Steel Trusses and the Management of Ruptures in Eighteenth-Century Europe

摘要

Steel trusses were indeed an innovation in early modern Europe. The use of tempered (and later cemented) steel offered afflicted customers new ways to contain hernias. As they required adjustments to individuals' ailments, steel trusses played a prominent role in the enlightened (Adam) Smithian-based technological culture in which technology and commerce went hand in hand. Steel materials, both cemented and cast, perfectly suited the requirements of care, variety, and adaptability that characterized toys and tools. During the Enlightenment, these qualities were the basis of an economy of products and variations that relied upon "fitness of purpose." In Smith's words, such commodities conveyed the beauty that "the appearance of utility bestows upon all the productions of art." Steel trusses were emblematic of the modern culture of functionality, which was opening the way to an economy of tasks and pieces. Trusses involved an entire process of exchange, adaptation, and repair because they were fragile and composed of many separate pieces.