utility and marginalism into the value of goods and services in collaboration into the Classical economic theory of value being determined by input costs and labour.

Conflict Between Economics and Other Disciplines

Despite all the developments and introductions of new Economic approaches and theories, the core economic problem remains unchanged; it is concerned with the organisation and allocation of scarce resources. Efficiency has too persisted the fixation of Economic study, often regarded as a means and an end all at once. In the process of this vigorous prioritisation of efficiency, most other factors and perspectives that do not strive for the same goals are ignored, making the concept of efficiency as a means and an end problematic when evaluated from other perspectives. This is evident in many cases. For example, minimum wage is seen to be ethically favourable as it is a mechanism used to protect low income workers from being exploited. However, in Economic theory, minimum wage disrupts the optimum equilibrium quantity of labour demanded and wages decided by free market forces. It creates a welfare loss to society as it reduces the overall demand for labour and leads to a subsequent decline in jobs. Another instance of this could be demonstrated in the macro-unemployment that occurs as a consequence of the rising employment of more efficient labour-saving capital.

These conflicting goals between Economics and other disciplines are often incurred by changing social behaviours and values. Societal pressures forces Economics as a discipline to be constantly developing to harbour these changes and be applicable to the current economy. It is precisely this process that has led to the emergence of a large number of interdisciplinary branches and fields from Economics which attempt to explore and integrate alternative approaches to achieve a compromise between the objectives of the two areas.

Emergence of Interdisciplinarity: History of Ecology and Economics

Economics by nature is heavily incentivised towards resource overexploitation. With the limitations of current technology, environmentally healthy practices (such as using renewable energy, proper waste disposal etc.) are more costly and inefficient than their environmentally unfriendly counterparts (such as using fossil fuels, illegal waste disposal into environment etc.), making it unjustifiable from an economic standpoint. Besides being contradictory to the objective of efficiency, many Neo-classical Economists did not see environmental issues as within the concern of the study of economics, hence why an unregulated economy will always tend towards actions that will cause environment deterioration. In Economics, it is accepted that environmental damage is always trade off when pursuing economic growth, often because increased economic activity increases consumption of natural resources, which in turn usually causes increase in pollution This can easily be observed in developing countries, where the natural environment is often heavily abused in exchange of rapid economic growth.

This was addressed in the late twentieth century, where the issue of rapidly increasing pollution in the industrial revolution and environmental damage was a cause of concern of the public in many western countries. Despite this, environmental concerns took a long time to be seriously considered by economists. causing the creating of environmental economics - the study of the consequences of economic activity on the environment and the effects of environmental policies on the economy - which became an official sub-discipline of economics in the 1960s. Though the creating of the sub-discipline signifies acknowledgement of the environment's role in economics, Neo-classical economists perceive the knowledge of the links between the economy and the natural environment as simply an optional branch of study that is non-essential to economists. Additionally, Environmental Economics itself also receives criticism for its ultimate loyalty to efficiency, traditional economic thinking and its inability to be all-encompassing with regards to environmental issues exceeding assigned markets.

This leads into the founding of ecological economics in the 1980s. As a quick introduction, though having many different definitions, in general, Ecology is the study into organisms in relation to each other and the physical environment that they reside in. The understanding of interaction between organisms and the environment is often applied by facilitating movements made towards environmental protection and efficiency and sustainability in resource and energy consumption. Ecological economics is a trans-disciplinary and interdisciplinary field and, unlike environmental economics, is not a subdiscipline of either economics or ecology but, according to the founder of ecological economics Robert Costanza, is its own field that is "a bridge across not only ecology and economics but also psychology, anthropology, archaeology, and history".Ecological economists believe that this field is a necessary challenge to the traditional economic thought that has been held for decades. Ecological Economics challenges core economic idea of whether market is the correct way to determine distribution of resources. It questions whether natural market forces actually allocate resources at a rate sustainable within the constraints of our biophysical environment and combines Economic and Ecological objectives of satisfying needs and wants of society while also preserving the environment for sustainable development in future generations. Additionally, one major part of Ecological Economics is the belief in the end to growth - as is law of all natural systems. This is something that Economists disagree with, as Economics infinitely strives for growth, while from an interdisciplinary approach, growing indefinitely is impossible within Ecological constraints.

Emergence of Interdisciplinarity: History of Psychology and Economics

Given that the two fields are social sciences, it is no surprise that they do share similar traits, complementing each other, and thus leading to its eventual integration. The most apparent commonality between Economics and Psychology is how they both look to predict human behaviour (albeit in quite different contexts). To this day, its relationship is still progressing fruitfully. Economics is said to have ‘borrowed’ theories from Psychology and incorporated them into its studies in different ways. For example, reductionism is an epistemological theory identified in Psychology that describes how complex phenomena can be reduced to “[its] individual constituents”, or in other words, much simpler and more fundamental entities. This is seen to be utilised in Economics through its methodologies, particularly in the process of developing theories. With this particular concept of reductionism, Economics is able to use it inherently to deliver knowledge and convey it to the learner easily; but is also able to use it to re-evaluate its methodologies and find flaws within it to further advance the discipline epistemologically.

Moreover, Psychology is a more laboratory-focused discipline as its studies tend towards the behaviours of an individual. Therefore researchers in Psychology are able to conduct a laboratory-based practical where they can control the environments. However with Economics, as it is considered as a field that looks at the “bigger picture” that studies the effects of various economic decisions on the economy, it is unable to have a controlled environment and therefore carry out any laboratory-based experiments like Psychology. However, that is a common misconception of the discipline. Economics does not only study macroeconomy; but it has now expanded with the emergence of several subfields specialising in studying individual households and their economic behaviour. And therefore experiments can take place. It should be noted that the lack of experiments during the early stages of Economics was not only due to its nature early in the birth of the discipline, but also the economists’ reluctance to incorporate experiments. In one of the pioneering experiments in Economics called “An Experimental Study of Competitive Market Behavior” in 1962, it was noted that the economists (such as Smith and Plott) “did not want to create a division between an inside market made in the laboratory and the real market made outside of the laboratory”, thus their reluctance to using the experimental technique. However, over the years, economists have since accepted the adoption of experimental techniques into Economics, leading to the emergence of a new sub-discipline in the 1960s called ‘Experimental Economics’.

Another sub-discipline that has more recently been developed as a result of Psychology and Economics interacting is ‘Behavioural Economics’ or ‘Neuroeconomics’. Behavioural Economics is a sub-discipline that studies the rationality of choice and more generally “the psychological assumptions underlying economic theory”. It challenges the mainstream economic theories, such as the rational choice theory (where it is assumed that every rational individual will always choose what maximises their utility), bringing them outside of its man-made boundaries in order to confront them to the reality of the human behaviour. Here, Psychology and Economics heavily collaborate so that Economics can produce a more holistic view on the human mind and its inner workings. This can then be implemented in other disciplines for the advancement of their fields, such as devising more effective policies in public health and policy, or even in advertising.

Emergence of Interdisciplinarity: History of Demography and Economics

Demography is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings. It cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as education, nationality, religion, and ethnicity. When interacting with economics, a new field called Demographic economics is formed.

