Thesis ID: CBB148954314

Farm to Pharmacy: Nutrition, Animals, and Governance in Britain 1870–1945 (2020)

unapi

This dissertation examines the emergence of nutrition science in the 20th century and the first cohort of experts who practiced nutrition as a form of medical diplomacy. Unpacking pivotal case studies in Scotland, Iraq, Vienna, Geneva, and Oxford, the project shows how scientific knowledge was produced on a local scale. I argue that knowledge about food developed in Britain from the late 19th century to World War II in a contingent path that involved much more than “discoveries” in labs. It was the unique formation of this discipline across national, international, and imperial political spheres that produced scientific standards and methods. Nutrition enabled a powerful language of exchange, metamorphosis, and commensurability that were vital for British political world systems. My research, therefore, investigates nutrition not just as medical innovation, but as a revolution in ecology and politics: food science was a way to reimagine the earth and Britain’s place within it. Scientific nutrition began as a marginal sub-field of agricultural science and came to acquire a central place in the definition of human needs. I show how critical terms of human nutrition – productivity, growth, and vitality – emerged from the attempt to improve animal health and from imperial agricultural planning. Even when the science of food moved from farms to pharmacies, through standardized units and products like vitamin supplements, animals and non-human factors continued to shape nutritional concepts, standards, and policies.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB148954314/

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Authors & Contributors
Peter Mansoor
Magnelli, Valeria
Haushofer, Lisa
Veronica Aniceti
Welk-Joerger, Nicole
Robertson, Thomas
Concepts
Science and society
Food and foods
Nutrition
Public health
Farms
Food industry and trade
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
Medieval
21st century
20th century, late
20th century, early
Places
Great Britain
England
United States
Crimea (Ukraine)
Sicily
Iraq
Institutions
Oxford University
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