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

Amir Teicher

doi:10.1017/mdh.2020.18

Abstract

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.

Highlights

Between 1880 and 1920 the medical quest to unearth the causes of disease saw two pathbreaking transformations
This paper takes the opposite approach: it underscores the core commonalities of medical bacteriology and medical genetics as theories of disease causation, traces striking similarities between their conceptual frameworks, social assumptions and cultural characterisations, and reveals the affinities between the pragmatic steps devised for coping with devious germs and with malignant genes in the public medical domain.[2]
As soon as mental diseases are brought back into the story, essential similarities between bacteriology and public-hygiene, and genetics and racial-hygiene, begin to surface. Beyond their shared scientific points of departure – both genetics and bacteriology had roots in botany and cell theory, both were embroiled in questions on species formation and evolution, and both engaged with issues of specificity, polymorphisms and mutability – the application of the two fields to the human domain was inherently entangled with the examination of pathologies

Summary

Introduction

Between 1880 and 1920 the medical quest to unearth the causes of disease saw two pathbreaking transformations. Beyond their shared scientific points of departure – both genetics and bacteriology had roots in botany and cell theory, both were embroiled in questions on species formation and evolution, and both engaged with issues of specificity, polymorphisms and mutability – the application of the two fields to the human domain was inherently entangled with the examination of pathologies It was anthrax, wound infections and tuberculosis that transformed cells into germs; and it was mostly medical and mental pathologies that showed that human traits conformed to the rules of Mendelian heredity. Inspired by Rene Dubos’ Mirage of Health, Conrad observed that late 1990s genetic discourse, like bacteriology at the time, tended towards specific aetiology, the disregard of environmental factors and a mechanistic view of bodily functions He argued that ‘the public depiction of the new genetics aligns perfectly with the old germ theory model and, independent of scientific validity, fuels the acceptance of genetics in medicine and society’.13. Let us turn to how these genes and germs were conceived – and represented

Representing the Invisible

From Invisible Disease Agents to Undetectable Carriers

Reincarnations of the Female Carrier

Conclusion