Bowker/Starr on ICD

Sorting Things Out contains an extensive section describing the classification of ICD. The factors that way heavily on its use and adoption are discussed through historical analysis. We're shown that the ICD is altered when its pragmatic to do so. That is, when recognition of a physical manifestation is useful to recognize, it is added to the ICD.

I particularly enjoyed the analysis of aging through the analysis of disease within the ICD. In summary, Bowker/Starr argue that the ICD depicts the human life as full of activity during the first moments of life, followed by a fairly uneventful and timeless life, and then death. Their point is that if we look at the ICD, we are given no clue that age effects health; the ICD is more concerned with acute description of disease. The reasoning they provide is that the ICD is used for identification of acute symptoms, not description of human health.

Bowker/Starr also discuss the space within the ICD: a characteristic they argue is present in any classification system. The discussion of the vermilion border of the lip describes the uncertainty of the ICD in describe the body, and some of its coping mechanisms. Frankly, this is an ingenious analysis. The space within a classification is difficult to describe because it is the absence of presence. Bowker and Starr do a fantastic job of providing an example.

In my previous post, I indicated that the book was easier reading than Memory Practices in the Sciences and it has turned out to be true for the rest of the book. The cases are interesting, and the analysis, although clever, is rarely difficult to understand.