Search Results

Potato Soup

Nicholas P. Money

in Triumph of the Fungi: A Rotten History

The Irish potato famine is the best known crop disease in history. This chapter addresses the root causes of the famine, with emphasis upon the relationship between the unprecedented population ... More

The Irish potato famine is the best known crop disease in history. This chapter addresses the root causes of the famine, with emphasis upon the relationship between the unprecedented population increase in Ireland in the 1840s before the arrival of the pathogen. Ireland was fated by its monoculture of potatoes and the dependent lives of millions of human beings. The Reverend Miles Berkeley was responsible for identifying the microbial culprit for the blight, and much of his brilliant work prefigured Louis Pasteur’s refutation of the theory of spontaneous generation. Potato blight is caused by the microbe, Phytophthora infestans, whose resemblance to fungi disguises a much closer evolutionary relationship to diatoms and brown algae. Research on fungicides is discussed, including the work of Alexis Millardet who is credited with the discovery of the Bordeaux mixture.Less

The Mystery of Immunity

Gavin Weightman

in The Great Inoculator: The Untold Story of Daniel Sutton and his Medical Revolution

This chapter assesses the mystery of immunity. Today, Edward Jenner is often referred to as the 'father of immunology'. But really, Jenner had no more claim to that title than Lady Mary Wortley ... More

This chapter assesses the mystery of immunity. Today, Edward Jenner is often referred to as the 'father of immunology'. But really, Jenner had no more claim to that title than Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, or the Greek women inoculating in Constantinople, or Daniel Sutton. None of them knew anything of the micro-organisms that Louis Pasteur and his contemporaries called 'germs'. It took well over a century after the deaths of Sutton and Jenner for an accumulation of scientific investigation to gain some understanding of what had been going on medically when the inoculators and vaccinators sought to bring smallpox under control. And it was a long time after the identification of 'germs', and the detective work that isolated the elements in them that caused specific infections, that it was understood that inoculation and vaccination worked because they triggered an immune response in the patient.Less

An Introduction to Puerperal Fever

Irvine Loudon

in The Tragedy of Childbed Fever

This chapter discusses the coverage of this book, which is about puerperal or childhood fever that was prevalent in England during the 18th and 19th centuries. This book provides case histories and ... More

This chapter discusses the coverage of this book, which is about puerperal or childhood fever that was prevalent in England during the 18th and 19th centuries. This book provides case histories and describes the clinical features, pathology, mortality rate, bacteriology, and the nomenclature and synonyms for puerperal fever. It chronicles the story of puerperal fever from its earliest recognition to the development of antiseptics and other treatments by Louis Pasteur, Lord Lister, and Ignaz Semmelweis.Less

Funerals of Scientists, Writers, and Musicians

Avner Ben-Amos

in Funerals, Politics, and Memory in Modern France, 1789–1996

Following the positivism of Auguste Comte, Jules Ferry and the other founding fathers of the Third Republic believed that ‘science will replace religion as the Republic replaced the monarchy, and ... More

Following the positivism of Auguste Comte, Jules Ferry and the other founding fathers of the Third Republic believed that ‘science will replace religion as the Republic replaced the monarchy, and scientific education will play the same social role that religion used to play. It will develop the scientific spirit and create the spiritual conditions for national unity’. The application of scientific methods to the study and government of society in order to ameliorate the human condition was a common theme of the Enlightenment, and when the Third Republic became republican it seemed as though Comte's positivist and superior age had finally come. What was known as ‘scientism’ became part of the republican doctrine, and Ferry's educational reforms aimed at increasing the place of science and the ‘scientific spirit’ in school. This chapter focuses on the state funerals of scientists, writers, and musicians in France during the period 1789–1996, from Claude Bernard and Louis Pasteur to émile Roux, Maurice Barrès, Anatole France, Charles Gounod, Gabriel Fauré, and Camille Saint-Saëns.Less

A Vital Matter: Light and Life

Theresa Levitt

in The Shadow of Enlightenment: Optical and Political Transparency in France 1789-1848

This chapter looks at the question of light and living bodies. Arago once again fashioned himself as a debunker, questioning the claims of the rising spiritualist movement that there exist previously ... More

This chapter looks at the question of light and living bodies. Arago once again fashioned himself as a debunker, questioning the claims of the rising spiritualist movement that there exist previously unknown forms of radiation that act on living organisms. Biot, meanwhile, strove to make exactly that point: through optical activity, the world could be divided into active (living) and inactive (non-living) matter. One could only distinguish the two by the effect they had on the plane of polarization of light. Biot's work became the basis of Pasteur's anti-materialism crusade.Less