A concern with the study of population has a long tradition in economics, beginning with the economic and demographic model proposed by T.R. Malthus in 1798 and 1803. This was the basis, along with the wages fund doctrine, of classical labor market theory (e.g., Ricardo). More recently, development economists have devoted considerable attention to the problems of economic-demographic interrelations in the modernization process. Nowadays, as a quite mature subject field, demographic economics cover the researches into marriage and fertility , divorce, the family , the population size ,population growth and so on. Besides, another important subfield of economics-- labor economics,can also be regarded as part of demographic economics.

History of Lifestyle Medicine as a Discipline

Introduction to Lifestyle Medicine

Lifestyle medicine is a field of therapeutic medicine that incorporates “behavioural, medical and motivational” means of approaching, preventing and treating chronic diseases and other health complications. The Lifestyle Medicine Global Alliance formally defines it as: “the evidence-based practice of helping individuals and families adopt and sustain healthy behaviours that affect health and quality of life”. According to pioneer Dean Ornish, lifestyle medicine is composed of four primary elements: “nutrition, physical activity, stress reduction and rest, and social support systems”.

As it is an emerging field, the public (including scientists) are not entirely aware of the differences between ’normal’ (or conventional) medicine and lifestyle medicine. There is an abundance of distinctive characteristics between them such as, but not limited to:

(1) Goals — Lifestyle medicine seeks to prevent diseases on the primary, secondary, or tertiary level, whereas conventional medicine seeks to manage the disease;

(2) Methodologies — Lifestyle medicine approaches a patient in a motivational manner, requiring compliance from the patient to obtain optimal results, whereas conventional medicine relies mostly on diagnosis and prescription;

(3) Primary bearer of responsibility — Patients bearing the responsibility of the treatment outcome in lifestyle medicine (that would have otherwise fallen onto the clinician if in a conventional clinical setting);

(4) Patient’s role in their treatment — Patients passively receiving care from health professionals in traditional clinical settings, whilst in lifestyle medicine, patients play an active role in the treatment process alongside their health professional(s).

Emergence of Lifestyle Medicine as a Discipline

Hippocrates, 'Father of Medicine'

Although seemingly a newly emergent field, lifestyle medicine dates back to over 2500 years. Historically, Greek physician Hippocrates (famously known as the ‘Father of Medicine’) is considered a ‘pioneer of pioneers’ in lifestyle medicine: this is due to his medical contributions mostly entailing the adjustment of daily habits such as physical activity and food intake. This is demonstrated in his famous quotes: “Walking is man's best medicine” and “Let food be your medicine”.

Lifestyle medicine was arguably brought attention to by the American Medical Association in 2012. They called upon physicians to “acquire and apply [...] evidence-based lifestyle medicine interventions as the [...] primary mode of preventing and, when appropriate, treating chronic disease within clinical medicine”. However, here, lifestyle medicine as a discipline was only recognised on a national scale (specifically America). Following this, a potential marker for global recognition and, therefore, emergence of this discipline is the formation of the Lifestyle Medicine Global Alliance (LMGA). It was established in 2015 by the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM). This organisation is comprised of several health professionals, namely 16, all based in different parts of the world.

Interdisciplinary Approaches to and within Lifestyle Medicine

As chronic diseases are environmentally driven, the changes in living patterns often correlate with changes in disease patterns. A concept known as ‘epidemiological transition’ refers to “the shift from infectious to chronic diseases”. With such changes, health practices need to reform and develop to accommodate them. And in order to do so, it calls upon interdisciplinarity.

Lifestyle medicine embodies the very nature of interdisciplinarity. Its modern methodologies now involve cooperation and integration with other disciplines to cater to the ever-changing world, especially in the context of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and technological advancement in the 21st century. Researchers, such as Garry Egger (a Lifestyle Medicine pioneer), emphasise on the need for interdisciplinarity within this discipline, suggesting that “the involvement of different disciplines ensures a greater availability of these skills within a practising team”.

Psychology’s Contribution to Lifestyle Medicine

As mentioned earlier, behavioural techniques are uniquely used in lifestyle medicine (compared to conventional medicine practices). With diseases arising from the changes in lifestyle habits such as physical activity and nutrition, a motivational approach to counteract these problems needs to be implemented. ‘Motivational interviewing’ is a “non-authoritative approach to helping people to free up their own motivations and resources”: it is a psychological tool not very commonly used by clinicians in their practices, but a skill frequently adopted by health practitioners in lifestyle medicine. This is especially effective in drug addiction therapy. Here, it demonstrates that lifestyle medicine employs psychological and behavioural methods to satisfy its aims. Egger reiterates that “psychology [is] the “syringe” through which these [lifestyle medicine-specialised treatments] are delivered”, thus further highlighting the value of psychology’s role in improving one’s health and therefore in lifestyle medicine.

The Health Belief Model was developed by Hochbaum, Rosenstock and Kegels while in the US Public Health Service in 1958. The model was an approach to explain why individuals would choose not to engage in a lifestyle or accomodate techniques that would help in preventing a disease, and this research specifically revolved around tuberculosis. The model emphasizes two major factors that promote individuals to accommodate health-promoting behaviour which are the perception of the threat that the illness poses, and the perception of the ‘effectiveness’ of the advised health-promoting behaviour such as changes in lifestyle. The perception of threat acts as motivation for the individual and is dependent on the ‘perceived susceptibility’ which is the perception of the likeliness of becoming ill, and ‘perceived severity’ which is the perception of the extent of the illness. These perceptions are influenced by demographic variables such as, but not limited to, the individual’s age, sex, socio-economic status, religion and education. This models that individuals are more likely to change their lifestyle to prevent an illness if the individual is highly likely to develop a severe illness. Additionally, the effectiveness of behaving or acting towards health is formed through the integration of the potential benefits to the individual and the ‘perceived barriers’ such as the costs of accommodating particular behaviour, the self-efficacy of the individual, or peer pressure. This models that individuals are more likely to follow health behaviour when the benefits are high and the barriers (or obstacles) are low. The model has evolved with further factors through research. Furthermore, the model highlights triggers that an individual experiences, namely ‘cues to action’, could prompt the decision to change their behaviour towards following a more healthy lifestyle. Such triggers can be internal triggers such as noticing or experiencing symptoms of an illness, or external triggers such as through awareness campaigns or a friend or family member recommending to change their lifestyle behaviour. Lastly, the model explains that health motivation with respect to the individual’s values, priorities and ‘dispositional attitude’ towards their own health plays a role in whether an individual decides to follow health behaviour as some people perceive health as more important and valuable than others. The health belief model describes the psychological process that patients undergo while deciding to implement, and while implementing, health-promoting behaviour which lifestyle medicine advises.

History of Sustainable Architecture

'Green Building' by Terry Farrel and Partners, one of the most environmentally-conscious buildings in the United Kingdom

Sustainable Architecture

Sustainable architecture is a trend in architecture that aims to minimise the long-term negative impact of the built environment on the planet. It encourages the use of sustainable building materials, integration of sustainable energy sources, reduction of amounts of waste and pollution.

