"What is paper technology, how does it shape scientific knowledge, and how is this operation interrelated with other domains of the modern world? Downsizing these questions to the field of medicine and its observational practices is the way to achieve these otherwise intractable goals. The first implies the history of medical observations (in any sense) over the long term. The project will explore and demonstrate how writing represents one of the basic operations of a technology of knowledge. The second aim is targeting a history á la longue durée. Demonstrating how shaping knowledge was based on paper technology over this entire period will contribute to the identification of continuities between the early modern period and modern historical eras. This is the fundamentally historical aim of the investigation. The third aim implies an understanding of the relationship between the social world and scientific knowledge. Even the long perspective will show that producing and shaping of knowledge is always intertwined with practices of other social domains – for example, military, judicial, and administrative."