IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB194783319

An Epidemic for Sale: Observation, Modification, and Commercial Circulation of the Danysz Virus, 1890–1910 (2021)

Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Volume: 112
Issue: 3
Pages: 439-460
Publication date: 2021

DOI: 10.1086/715642

URI: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/715642

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Infectious diseases Commerce Epidemics Biological pest control Animal experimentation Disease and diseases 20th century, early 19th century France Institut Pasteur, Paris

This essay tells the story of the “Danysz virus,” a bacterial culture that was designed and deployed to cause epidemics among rodents and was sold globally by the Institut Pasteur from 1900. Jean Danysz (1860–1928) initially identified the culture during his studies of epidemics in population cycles of common voles. His experiments turned to the ambitious goal of increasing the bacteria’s virulence by emulating the rodent’s animal economy in the laboratory in order to mass-produce a culture. The bacterial culture was supposed to bring about a man-made epidemic for sale on the global pest- and plague-control market. The essay considers the Danysz virus as a “cognitive good” and analyzes the material as well as intellectual transfers that shaped its development, supported its international application, and prompted the experimental testing of its promises. While the culture largely failed to bring about the exponential growth of lethal infections in rat populations Danysz promised, the virus did succeed in distributing his theoretical revision of virulence. Through its commercial distribution, his product recast virulence as a function of the relation between bacteria and their milieu and offered a novel concept of mutual pathogenicity that far exceeded deterministic models of infection prevalent at the time.

...More

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB194783319

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Simon, Jonathan; (2008)
Monitoring the Stable at the Pasteur Institute (/p/isis/citation/CBB000831746/)

Article Serrón, Víctor; (2011)
Epidemia y perplejidades médicas: Uruguay, 1918--1919 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001420534/)

Book Kolata, Gina Bari; (1999)
Flu: The story of the great influenza pandemic of 1918 and the search for the virus that caused it (/p/isis/citation/CBB000111978/)

Article García Ferrandis, Xavier; (2013)
Epidemiological and Care Aspects of Tuberculosis in Valencia during the Spanish Civil War and the Immediate Postwar Period (1936-1941) (/p/isis/citation/CBB001200191/)

Article Bonah, Christian; (2005)
The `Experimental Stable' of the BCG Vaccine: Safety, Efficacy, Proof, and Standards, 1921--1933 (/p/isis/citation/CBB000770709/)

Article Janakan, Gnananandan; Ellis, Harold; (2013)
Dr Thomas Aitchison Latta (c.1796--1833): Pioneer Of Intravenous Fluid Replacement in the Treatment of Cholera (/p/isis/citation/CBB001421950/)

Article Riley, James C.; (2010)
Smallpox and American Indians Revisited (/p/isis/citation/CBB001034272/)

Article Condrau, Flurin; Worboys, Michael; (2007)
Second Opinions: Epidemics and Infections in Nineteenth-Century Britain (/p/isis/citation/CBB000930681/)

Article Nunes, Everardo Duarte; (2012)
Henry Mayhew: jornalista, investigador social e precursor da pesquisa qualitativa (/p/isis/citation/CBB001420604/)

Article Nascimento, Dilene Raimundo do; Silva, Matheus Alves Duarte da; (2013)
“Não é meu intuito estabelecer polêmica”: a chegada da peste ao Brasil, análise de uma controvérsia, 1899 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001420700/)

Article Read, Ian; (2012)
A Triumphant Decline? Tetanus among Slaves and Freeborn in Brazil (/p/isis/citation/CBB001420623/)

Book Phillips, Howard; (2012)
Epidemics: The Story of South Africa's Five Most Lethal Human Diseases (/p/isis/citation/CBB001421023/)

Article Alcalá Ferráez, Carlos; (2012)
De miasmas a mosquitos: el pensamiento médico sobre la fiebre amarilla en Yucatán, 1890--1920 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001420572/)

Article Almeida, Maria Antónia Pires de; (2014)
As epidemias nas notícias em Portugal: cólera, peste, tifo, gripe e varíola, 1854--1918 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001420729/)

Book Briese, Olaf; (2003)
Angst in den Zeiten der Cholera (/p/isis/citation/CBB000630066/)

Article Tullo, Ellen; (2010)
Plague of Icy Breath. Cholera and the Gateshead Community 1831--1832 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001220542/)

Article Mauro Rubini; Nunzia Libianchi; Alessandro Gozzi; Paola Zaio; Elena Dellù; (2021)
Infectious diseases in paleopathology: a methodological approach to epidemiological situations (/p/isis/citation/CBB750208808/)

Book Jacques Pépin; (2021)
The Origins of AIDS (/p/isis/citation/CBB084551418/)

Book Frank M. Snowden; (2019)
Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present (/p/isis/citation/CBB694307322/)

Article Glomski, Matthew; Ohanian, Edward; (2012)
Eradicating a Disease: Lessons from Mathematical Epidemiology (/p/isis/citation/CBB001320028/)