Sustainable Development

In the last decades of the 20th century, economists became increasingly interested in sustainable development, as they saw the irreversible environmental damages as an obstacle to future economic growth. Economics studies how scarce resources can be allocated in a society with unlimited wants, it aims to balance economic growth and available resources. Natural resources and land are limited while human demands are growing. That signalled the need for sustainable development, which, according to Our Common Future, a 1987 report by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development is a “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Sustainable development evolved from an environmental movement into a separate discipline and climate change is one of the main issues it attempts to influence. Through quantitative assessment, the building sector was identified as one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and waste production. That fuelled further research, policy debates and increased the importance of sustainability in architecture. Under the influence of sustainable development architecture began to change.

Emergence of Sustainable Architecture

Architectural history reflects social, cultural and technological shifts. In the 20th century, new disciplines of ecology and economics along with technological and scientific advancements also had a big influence on architecture. In the 20th century architecture transformed as a discipline as it became more grounded in scientific research and empirical evidence and more connected with sciences. It allowed architecture to respond to social, environmental and cultural changes with practical solutions. Rise in eco-awareness in the 1960s increased demand for environmentally friendly solutions in architecture. Energy crisis of 1973, led to integration of energy saving technologies, rise of renewable energy.

Only in the 21st century sustainable architecture is becoming widespread enough to have a noticeable effect, as new reasons arise for its implementation, such as the global climate crisis, medical research findings, change is social norms and expectations. The idea that a healthy and safe living environment is everyone’s right, and the recent emergence of regulative bodies in this area, attempts to make sustainable architecture the norm.

As cities continue to further expand and corporate necessity grows, construction increases. This consequently leaves decreased agricultural land and ultimately lowers crop production. Especially with the high demand for crops against the low production and supply of crops, different strategies to adapt to this change had to be developed. Recognition of the importance of agriculture led to implementation of vertical farming in building infrastructures, both inside and outside the structure. This adaptation in architecture promotes sustainability by integrating agriculture as part of a complex network within urban development. This method of integrating farming with architecture provides further strengths other than an increase in crop production, including, but not limited to, preventing crop damage from natural occurrences such as droughts or floods, prevention of leaching and eutrophication of water bodies resulting from runoff, hence further protecting water animal life, development of a water purification system from reusing the water used for the crops and purifying it to become potable water and decreasing the use of energy from fossil fuels such as not requiring tractors or equipment (that would be required to cover large plots of land).

History of Public Health as a Discipline

Public health can be best defined through the words of Charles-Edward A. Winslow, an American bacteriologist, who said that it is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting physical health and efficiency through organized community efforts for the sanitation of the environment, the control of community infections, the education of the individual in principles of personal hygiene, the organization of medical and nursing service for the early diagnosis and preventive treatment of disease, and the development of the social machinery which will ensure to every individual in the community a standard of living adequate for the maintenance of health." Although health and disease as concepts were existent since the hunter-gatherer era, public health was routinely studied under the discipline of medicine since its establishment as a discipline. Nevertheless, there were various researchers and philosophers from the past – the first one can be traced back to 1st century BC – that wrote extensive papers and convincing hypotheses on the causes of disease and different methods of transmission. However, Public Health was formally established as a discipline in 1871, when the Trinity College Dublin inaugurated its first formal qualification, the Diploma in State Medicine, which was a result of the sanitary revolution, fronted by Jeremy Bentham, in 1930s and 1940s England. In his book, Constitutional Code (1830), Bentham propositioned the addition of sanitary measures, prison reform and an institution of a Ministry of Health. His disciples brought his ideas to fruition when Medical Officers of Health (MOH) started being appointed by the government. Even though, in 1856, when the first post of MOH was set up, the first MOHs were clinical doctors granted with some part-time local authority, soon after, in the early-twentieth century, MOHs was mandated to hold a qualification in public health in order to take the post.

Interdisciplinarity of Public Health and Lifestyle Medicine

Researchers in lifestyle medicine describe the discipline as one that bridges clinical and public health together as a high proportion of medical consultations in today’s world are for lifestyle-related, or chronic, disorders, which are therefore, avertable. Chronic diseases inequitably affect populations of all ages in low-income and middle-income countries.

Dr. Ramon Mora-Ripoll, a lifestyle medicine researcher, concluded that “coronary disease, stroke, hypertension, high cholesterol, obesity, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), many types of neoplasms, osteoporosis, back and muscle pain, migraines, constipation, allergic pathologies, sexually transmitted diseases (STD), infertility, erectile dysfunction and many mental disorders, among other diseases, are health conditions directly related to lifestyle”. Thus, diseases attributed to lifestyle choices can be prevented through effective public health policies, crafted with principles or recommendations of lifestyle medicine. This can also help reduce healthcare costs across the world. Lifestyle Medicine Global Alliance is said to be joining hands with the World Health Organisation in a partnership to “reduce non-communicable diseases by 30% by 2030”.

Although seemingly only patient-centric in its field, lifestyle medicine has now extended its aims to improve the quality of life of the society as a whole. Multiple recommendations that lifestyle medicine specialists make for a healthy lifestyle, either to prevent the onset of chronic diseases or to manage one, are in line with numerous public health policies across the world. For example, lifestyle medicine recommends that one should quit smoking tobacco for a healthier lifestyle. This directly corresponds with the ‘no-smoking in public places’ rule placed around the world, as well as with the labelling of cigarettes as a “demerit good” in Economics.

Interdisciplinarity of Public Health and Economics

Health Economics, increasingly referred to as ‘’Public Health Economics’’, is a sub-discipline of Economics that employs an interdisciplinary approach to the provision of public health services, combining the objectives of the discipline of Public Health in supplying health care to the public while simultaneously operating in consideration of the basic economic problem: how to efficiently allocate scarce resources to meet the needs of society in order to promote public health in a manner that is most beneficial to the economy. Health policies are technically matters of the state, but the involvement of economic transactions and government expenditure directly places it within the realms of interests of the Economic discipline, leading to the developing of Health Economics in the 1963. The discipline was founded by Kenneth Arrow who identified the differences between economic transactions in the healthcare sector and general economic transactions, noticing the need for explorations into economic activity in healthcare to be separated. One prominent factor closely interlocking the two disciplines is that when there is public expenditure, it incurs what is called an ‘’opportunity cost’’. Opportunity cost is an Economic concept referring to the value of the next best alternative to a decision which is forgone as they are mutually exclusive events within the constraints of the resources available. For example, if the government decides to invest more into breast cancer treatment, it may have to reduce funding for treating lung cancer (assuming that treating lung cancer is the next best alternative to treating breast cancer).

However, problems often arise when the value of healthcare decisions (and its comparison to the values of other alternatives) is put under the scrutiny of Economists. Neo-classical Economics (the basis of contemporary Economics) is grounded in the philosophy of utilitarianism. This is a form of consequentialism which evaluates value of social policies in terms of its ability to maximise social utility - to achieve the greatest total satisfaction by maximising satisfaction with the greatest amount of benefactors.. This is often contradictory to the objectives of Public Health, particularly to the goal to provide adequate healthcare to “every individual in the community” as utilitarian ideology makes it difficult to economically justify investment into technology and treatments for rare illnesses; the aggregate benefit gained will almost always be less than if the government invests the same amount into an alternative area of healthcare.