Germ Theory, Infection, and Bacteriology

Mervyn Susser and Zena Stein

in Eras in Epidemiology: The Evolution of Ideas

This chapter discusses the development of the concepts of germ theory, infection, and bacteriology. In the 1860s, medicine saw major developments at the biochemical, cellular, and molecular level. ... More

This chapter discusses the development of the concepts of germ theory, infection, and bacteriology. In the 1860s, medicine saw major developments at the biochemical, cellular, and molecular level. The tangible beginnings of the new and revolutionary developments arose first in France, and were then followed up in Germany. The founding of germ theory by Louis Pasteur, and the isolation of microbial pathogens by Edwin Klebs and Robert Koch are discussed.Less

The Concept of Host and Immunity

Mervyn Susser and Zena Stein

in Eras in Epidemiology: The Evolution of Ideas

This chapter discusses the historical development of the concept of host and immunity. Smallpox is a disease that, until the 20h century, had long been among the greatest of human plagues. In the ... More

This chapter discusses the historical development of the concept of host and immunity. Smallpox is a disease that, until the 20h century, had long been among the greatest of human plagues. In the last quarter of the 18th century, Edward Jenner set public health on the path to its eventual virtual eradication in the late 20th century. Louis Pasteur, in his second major phase of thought and research, carried forward, consolidated, and generalized the themes of immunity and host resistance to specific organisms. His work was the necessary prelude to the general application of immunization for many diseases in domesticated animals and in human beings.Less

Death Comes Alive

Jonathan Strauss

in Human Remains: Medicine, Death, and Desire in Nineteenth-Century Paris

This chapter examines the most influential of the early nineteenth-century theories of death. Death, from the hygienic viewpoint, was a material presence: not a concept or abstract limit, but a ... More

This chapter examines the most influential of the early nineteenth-century theories of death. Death, from the hygienic viewpoint, was a material presence: not a concept or abstract limit, but a state. Its essence, it seemed, could be located in putrescence, which was understood, in turn, as a form of fermentation. From a close reading of key pathological texts, an ambiguous image of death emerges, however. And this ambiguity opened a rich imaginative zone in which the living and the dead could share characteristics, a zone from which emerged the notion of an inanimate sentience hidden in the material world and vestigial present in human consciousness. This sentience was particularly closely related to the sense of smell, through which human beings retain an experiential access to it. The sense of smell revealed, moreover, a capacity to reorganize the significance of mortality in its structural relation to the city.Less

A Scientific Monopoly

Gerard Sasges

in Imperial Intoxication: Alcohol and the Making of Colonial Indochina

Today, Albert Calmette is remembered as a pioneer of modern medicine for his work on the BCG tuberculosis vaccine, still in use today. Yet in 1891 he was an inexperienced naval doctor, recently ... More

Today, Albert Calmette is remembered as a pioneer of modern medicine for his work on the BCG tuberculosis vaccine, still in use today. Yet in 1891 he was an inexperienced naval doctor, recently arrived in Saigon and tasked with creating Indochina’s new bacteriological institute. While in Indochina, Calmette would carry out research crucial for the industrialization of rice alcohol production, and after his return to France he would work closely with the industrialist A.R. Fontaine to turn their vision of an alcohol monopoly into a reality. Yet while Calmette’s research promised increased yields at lower cost, the alcohol that resulted bore little resemblance to traditional liquor. Selling the factory liquor would thus require heavy-handed state intervention to encourage consumption. Calmette’s story sheds light on the political economy of innovation and highlights the place of colonialism in the history of science and technology.Less

“Immunology Is for Me Becoming a Mostly Philosophical Subject”

Thomas Söderqvist

in Science as Autobiography: The Troubled Life of Niels Jern

This chapter focuses on the time of Niels Jerne's retirement, after more than a decade as director of the Basel Institute. Roche asked Fritz Melchers, who had been at the institute almost since its ... More

This chapter focuses on the time of Niels Jerne's retirement, after more than a decade as director of the Basel Institute. Roche asked Fritz Melchers, who had been at the institute almost since its start, to take over the post. Jerne was sixty-eight years old, and despite two or three packs of cigarettes a day and ever increasing alcohol consumption, he was still in full vigor. For about a year, he functioned as conseiller general of the Pasteur Institute's new Department of Immunology, but he was not comfortable there. Instead he moved permanently to his summer residence in Languedoc with his young wife, Alexandra, who for many years had lived alone for long periods in Chateau de Bellevue. In France, he had more time to read, as usual on the most diverse subjects—everything from Marshall Berman's Marxist critique of modernity, All That Is Solid Melts into Air, to Nicolas Schoffer's La theorie des miroirs, a book that reinforced his vision of the immune system as an endless hall of mirrors.Less

