Article ID: CBB796702758

Medical Bacteriology and Medical Genetics, 1880–1940: A Call for Synthesis (2020)

unapi

Between 1880 and 1920 the medical quest to unearth the causes of disease saw two pathbreaking discoveries. One was the bacteriological revolution – the identification of specific germs as causal agents of specific diseases (anthrax, tuberculosis, diphtheria, cholera and so on), and the simultaneous effort to develop disinfection techniques and immunisation measures to combat these diseases. The other was the rediscovery of Mendel’s laws of heredity and the resulting emergence of medical genetics, where an entire set of medical maladies (deafness, blindness, bodily deformities, haemophilia, Huntington’s chorea, feeble-mindedness and many mental diseases) were identified – rightly or wrongly – as genetically determined. The ‘germ theory of disease’ and the ‘gene theory of disease’ shared striking, all-too-often overlooked similarities. Both theories built on shared epistemological assumptions that influenced their explanatory mechanisms and their overall conceptual frameworks; both mobilised similar visual and linguistic vocabulary; both appropriated – and enforced – prevailing cultural and gender norms; and both enshrined broadly parallel hygienic practices. Reflecting similar social concerns, medical bacteriology and medical genetics acquired kindred scientific and societal configurations, which this paper highlights and scrutinises.

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Authors & Contributors
Velmet, Aro
Barbara Barksdale Clowse
Neumeyer, Sybille
Dwyer, Michael
Fursa, Elena
Thomas Goetz
Concepts
Disease and diseases
Bacteriology
Public health
Medicine and society
Hygiene
Germ theory of disease
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
Meiji period (Japan, 1868-1910)
20th century
Places
Great Britain
Tropics
Hong Kong
Milan (Italy)
Colombia
United States
Institutions
American Cancer Society
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