Purpose of Public Health from an Economic Point of View

Selma Mushkin - an American Economist who wrote many significant works on Health Economics in the 1960s - wrote an article ‘Health as an Investment’, where she explores how maintaining health of the public stimulates the growth of the economy by positively benefiting workforce efficiency and boosting consumerism. Mushkin proposes that the greater the condition of an individual’s health, the more efficient they are as a member of the labour force. This could be because of factors such as fewer sick leaves (which means more days producing) or higher efficiency in work, hence increasing gross domestic product (GDP), which is the total value of goods and services produced in an economy over a certain period of time. She also proposed that individuals in good health are more effective consumers. This may be due to how people in poor health may not have the ability or incentive to consume goods and services (besides healthcare).

Pandemics and Economics

Public health is also important as pandemics can have serious implications for the economy if preventative measures entail limitation of human contact and social activity as this significantly decreases economic activity and stunts economic growth. When spending and consumption falls, aggregate demand in the macroeconomy falls, hence production is forced to decrease. This negatively affects GDP. Prolonged period of slow or negative economic growth can lead to cyclical unemployment. Cyclical unemployment is unemployment resultant of slowed economic activity. When the need for production falls, firms' profits decrease and workers are laid off to cut costs. This lowers the disposable income of consumers, which in turn further decreases spending in the economy which again increases unemployment, hence leading into a downward spiral of unemployment and recession which can become very dangerous for the economy if no remedial action is taken.

An example of interactions between Public Health and Economics can be observed through the history of HIV/AIDS (Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), which is a virus that emerged in the 1980s when it crossed species from chimpanzees to humans in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo. It eventually grew into a pandemic, infecting nearly 75 million individuals and resulting in 32 million deaths (between 1980-2019). Pandemics as such require strategic interdisciplinary collaboration between scientists, public health experts as well as economists. Research found a strong negative correlation between HIV/AIDS and economic state (measured by per capita income). It also disproportionately affects younger age-groups, reducing supply of human capital which is necessary for an economy to increase and/or maintain its GDP. This is directly related to the mode of transmission – unprotected sex, hypodermic needles etc. Therefore, it was imperative for economies to intervene and craft public health policies to combat the rapid spread, in order to preserve the working population of the future. A successful example of such interdisciplinary action against HIV/AIDS is Thailand’s 100% condom program, launched in 1991 that offered free condoms nationwide, especially to sex workers and brothels. National analysis revealed a strong correlation between increase in condom use and decline in STIs.

History of Psychology as a Discipline

Psychology is a discipline that studies human behaviour and the complexity behind the minds' conscious and unconscious processes. The discipline is guided towards understanding humanity. Psychology acquires both a nomothetic approach and an idiographic approach. The former guides the study to develop identification and reasoning of general behaviours of people and follows the principle that there are ways that people are ultimately alike. The latter approach focuses on individual people, and individual cases, to identify the thought and brain process behind individual circumstances and does not seek to establish generality. Psychology evolved as a discipline when the first psychology laboratory was established in 1879 by Wilheim Wundt, and further establishment of psychological laboratories occurred in Germany and America, across the mid 1800s.

Interdisciplinarity in the Study of Prosocial Behaviour

Biological Connection

Biology is a discipline that studies life in the natural world. The study of biology ranges from zoological life to botanical life (zoology and botany) and can also be studied at a microscopic level which is called microbiology. While the father of biology, Aristotle, first shared about his awareness and perspectives on plants and animals in around mid 300 BC, the study of biology as a discipline emerged across the 18th and 19th century as explorers including Alexander von Humboldt studied the relationship between organisms and their environment.

The study of behaviour in humans is accordingly a part of human life, and approaching particular behaviour through cognitive and biological connections provides further information for intricate analysis on the behaviour. One field delves into the study of the nervous system in the human body in biology. It indicates that the nervous system is a network of neurons which can receive and transmit signals. A neuron produces a pulse called action potential when its threshold of excitement is exceeded. This pulse transmits along the ‘axon’ to the ‘synaptic gap’, and at this point, the electric transmission becomes chemical and chemical messengers are released into the synaptic gap. These chemical messengers are called neurotransmitters. There are multiple types of neurotransmitters and can be categorized as excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters. The former has a stimulating effect on the brain through allowing an impulse across the synapse and the latter has a calming effect on the brain through preventing the impulse across the synapse.

The study of prosocial behaviour is a basis of altruism and it outlines behaviour that benefits another person or the society instead of oneself. The behaviour and actions are selfless in nature. Serotonin is an inhibitory neurotransmitter which is involved in processes to sustain stable mood and controlling regular sleep cycles. Crockett et al in 2010 studied how serotonin, an inhibitory neurotransmitter part of the human nervous system impacted prosocial behaviour, a human behaviour that results in selfless actions. The reason for this interdisciplinary approach is because prosocial behaviour is attributed to learning such behaviour and its importance during infancy and early childhood, consequently signifying that prosocial behaviour is a result of the environment the individual has grown in. This highlights that prosocial behaviour is an individual’s choice. However, the study connecting this behaviour to neurotransmitters presents the effect of a biological factor on a psychological behaviour. The study had two groups where one group was provided with citalopram, a Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor drug which blocks serotonin reuptake, resulting in a higher concentration of serotonin in the system and causing its effects to last longer. The other group was provided with a placebo. All participants then chose their choice in multiple moral dilemmas between the utilitarian outcome and the harmful aversive outcome, further dividing it with a personal and impersonal version where in the former, the participant directly conducts the harmful aversive action while in the latter, the participant indirectly conducts it. One example of such a moral dilemma is the ‘Trolley Problem’. The overall result of this study was that while citalopram did not affect participants answering in the impersonal version, participants answering in the personal version are affected by the serotonin, resulting in strong opposition of direct personal harm, 'enhancing harm aversion', and consequently promoting prosocial behaviour.

Evolutionary Connection

The study into a behaviour can be approached from multiple ways to understand the complex processes behind the behaviour. As with prosocial behaviour, it can also be approached through an evolutionary model called the kin selection theory proposed by Hamilton in 1964 which suggests that an individual behaves prosocially when the behaviour benefits another or others with related genes. This concept of kinship can be approached through a socio-cultural perspective as well. Kajanus, in 2016, discovered that individuals that grow up together and live in the same or similar environments and have also experienced similar challenges throughout their growth tend to feel a personal connection, and hence a tendency to be in favour of extending prosocial behaviour towards each other. This illustrates a ‘nurture kinship’ which provides further understanding on the process behind altruism, and Kajanus’s discovery outlines adoption kinship, which at one point unexplainable, as a nurture kinship. Empirical findings from studies were produced where the researchers, Essock-Vitale and Maguire asked participants to conduct a ‘social relationship questionnaire’ in 1985 and the participants had to self report the data which may have resulted in the social desirability effect due to bias where participants (whether consciously or unconsciously) tend to answer in a way that they think will be seen as desirable or acceptable. However, the empirical findings notably demonstrated that more significant help or prosocial behaviour was either extended to kin, or extended from kin. Additionally, it was found that kin that were closer were sought to for help than distant kin, reciprocation in prosocial behaviour was more frequent between friends than kin, and higher ‘reproductive potential’ posed as more favourable to give or receive help.

