Purity, danger and miasmata

Abstract

This paper analyses the nineteenth-century public health regime of sanitary science in terms of the perceived dangers inherent in substances that cross socially significant boundaries. According to this analysis, miasmatic theory - which claimed impure air was dangerous to health - was not a scientific error but an integral part of the sanitary science perspective. Increased concern with air pollution in the late twentieth century shows that belief in the dangers of impure air are enjoying a resurgence, but this time the source of the pollution is different and reflects contemporary concerns with the effects of social activity on nature.