Hallerworden and Spatz

[prolurk]

As some of you know, I am in the process of writing a textbook about Neurologic eponyms, and boring a couple of you to death about it. 
The incomparable Greyrider is beta-ing the A's even now, God love her.  I've come upon something of a dilemma, and I thought I'd step out of my usual avoidance of real life on these pages to see what my f-list

Comments

[jaanquidam]

Ah, okay--that makes a little more sense, then. Personally, I still think the entry should go in, along with an explanation of why the term Hallervorden-Spatz is obsolete. The reason is that, at the end of your 1st paragraph, you wrote that the "question with option two is whether it's my aim in this little book to go into big ethical issues." But you're doing that either way; if you leave out the term altogether, you're making an ethical decision to the effect that these two guys are less deserving than anyone whose name hasn't become unused. It seems to me that that position is essentially saying "Nazi (or war criminal) contributions don't count." That approach isn't ethically any different than writing anyone else out of history. In fact, that's what the Nazis were trying to do: rewrite history such that it suggested the superiority of their own values. I'm not comparing Nazis to the people who would choose not to honor their contributions, of course; I'm just saying that removing certain individuals from a particular historical record is fundamentally the same process whether the intentions are good or bad. And it's also problematic because leaving out Hallervorden and Spatz can support a false narrative, which is that doctors are good people who can't be Nazis. I have no idea if anyone explicitly makes that argument, but that argument's at the root of much US policy--Americans are doing it and therefore it can't be bad--and it has been invoked to allow medical doctors to participate in torture at US military prisons.

And there's a second reason, too, which is that a name change doesn't allow the reader herself to decide the merits of the name change. So, it seems to me that it's more intellectually/ethically honest to explain why these guys had their honor revoked, rather than leave them out.

I'm not sure I understand the difference between 1 and 2 above, though. It sounds like in 1, you would give the background of Hallervorden and Spatz, whereas in 2 you'd just say they didn't deserve the honor any more?

So, I guess that makes 4 cents worth now. ;)