Financial Connection

Prosocial behaviour can be approached through a financial oriented approach highlighted by Stewert-Williams in 2007. Through their empirical findings, it was found that individuals provided help that required low cost to friends rather than kin, provided help that required a medium cost equally between friends and kin, and provided help that required a high cost to kin and less likely to friends (individuals that are not kin). This trend ultimately shows that prosocial behaviour involving high monetary help is preferentially towards kin. Additionally, in 2003, Webster highlighted another aspect that when an individual is in a condition of scarcity of resources, they prefer to behave prosocially when resulting with higher ‘evolutionary conservation’, by preferring to help kin that are closer rather than distant, and kin that are younger (that are more likely to reproduce) than kin that are older, especially when the individual behaving prosocially has scarce resources.

Socio-cultural Connection

The study into prosocial behaviour also delves through a sociological approach (specifically, a socio-cultural approach) which discusses the empathy-altruism hypothesis proposed by C. Daniel Batson which postulates that individuals behave prosocially due to empathy towards others and sincerity to help for the betterment of another. Chopik et al conducted cross-cultural research through an online questionnaire spreading over 63 different cultures in 2017 to observe the impact of culture or social groups on the tendency to feel empathetic and consequently behave prosocially. The findings of the research demonstrated that collectivistic cultures and people that follow collectivism express higher ‘empathetic concern’ in comparison to individualistic cultures and people that follow individualism. Collectivism is hierarchical in nature and the society values the priorities of the group as a whole rather than of the individuals in it while individualism follows even distribution and the society values the priorities of the individual rather than the group. This approach aids with understanding the process behind prosocial behaviour and describes that prosocial behaviour has a relationship with culture and social groups, and is especially likely to be exhibited in collectivistic cultures. It was also incurred that collectivism fundamentally drives traditionalism and naturally holding moral principles encourages individuals, or societies, to behave prosocially, while modernization in the society constrains prosocial behaviour.

Philosophical Connection

In the context of the ‘psychological egoist’, it has been philosophically discussed that one does not truly help another for their sake, but rather for one’s own benefit, even if it might be in the form of self-satisfaction. This notion suggests that altruism does not exist. Through the model of the kin selection theory, this notion is supported as people are more likely to help another if they are kin. This is further supported as individuals are more likely to help kin (instead of non-kin) in cases of high cost help or when in a situation of scarce resources (and especially kin that are closer and younger, being able to reproduce and conserve the genes in kinship). Additionally, if their help does not reciprocate to the individual through receiving help in return, the individual is being benefited in one way by maintaining and developing the connection through further bonding. However, the empathy-altruism hypothesis supports that an individual acts prosocially out of empathetic feelings and out of pure sincerity. It is further known that growing in a social group with strong moral principles drives empathy, and ultimately increases prosocial behaviour. This aspect illustrates that altruism exists. The concept of ‘Noblesse Oblige’ where certain individuals are born with the social responsibility to act generously to others due to their ‘noble birth' status indicates that here, individuals act generously and prosocially out of obligation rather than genuine concern. This aspect illustrates that altruism does not exist. The biological aspect of serotonin’s impact, and that serotonin is a naturally released neurotransmitter illustrates that all humans were born to be able to naturally behave prosocially. That it is not an intentional act for our own good, but a natural choice to be altruistic in certain situations. The philosophical exploration into altruism discovers to what extent altruism exists, and the interdisciplinary approach to this understanding exhibits that altruism exists at varying degrees to each individual’s situation, while ultimately, altruism and prosocial behaviour are ‘central aspects of morality’ in humanity.

Interdisciplinarity in the Study of Addiction

Addiction is a behaviour where an individual engages an activity or a substance compulsively. The complex processes behind this behaviour vary for each individual and is dependent on their situation, and accordingly, the study into addiction through the multiple aspects of it enhances application of effective treatment or being able to effectively manage the condition an individual experiences.

Biochemical Connection

Individuals can be addicted to food, and can be addicted to the activity of consuming food. In 2014, Lustig has described that biochemistry is what guides one’s behaviour of food consumption. He says that a hormone mainly controls eating behaviour. Hormones are chemical messengers that travel through the blood. A hormone called leptin signals the brain that the body has consumed sufficient food to be able to metabolize and burn energy at a healthy rate. Leptin is produced in the fat cells and travels to send the message, and at the same place, insulin is secreted. Lustig’s research has shown that within individuals diagnosed with obesity or individuals maintaining a sedentary lifestyle, the insulin in the fat cells adapts to a process of further storing the sugar in the fat cells, instead of metabolizing it. When food is consumed, the glucose levels increase in the body, and to metabolize this glucose, the insulin levels increase. After the glucose is metabolized, the insulin levels decrease again. In individuals diagnosed with obesity or maintaining a sedentary lifestyle, as the insulin stores the sugar, the insulin levels do not decrease as metabolism has not occurred sufficiently. The more sugar that is stored, the less energy is being burned by the body, and hence high levels of insulin results in storing more energy within the fat cells which develops leptin resistance as leptin production decreases. Hence the brain is not signalled that sufficient food has been consumed, consequently making the individual continue to feel hungry, and continue to engage in the activity of consuming food, outlining one of the aspects of the complex processes behind the behaviour of addiction.

Another aspect through a biochemical connection of the addiction of food or the activity of consuming food is of the Mesolimbic Dopaminergic Reward System (MDRS) which is the pathway for dopamine, both a neurotransmitter (a chemical messenger that travels through the nervous system) and a hormone (a chemical messenger that travels through blood). Dopamine in this context is released as a hormone, and dopamine is responsible with the pleasure centre of the brain, and rewards the body by feeling pleasure when experiencing particular behaviours. When an individual consumes sugary food or fatty food, (or food in general), the body feels rewarded as the MDRS releases dopamine into the ‘nucleus accumbens’, developing a feeling of pleasure for the individual. Continuous consumption of food leads to the continuous release of dopamine. To adapt to the change in high levels of dopamine release, the ‘dopamine receptors’ conduct the process of downregulation which suppresses response to a certain stimuli, and this causes the body to develop a tolerance against dopamine, decreasing its effects. Then, for the individual to feel the same pleasure as a result of the same effect of dopamine, the quantity of the stimulus (food) should be increased, consequently leading an individual to over consume the food.

Another complex process of food addiction involving dopamine and insulin is the sugar addiction cycle. This process follows what causes the behaviour of food addiction if an individual does not develop leptin resistance or dopamine tolerance. This cycle involves an individual consuming high sugar food, causing the release of dopamine in the blood. While the dopamine increases, the glucose also increases due to the high consumption of sugar, requiring high levels of insulin secretion to metabolize the high blood sugar levels and high glucose concentration. The immediate storage of sugar in the fat cells by the insulin result in the blood sugar levels dropping rapidly, and the body ‘craves’ the high sugar levels which comes with a sugar rush, and with the low blood sugar levels, the body feels more hungry as the body’s appetite has increased, consequently leading the individual to consume more food, and repeat the cycle of the complex process.