: Settings

in Mixed Medicines: Health and Culture in French Colonial Cambodia

This chapter outlines the setting for the development of Western medicine in French colonial Cambodia, discusses French medicine in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and provides an ... More

This chapter outlines the setting for the development of Western medicine in French colonial Cambodia, discusses French medicine in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and provides an overview of the major professional, technical, and conceptual changes in medicine and biomedical research, along with Khmer medical practices and philosophies. Cambodia as a protectorate was under a system of indirect rule. Several different ethnic groups existed there, with wide-ranging medical beliefs. The range of healers in Khmer society varied, and this was complicated by the differences between types of healers among the different ethnic groups. The three main branches of French medicine operating in Cambodia were the military medicine, the Assistance Médicale, and the Pasteur Institute. The ties within the networks of medicine often meant that the influence and action seen in Cambodia could be far removed from the impulse that had created it.Less

Pandora and the History of Modernity

Henning Schmidgen

in Bruno Latour in Pieces: An Intellectual Biography

In the 1980s, Latour started to investigate the dissemination of Pasteurian hygiene in France in the late 19th century. In this context he elaborated his theory of modernity and the philosophical ... More

In the 1980s, Latour started to investigate the dissemination of Pasteurian hygiene in France in the late 19th century. In this context he elaborated his theory of modernity and the philosophical foundations of actor-network theory. This chapter highlights the fact that the Nietzschean aspects of Latour’s writings from this period are very much indebted to Deleuze’s reading of Nietzsche, in particular with respect to the notion of “force.”Less

“Useful Ornaments to His Cabinet”: Analysis of Anatomical Study and Display in Colonial Williamsburg

Ellen Chapman

in Historical Archaeology in the Twenty-First Century: Lessons from Colonial Williamsburg

Human remains used as articulated medical specimens, although very rare in the archaeological record, have been recovered from an apothecary’s private residence and Charlton’s Coffeehouse in ... More

Human remains used as articulated medical specimens, although very rare in the archaeological record, have been recovered from an apothecary’s private residence and Charlton’s Coffeehouse in Williamsburg. These contexts provide a unique opportunity to examine how prepared human specimens were used in the eighteenth-century scientific and medical communities. This chapter describes the reconstruction process for an articulated human skeleton used in the Galt Pasteur Apothecary Shop to interpret the colonial use of human skeletons for display and study. Synthesis of archaeological, historical, biological, and material culture research shows that articulated human skeletons were used in Williamsburg to display medical knowledge and expertise in natural philosophy. Through using multiple lines of evidence, this study deepens current understandings of re-created spaces in Williamsburg and the broader colonial processes of the society.Less

Microbiopolitics

Heather Paxson

in The Life of Cheese: Crafting Food and Value in America

“Microbiopolitics” takes up the regulatory dimension of food production to explore how growing interest in the manufacture and taste of raw-milk cheese collides with renewed regulatory attention to ... More

“Microbiopolitics” takes up the regulatory dimension of food production to explore how growing interest in the manufacture and taste of raw-milk cheese collides with renewed regulatory attention to food safety. While the US Food and Drug Administration views raw-milk cheese as a potential biohazard, riddled with pathogenic microbes, artisans see it as a traditional food processed for safety by the action of beneficial microbes that can outcompete pathogens. Revisiting ecologies of production at a microscopic scale, I develop the concept of microbiopolitics to analyze how farmers, cheesemakers, food microbiologists, safety regulators, retailers, and consumers work variously to reconcile Pasteurian (hygienic) and post-Pasteurian (probiotic) attitudes toward the microbial agents at the heart of raw-milk cheese.Less

Biting

Chris Pearson

in Dogopolis: How Dogs and Humans Made Modern New York, London, and Paris

Rabies claimed few lives compared to other diseases, such as cholera, and had little economic impact. But like other diseases in nineteenth-century cities it raised worries about rapid urbanization, ... More

Rabies claimed few lives compared to other diseases, such as cholera, and had little economic impact. But like other diseases in nineteenth-century cities it raised worries about rapid urbanization, physical and emotional suffering, social disorder, and death. The anxious anticipation of being physically, emotionally, and mentally consumed by rabies cast a shadow over London, New York, and Paris. Louis Pasteur’s rabies vaccine, announced with much fanfare in 1885, heralded a transnational transformation in the understanding and treatment of the disease and his methods were debated and copied in London and New York. As well as being a symbol of medical progress, supportive commentators presented his vaccine as a way of calming rabies anxieties. However, Pasteur’s breakthrough did not fully quell the disease’s emotional intensity and fears of dog bites persisted. Throughout, fiery discussions broke out on the effectiveness and ethics of muzzling. Canine biting stirred emotions. Finding a way to contain its lethal potential and emotional force was integral to the emergence of dogopolis.Less

