Syphilis and Sex: Transatlantic Medicine and Public Health in Argentina and the United States, 1880-1940 (2013)
Comte, Julien (Author)
Putnam, Lara
Andrews, George Reid
Reeser, Todd
University of Pittsburgh
Muller, Edward
Edition Details: Advisor: Putnam, Lara; Committee Members: Andrews, George Reid, Muller, Edward, Reeser, Todd.
Physical Details: 230 pp.
Language: English
This dissertation explores the international response to syphilis before the advent of penicillin in the 1940s. I focus on Argentina and the United States and within these two countries on New York and Buenos Aires. Since Paris, like New York and Buenos Aires, was an important node in a transatlantic system of scientific and policy exchange, I investigate first and foremost the connections between historical actors in France, Argentina, and the United States. My research pushes Atlantic history beyond the turn of the nineteenth century--the traditional ending point for most Atlantic historians--and explores the idea of a multi-centered Atlantic world, where knowledge circulated in all directions and between various nodes. By moving back and forth between different scales of analysis, this dissertation shows how subnational, national, and region-wide networks were imbricated into Atlantic and global circuits. Analyzing the relationship between Atlantic and national networks allows me to underscore the persistence of the national in the transnational. In a number of ways, rather than eliminate national boundaries, the transnational currents I examine reified national differences, as the people who shaped venereal disease control in France, Argentina, and the United States engaged in repeated cross-national comparisons. International scientific understandings and policy proposals were filtered through local and national concerns, resulting in different outcomes in different parts of the world. More than the demonstration effect, local political and cultural landscapes shaped the relationship between science and public policy. My discussion of sex education programs highlights the impact of transnational discourses on local conceptions of gender and sexuality. Furthermore, informed by shared eugenic concerns, all governments worried about the potential impact of syphilis on the collective welfare of the nation. However, in each case, the precise articulation between medical professionals, scientists, maternalist activists and other social reformers, on the one hand, and municipal, state, and national level politicians and bureaucrats, on the other, determined the ultimate evolution of public health laws and institutions. This dissertation blends transnational history and world history by using the transatlantic history of syphilis prevention as a window onto the formation of modern interventionist states.
...MoreDescription Cited in Dissertation Abstracts International-A 74/12(E), Jun 2014. Proquest Document ID: 1433825110.
Similar Citations
Article
Nolte, Karen;
(2008)
Carcinoma Uteri and “Sexual Debauchery”---Morality, Cancer and Gender in the Nineteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB000774299/)
Thesis
Fischer, Suzanne Michelle;
(2009)
Diseases of Men: Sexual Health and Medical Expertise in Advertising Medical Institutes, 1900--1930
(/isis/citation/CBB001561086/)
Review
Ulrike Middendorf;
(2016)
Review of "Sex in the Yellow Emperor's Basic Questions"
(/isis/citation/CBB985830713/)
Chapter
De Vries, Petra;
(2001)
“The shadow of contagion”: Gender, syphilis and the regulation of prostitution in the Netherlands, 1870-1914
(/isis/citation/CBB000102665/)
Multimedia Object
Candela Marini;
Kerr, Ashley Elizabeth;
(2020)
Ashley E. Kerr, “Sex, Skulls, and Citizens: Gender and Racial Science in Argentina (1860-1910)” (Vanderbilt UP, 2020)
(/isis/citation/CBB932736455/)
Article
Sławomir Łotysz;
(2014)
A 'Lasting Memorial' to the UNRRA? Implementation of the Penicillin Plant Programme in Poland, 1946-1949
(/isis/citation/CBB444540042/)
Chapter
Sauerteig, Lutz D. H.;
(2001)
“The fatherland is in danger, save the fatherland!”: Venereal disease, sexuality and gender in Imperial and Weimar Germany
(/isis/citation/CBB000102667/)
Article
Schochow, Maximilian;
(2010)
In den Leib geschnitten. Produktionsformen des biologischen Geschlechts
(/isis/citation/CBB001032240/)
Article
Ortiz, Eduardo L.;
(2004)
El giro de la física en la Argentina desde Alemania hacia los Estados Unidos: Gaviola, Einstein y las fundaciones estadounidenses.
(/isis/citation/CBB000933595/)
Book
Paulo Drinot;
(2020)
The Sexual Question: A History of Prostitution in Peru, 1850s–1950s
(/isis/citation/CBB330483529/)
Book
Cleminson, Richard;
Vázquez García, Francisco;
(2009)
Hermaphroditism, Medical Science, and Sexual Identity in Spain, 1850--1960
(/isis/citation/CBB001022279/)
Thesis
Maybrey, Catherine R.;
(2005)
From Onanism to Orgasm: Masturbation, Medicine and Gender in America, 1646--1953
(/isis/citation/CBB001561916/)
Article
Santos, Fabiane Vinente dos;
(2007)
Sexualidade e civilização nos trópicos: gênero, medicina e moral na imprensa de Manaus (1895--1915)
(/isis/citation/CBB000831574/)
Article
Pyenson, Lewis;
(2012)
Athena's Retinue: Nineteenth-Century Scientists Embedded in the Army
(/isis/citation/CBB001200073/)
Thesis
MacMillan, Kurt Thomas;
(2013)
Hormonal Bodies: Sex, Race, and Constitutional Medicine in the Iberian-American World, 1900--1950
(/isis/citation/CBB001560681/)
Article
Darby, Robert;
(2003)
“Where Doctors Differ”: The Debate on Circumcision as a Protection against Syphilis, 1855--1914
(/isis/citation/CBB000770488/)
Book
McGrath, Roberta;
(2002)
Seeing Her Sex: Medical Archives and the Female Body
(/isis/citation/CBB000771193/)
Article
Worboys, Michael;
(2004)
Unsexing Gonorrhoea: Bacteriologists, Gynaecologists, and Suffragists in Britain, 1860--1920
(/isis/citation/CBB000770511/)
Article
Poliak, Daniel B.;
(2013)
Ritual Circumcision in the Age of Germ Theory amongst Nineteenth-Century New York Immigrants
(/isis/citation/CBB001320604/)
Book
Sengoopta, Chandak;
(2006)
The Most Secret Quintessence of Life: Sex, Glands, and Hormones, 1850--1950
(/isis/citation/CBB000641869/)
Be the first to comment!