Technological Connection

Individuals can be addicted to attraction, such as being ‘in love’. Dr. Helen Fisher has researched attraction addiction in 2016 and found that individuals can become addicted to ‘intensely passionate romantic love’ as the complex processes behind romantic love is similar to that of addiction. A functional magnetic resonance imaging scan (fMRI) obtains dynamic information about ongoing brain processes during a non-invasive scan, and when a specific area of the brain is activated, the flow of oxygenated blood in that area increases. The fMRI’s constantly varying magnetic fields detect the sudden change in concentration of oxygenated blood in an area and detects that that area has been activated. This is a Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) signal and the fMRI has a spatial resolution (ability to differentiate different locations, measured in ‘voxels’) of 1mm to 5mm, and a temporal resolution (least time to measure changes in brain activity) of 1 second. The fMRI’s technological advanced features can be applied while studying addiction to observe which areas of the brain activate when an individual experiences a stimulus, such as a photo prompting the individual to think of a certain activity or substance. In Dr. Fisher’s research, when individuals are shown a picture of their romantic partners while in the fMRI, there is activation in the brain in the ventral tegmental area and the caudate nucleus which are the main parts of the MDRS pathway, in contrast to when an individual is shown a picture of a neutral acquaintance. The release of dopamine when thinking about a romantic partner rewards the body from the feeling of pleasure. In the research, addiction of the behaviour of thinking and spending time with a romantic partner, or the addiction of being in an intensely passionate romantic love has symptoms similar to substance abuse. During the early stages of the romantic partnership, partners develop a feeling of ‘euphoria’, begin to crave each other’s presence, become emotionally and physically dependent on each other, and if separated, experience withdrawal symptoms. During the later stages, partners develop a stable and calm attachment where they have found a way to balance and experience stable amounts of romantic love. Research in 2003 by Eisenberger, Lieberman and Williams showed through an fMRI study that the same area of the brain is activated when an individual experiences physical pain and social exclusion, the anterior cingulate cortex. When an individual experiences physical pain, the brain signals the body by alerting it about potential injuries, and allows the body to feel the pain. As the same areas are activated, it is incurred that social exclusion, and in the context of romantic love, the separation, or exclusion, from a partner’s life similarly alerts the body about potential ‘injuries’ and allows the body to feel the pain. As the body does not feel rewarded from feeling the pain, this is a form of a withdrawal symptom, and the body signals the brain that it needs to be rewarded, which is possible with an increase in dopamine. This consequently causes an individual to continue to be dependent on the romantic partner, and hence, continuing the addicting behaviour of engaging in a passionate romantic love.

History of Medicine as a Discipline

Medicine is now a discipline that studies and practices the ‘diagnosis, prognosis, treatment and prevention’ of a disease or particular pain. While medicine has evolved from practices which people may still use till date such as Herbalism, Ayurvedic medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, Egyption medicine and other ancient practices. Modern medicine is the product of in-depth study, practice and research from ancient times, and is continuing to adapt and change. Hippocrates is known as the father of modern medicine, and his introduction to it in his collection ‘The Hippocratic Corpus’ is what first raised awareness of an approach to multiple medical conditions. The first milestone of modern medicine after it began to emerge after the industrial revolution was in 1800 when Humphry Davy discovered nitrous oxide’s anesthetic properties.

Technological Advancement of Laparoscopy

As discoveries continued, and technology was further innovated, modern medicine has been introduced to many advancements. Hans Christian Jacobaeus conducted the first laparoscopic surgery in humans in 1910 in Sweden and this is a minimally invasive technique that minimizes blood loss during surgeries, reduces infections from preventing large exposure of inside the body, and preventing long stitches on patients (if a patient with stitches does not rest properly, the stitches could reopen and lead to blood loss and possibility to an infection). Laparoscopic surgeries involve three laparoscopes (and their respective needle drivers) - instruments - placed as a triangle in the abdomen of the patient, and requires mathematical and biological applications of the instruments. As the instruments are linear in structure, the angle of insertion to avoid hitting other organs or blood vessels is necessary to be accurate, requiring mathematical input. Biological input requires the knowledge of being able to know where to guide the instruments and conduct the surgery on the target area/organ, even while being able to have visuals through the laparoscopic camera, the practitioner must know the target and what to do with different immediate findings. The interdisciplinarity of mathematics, biology and technology sourced the beginning of a new way of practicing medicine.

Development and Advances in Fetal Medicine

Another field of medicine is maternal-fetal medicine (perinatology). This developed as a discipline itself around the 1960s due to the advance in technology and research. Obstetricians were able to monitor fetal conditions through ultrasounds, instead of only measuring the heart rate from a heart monitor. From this research, obstetricians can identify at what time a fetus with a dangerous condition should be treated to prevent the condition from worsening. Further research has led to being able to perform surgeries on babies with conditions while in utero, and so that as they complete the term in the womb, they can be born with a decreased severity of the condition, or without any harmful condition at all. A problem was recognized which was an increased number of babies being born with birth defects, and a solution of in utero surgery was developed as research advanced. However, this is not the only birth problem which is experienced. At times, the baby may have moved in position, placing the head at a different place which makes a vaginal birth difficult. Additionally, if the mother has a medical condition with the placenta which could result in bleeding during a vaginal birth, it is dangerous. Furthermore, if the mother is diagnosed with an infection such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), then a vaginal birth will pass on the infection to the child. Many such problems cause complications for a vaginal delivery and sometimes can be life-threatening. As a solution to this, a mother may undergo a Caesarean section surgery (C-section) where the baby is surgically removed through incisions on the abdomen and uterus. This avoids the aforementioned complications and risks and delivers the baby safely. This procedure was first conducted in the 1500s by Jacob Nufer who operated on his pregnant wife. His wife experienced 13 days of labour with 13 midwives, unable to give birth to her child, and Jacob Nufer, who was a pig-gelder and understood anatomy, conducted a C-section, and delivered their baby while both mother and child stayed alive and healthy. This was a start to developing medical instruments that would be able to operate on delicate fetal tissue in the 1600s, however, at this time, medicinal knowledge and privilege to these instruments was given to the male population, consequently giving the authority to the male population and increasing male-midwives, while female midwives were not able to due to the restriction from medical knowledge, until the late 19th century. This change in distribution and sharing of knowledge is because of a social shift where the female population was recognized for their ability to carry our medical procedures, and advance the discipline further. Furthermore, there has been a rise in genetic problems where individuals are unable to conceive, and in 1977, the first successful in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedure took place, and the baby was delivered healthy in 1978. IVF is a laboratory procedure which fertilizes a mature egg that has been retrieved from ovaries by a sperm. The fertilized egg is then transferred to the mother’s uterus and if successful, a baby develops and is born. There have been many problems with birth, and pre-birth, but with the integration of fetal medicine and technology, methodology has evolved to overcome these problems. The shift in focus to studying fetal medicine has occurred through identifying that further research will continue to further decrease mortality rates. While this has always been a goal by humans, being able to recognize that investing in further research into fetal medicine to achieve the goal has developed a specialized discipline which furthers its study with technology.