The Pasteur Connection

Suzanne Bourgeois

in Genesis of the Salk Institute: The Epic of Its Founders

In 1946, after the South Pacific campaign and time in Hiroshima, Melvin Cohn became a graduate student of Pappenheimer at New York University; later he became a postdoctoral fellow of Jacques Monod’s ... More

In 1946, after the South Pacific campaign and time in Hiroshima, Melvin Cohn became a graduate student of Pappenheimer at New York University; later he became a postdoctoral fellow of Jacques Monod’s at the Pasteur Institute. In 1954, after five years in Paris, Cohn took a faculty position at Washington University in Saint Louis. The Midwest had an active network of molecular geneticists, including Szilard. Cohn met Edwin Lennox on a visit to Urbana. The background and war experiences of Lennox, including his time in Los Alamos, are recounted. Cohn had moved to Stanford by the time of Salk’s visit in 1959. He heard about Salk’s plan for a molecular biology institute. Cohn and Lennox were tempted by faculty positions at the future institute.Less

History and Background

Gerald Vision

in Re-Emergence: Locating Conscious Properties in a Material World

Emergentist theses had their roots as unfounded theories on the source of life or living organisms. Before Louis Pasteur’s 1859 experiments came about, spontaneous generation was considered a ... More

Emergentist theses had their roots as unfounded theories on the source of life or living organisms. Before Louis Pasteur’s 1859 experiments came about, spontaneous generation was considered a possibility by many, including the Roman writer Hippolytus who believed that living creatures arose from moisture evaporated by the sun. The common basis of emergentist theses was the “emergence” of radically different types of things from ontologically simpler foundations in ways that defied rational explanation. This archaic view categorizes emergentism as a historical relic; in fact, even sober, more modern emergentist arguments are being continually overturned by scientific progress. However, questions remain that seem to lend new life to emergentism, and the question of conscious properties arising from brute, unthinking matter is explored in this book. Not only does it remain an open question, no equally plausible non-emergentist alternative has yet been discovered.Less

Papa, What's A Bacterium?: On the First Life on Earth

Alexandre Meinesz

in How Life Began: Evolution's Three Geneses

For many, the world of bacteria was an unreal world. For the majority of non-biologists, the term at best suggests invisible, unhealthy germs. However, ever since Antoni van Leeuwenhoek observed them ... More

For many, the world of bacteria was an unreal world. For the majority of non-biologists, the term at best suggests invisible, unhealthy germs. However, ever since Antoni van Leeuwenhoek observed them in the seventeenth century and the French biologist Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) recognized them as germs that did not arise spontaneously from nothing, a wealth of research has elucidated the nature of bacteria. This chapter underscores the preeminence of bacteria.Less

Turning The Tables

Dorothy H. Crawford

in Viruses: The Invisible Enemy

This chapter outlines the different ways of combatting viruses. Smallpox was the most lethal of the recurrent childhood infections, and, until the late eighteenth century, had it all its own way. But ... More

This chapter outlines the different ways of combatting viruses. Smallpox was the most lethal of the recurrent childhood infections, and, until the late eighteenth century, had it all its own way. But in 1715, when smallpox virus infected Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the fightback began. This turn of events gave Lady Mary a keen interest in smallpox that led, a few years later, to the first successful prevention of the disease in Europe. However, inoculation was obviously not entirely safe and was not universally accepted. Despite this, it continued to be popular until 1798, when Edward Jenner published the details of a safer alternative: vaccination. Following smallpox, rabies virus was the next to be prevented by a vaccine, this time produced by microbiologist Louis Pasteur working in Paris in the mid 1800s. From the mid 1950s onwards, a surge in production saw vaccines against common viruses like polio, measles, rubella, and mumps, as well as common bacterial infections like diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus, being rolled out to all children in western countries. The chapter then looks at how these vaccines were prepared and the recent advances in vaccinology spurred on by the COVID-19 pandemic. It also considers flu vaccines, subunit vaccines, and microbial treatments.Less

We don’t know what we don’t know

Harold Thimbleby

in Fix IT: See and solve the problems of digital healthcare

For thousands of years, healthcare was held back because we couldn’t see and didn’t understand the germs making us ill. Today, healthcare is being held back because we don’t see computer bugs, and we ... More

For thousands of years, healthcare was held back because we couldn’t see and didn’t understand the germs making us ill. Today, healthcare is being held back because we don’t see computer bugs, and we don’t understand the risks caused by them.Less