ABSTRACT
This chapter describes an infrastructural approach to rhetoric in health and medicine. An infrastructural approach explores how shared, background resources politicize the knowledge work of health and medicine. The chapter describes the infrastructural approach described provides a set of conceptual tools. It focuses on the rhetorical tradition to perform a rhetorical-historical study of protein classifications. When infrastructural technologies break, they cause massive interruptions in knowledge work. The more foundational and global the infrastructure, the more likely it can cause global, catastrophic problems. Electronic medical records aren't yet globally adopted, and if the software that ran them ceased to work, it would be less of a problem than if all access to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) disappeared. Infrastructural technologies like the ICD bridge relationships between several groups that have different information needs. Consequently, identifying potential infrastructural breakdowns and underserved groups becomes important for providing equitable access to health and medical care.