Discoveries and Advances in Amputations and Prosthetics

Ancient Egyptian prosthetic toe displayed in a museum in Cairo, Egypt

As medicine treatment evolves, it finds ways to improve the quality of life. There have been many cases where individuals got amputated, either naturally because of the increasing number of manual jobs at a time when technological safety was not as advanced, or medically due to an untreated infection. In the 16th century, Ambroise Paré developed amputation surgeries and prosthetic limbs from the ancient Egypt prosthetic toes. He developed hands with hinges and legs with a ‘locking knee joint’, and as medicine and technology advanced, prosthetics were developed with the same basis. As an orthopedic field in medicine, physics was very important in developing the prosthetics limbs as they function similar to springs, for example, in a prosthetic leg, as a patient takes a step forward on the prosthetic, it moves upwards and downwards, and ultimately this causes kinetic energy (and hence gravitational potential energy) due to the movement. This spring function causes an elastic potential energy when the prosthetic is flexed, which is transformed into gravitational potential energy as the prosthetic relaxes. As different springs have different spring constants determining how much they can flex or how much force can be applied on it, developing prosthetic limbs is personalized for each patient, taking into consideration of the patient’s weight (to calculate the force applied by the patient naturally) and of the daily activities of the patient (differing based on movement, such as a difference if the patient is an athlete or an office worker). Additionally, there has been an introduction of a psychological effect after undergoing amputation called the phantom limb syndrome. This syndrome is when an amputated patient feels the presence of the amputated limb, as if it were not amputated and it was still there. This is due to localization of a function of a body to a particular part of the brain (like how Broca’s area is localized to articulate speech), and the part connected to the function of the limb continues to receive messages from the nerves that were connected to the limb before amputation. Additionally, some patients may experience phantom limb pain, where even though the limb is not there, the pain is real and patients can feel painful associations originating from the ‘phantom limb’. This phenomenon is related to neuroplasticity where the brain can change throughout the course of an individual’s life. Neuroplasticity has a large scale effect through cortical remapping where one part of the brain takes over the function of another part of the brain. This can occur through the non functioning part shrinking while the neighboring parts of the brain expand. In the majority of the cases, when patients are touched on their cheeks or shoulders, they feel either a touching sensation on their phantom limb, or severe pain from the phantom limb. The introduction of technological prosthetic limbs help patients with handling the phantom limb pain and reduce experiencing phantom limb syndrome as prosthetic limbs themselves act therapeutically for the patient. As the prosthetics are directly in contact with the amputation site, it stimulates the nerves and blood flow, and as the patient can visualize the limb with the prosthetic, the brain is is engaged in the part associated to the function of limb movement, and receives signals from the limb, and hence transmits to the nerves of the residual limb to move the prosthetic, like how it would with the original limb, decreasing the frequency of the phantom limb pain. The interdisciplinary approach to a problem and solution with amputations and prosthetics in modern medicine has been able to advance to the modern prosthetic limb and is furthering into its development through biology, physics, psychology and technology. Additionally, interdisciplinary knowledge integration continues as research studies further advancements including ‘electronic sensors’ for detecting impulses to be able to control movement of the prosthetic.

While medicine itself is a collection of interdisciplinary connections of knowledge as presented through its subdisciplines, these subdisciplines are further studied and researched through the integration of other disciplines such as how Orthopedics, a subdiscipline of medicine, is explored through the disciplines of biology, physics, psychology and technology. This integration of different fields (disciplines) produces further knowledge in enhancing and developing research, such as about amputations and prosthetics, to consider different variables and different consequences in such complex processes.

History of Aeronautical Engineering as a Discipline

Aeronautical engineering is the engineering discipline, concerned with the development of aircraft which operate within our atmosphere. Today it is commonly known as aerospace engineering, a term first coined in 1958, which encompasses both aeronautical and astronautical engineering. The history of aeronautical engineering is explored in the following paragraphs, tracing the discipline from its roots in early aviation up to the advent of the space age in the 1950s, which heralded increasing integration of astro and aeronautical engineering.

Early History of Aviation

The early history of aviation can be thought of as a precursor to what we now consider modern aeronautics. This history can be summarised by the following eras of technological advancement in aviation:

1. Primitive attempts at flight that had little to no rational or scientific thought behind them. Examples include:
   1. The ancient Greek legend of Daedalus and Icarus, as described in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in which Daedalus created wings made from wax and feathers.
   2. Abbas ibn Firnas, an Andalusian polymath, is claimed to have made a jump wearing wings constructed of vulture feathers sometime in the 9th century.
   3. In the Renaissance period, Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci drew designs of various flying machines, based off his own studies of bird flight. He anticipated many aerodynamic principles and even Newton’s third law of motion, when he wrote that "An object offers as much resistance to the air as the air does to the object”. Like most other precursors to sustained flight, da Vinci’s designs were based in rational thought , but were not scientific, and sorely underestimated the power required for sustained flight.
2. Lighter than air flight - In the early 17th century, Italian astronomer, physicist, and engineer Galileo discovered through experimentation that air has weight, subsequently spawning a new era of flight. Examples include:
   1. Francesco Lana de Terzi, an Italian Jesuit priest, and naturalist, described a scientifically feasible vacuum airship, in his 1670 book Prodromo, which obtained lift through spheres which had all the air pumped out. Whilst his proposed spheres would, in practise, have collapsed under air pressure, his proposed ideas for controlling altitude through the use of carrying ballast to be dropped overboard to rise in altitude and venting the spheres the sink, remain in use today.
   2. In the mid-to-late 18th century, several variants of un-controlled balloons were made and demonstrated in France:
      1. The Montgolfier Brothers heated air inside an open balloon to generate lift. They successfully completed the first publicly demonstrated unmanned balloon flight on June 5, 1783 in Annonay, France. In autumn of that year, the Montgolfier brothers completed the first manned, tethered balloon flight on October 19, 1783, and the first manned free flight on November 21, 1783.
      2. During that same period, the French inventor, mathematician, and scientist Jacques Charles and French engineers the Robert Brothers, manufactured sealed balloons, which they then filled with hydrogen, ahead of there first manned flight on December 1, 1783.
   3. Airships were “dirigible” (steerable) balloons that emerged at the end of the 19th century, most notably throughthe work of German inventor Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who can be considered as the father of commercial aviation..
3. Heavier than air flight designs of the 17th to 19th century. Many of these were similar in practice to much earlier works by the likes of ibn Firnas and da Vinci, but were founded more from scientific thought. Examples include:
   1. Swedish scientist Emanuel Swedenborg’s Flying Machine, sketched in 1714, would, like the designs of da Vinci, not have worked, but when published in his periodical Daedalus Hyperboreus, in 1716, Swedenborg made clear that further scientific developments were needed.
   2. Frenchman Launoy and Bienvenu, are credited by some as making the first flying helicopter models in 1784.

