Locating Ludwick Fleck's sociology of medical knowledge in the sociology of knowledge

Many commentators - both in favour of and critical of Ludwick Fleck's The Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact - have wondered at how he developed his sociolgy of medical knowledge. It is the case that his bibliography has scant references to sociologists of knolwdge though he does mention Durkheim. In this paper I follow a lead given by Fleck,:that in any period thought is directed by a thought collective of which the indivdual practitioner may have no knowledge of but still be shaped by. In the light of this argument Fleck's work can be seen as part of the sociology of knolwdge of the 1930s: the work of Bachelard and Canguihelm in France; Mannheim in Germany; and C.Wright Milss and Merton in the United States. In the light of this thought collective Fleck's insights and developments of the sociology of medical knowldge are part of a wider stream of thought and his development less puzzling to understand.