By the mid-to-late 19th century, most of the scientists and inventors attempting to design and build flying machines had concluded that greater power would be required to enable sustained heavier than air flight. Swedenburg wrote of this in his periodical, Daedalus Hyperboreus, , and this thought was echoed by French mathematician and general Isidore Didion who wrote in his 1837 paper, Rapport sur la plus grande vitesse que l’on put obtenir par la navigation aérienne (Report on the greater speed one can obtain by aerial navigation), that "Aviation will be successful only if one finds an engine whose ratio with the weight of the device to be supported will be larger than current steam machines or the strength developed by humans or most of the animals”.

History of Aeronautical Engineering as a discipline

Scientific Investigation of the 19th Century

The scientists and inventors who designed and demonstrated primitive flying machines during the early history of aviation laid important practical groundwork for the future of aeronautics, but the advent of what we now consider as the discipline of aeronautical engineering occurred at the turn the 19th century with the work of George Cayley.

Sir George Cayley was an English inventor, engineer and aviator. He is considered by many to be the first person to scientifically investigate the concept of flight, and was the first person to identify the four forces that act upon heavier than air flight vehicles:

1. Weight - the force acting on an object by gravity towards the centre of the earth.
2. Drag - the force acting against the motion of an object through a fluid.
3. Lift - the component of the force exerted by the fluid on the object that is perpendicular to the object’s motion.
4. Thrust - the reaction force that mass expelled or accelerated from a system enacts on the system, as described by Newton’s third law.

His three-part paper ‘'On Aerial Navigation’’(1809-1810), remains a landmark in the history of aeronautics and Cayley’s enduring influence in the field of aeronautics was recognised by Wilbur Wright, one of the inventors of the first successful motor-powered airplane; reportedly in 1909 Wright attested that, “About 100 years ago an Englishman, Sir George Cayley, carried the science of flying to a point which it had never reached before and which it scarcely reached again during the last century.”

Cayley continued his work in the field with scientific experimentation that led to his invention of cambered wings, description of the importance of dihedral, and subsequent design and successful testing of the world’s first human carrying glider in 1853. Cayley’s use of a whirling arm test rig to measure the drag forces on model airplanes remains a major milestone in aeronautical engineering; it represented the first instance of a device being used to enable scientific experimentation and research of aerodynamics within aeronautics. Perhaps Cayley’s most significant development for the evolution of aeronautical engineering as a discipline was his defining design philosophy that the forward motion of a flight vehicle should generate the lift required. Before Cayley, aviators were adamant that a flying machine must use a power source to generate both forwards and upwards motion. By demonstrating that the right wing shape and angle would provide the necessary lift given enough propulsion, Cayley initiated a new era in aeronautics.

During the remainder of the 19th century, Cayley’s work was expanded on by numerous aviators. Otto Lilienthal, who performed numerous successful glider tests in the late 1800s, amassed more flight time than all those before him combined. Horatio Phillips’ demonstrations of the superiority of cambered wings also cemented Cayley’s ideas.

One of the most important advancements in the history of aeronautical engineering was the invention of the wind tunnel, by British engineer Francis Wenham. Dissatisfied with the whirling arms used by his predecessors, in 1871 Wenham built what is believed to be the world’s first wind tunnel. This device facilitated scientifically accurate study of aerodynamic flows and enabled a new era of aeronautics that was based in scientific, measurable experimentation, fundamentally changing the way in which aeroplanes would be designed from then on. Using wind tunnels, Wenham and his colleagues found that using certain angles of attack could generate much higher lift to drag ratios than had been thought possible: Thus, motorised flight became an exponentially more feasible concept. To this day, wind tunnels are used extensively in aeronautical engineering, and in many other disciplines.

Development of Motorised Machines Capable of Sustained Flight

The 20th century witnessed a revolution in the field of aeronautical engineering. This discipline was no longer one of repeated trial and error, but now stood on the scientific insight and developments of Cayley, Wenham, and the other early aeronauts. In 1903, the Wright Brothers completed the first controlled flight of a motorised heavier than air vehicle. This proved to the world that this technology was feasible and the 1910s saw a surge in the design and production of flight vehicles, in part spurred on by the outbreak of World War I.

The invention of ailerons, and their emerging use in the early 20th century, was another major development in the field of aeronautics. Ailerons are hinged sections of aircraft wings that can be moved for flight control.

Several of the most significant developments in the field of aeronautical engineering came in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s with the development of the jet engine. New prototype engines and planes were being built at lightning pace, examples include:

• 1930 - British RAF officer and engineer Frank Whittle is credited with designing the first turbojet engine.
• 1939 - The Heinkel He 178, designed and built by Ernst Heinkel’s company using an engine designed by Hans von Ohain, became the first plane to fly solely under jet power.
• 1942 - The Messerschmitt Me 262 becomes the world’s first functional fighter jet.
• 1946 - The Rolls-Royce Dart begins development. This turboprop engine would remain in production for over 40 year.
• 1949 - The Leduc 010, the world’s first ramjet powered aircraft, completes its maiden flight.
• 1950 - The world’s first turbofan engine, the Rolls-Royce Conway, enters production.
• 1952 - The de Havilland Comet enters service, become the first commercial jet airliner.

The Study of Aeronautical Engineering

The first formal course in aeronautics is believed to have been taught by French physicist, Professor Lucien Marchis at the University of Paris at the turn of the 20th century. During his earlier career, Marchis was interested in practical applications of physics, and gave lectures on steam engines, internal combustion engines, and aeronautics. In 1910, Marchis published La flotte aérienne: résistance de l'air et construction des navires aériens (The air fleet: air resistance and the construction of airships), a work that looked at the science behind the airships and zeppelins of the time. In 1917, Felix Pawloski, a Polish engineer and former student of Marchis’, and Professor Herbert Sadler, chairman of the Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering and a descendant of Englands first balloonist, James Sadler, established the first 4-year degree program in aeronautical engineering. By 1936, the first programs in aeronautical engineering in the United States had been accredited by the Engineers Council for Professional Development, and by 1941 there were 37 aeronautical engineering programs in the nation.

Interdisciplinarity within Aeronautical Engineering

Like all types of engineering, aeronautical engineering is an inherently interdisciplinary field. It draws from a wide range of disciplines and their sub-branches, including:

• Mathematics - notably calculus and linear algebra.
• Physics - including the following branches:
  • Fluid mechanics - specifically regarding aerodynamics and air flow over and around wings.
  • Dynamics and statics - the branches of mechanics concerned with the study of forces and loads and their impact on motion and static equilibrium, respectively.
• Avionics - the study and implementation of electronics within aviation. This discipline lies at the intersection between aeronautical and electrical engineering.
• Materials science - itself an interdisciplinary field, combining physics, chemistry and engineering, this discipline is crucial for the design of feasible aircraft.

Increasingly, aeronautical engineers must also engage in an interdisciplinary approach that implements sustainable and ecological design. Estimates put aviation’s contribution to global CO2 emissions at around 2.5%, and contribution to effective radiative forcing (global warming) at around 3.5%. These figures demonstrate the ever growing need for sustainable thought in aeronautical engineering.