Lecturer: Roberta Bivins
In the second half of the nineteenth century, a new way of understanding health and disease emerged from the new research institutes and laboratories of Western Europe and North America: prompted by the 鈥榙iscovery鈥� of bacteria, theories of disease causation began to shift from 鈥榙irt鈥� to 鈥榞erms鈥�. This change transformed thinking about health and disease, and profoundly reshaped daily life in Europe, North America, and (gradually) the rest of the world. A century later, yet another model of disease aetiology entered the public sphere when the 鈥榞ene鈥� joined the germ as a source of health and illness. This lecture will examine the origins and impacts of 鈥榯he gospel of germs鈥� and 鈥榞eneticisation鈥� on medical practice, individual behaviour and the medical state. We will ask what it means to think of disease as caused by germs, or by genes. Where, in each model, does the threat to health come from, how can health be preserved, and who is responsible for promoting health and preventing disease?
Discussion Questions/Essay Topics:
- Compare public responses to germ theory and genetic medicine: has a 鈥榞ospel of genes鈥� replaced the 鈥榞ospel of germs鈥�?
- Did the rise of germ theory help or harm public health provision in the USA or Britain?
- Assess the commercial OR legal impacts of germ theory OR genetics in the USA.
Required Readings:
Nancy Tomes, The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women and the Microbe in American Life (Cambridge, 1998), 鈥楥h. 6: The Domestication of the Germ' e-book (read first!)
AND ONE of:
Marc Scully, Steven D. Brown & Turi King (2016) 'Becoming a Viking: DNA testing, genetic ancestry and placeholder identity', Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39:2, 162-180, DOI: (UK-Focused) e-journal
OR
Adam L. Horowitz, Aliya Saperstein, Jasmine Little, Martin Maiers & Jill A. Hollenbach (2019) 'Consumer (dis-)interest in genetic ancestry testing: the roles of race, immigration, and ancestral certainty', New Genetics and Society, 38:2, 165-194, DOI: (US-focused) e-journal
NB: Whichever you choose from this pair, read it after the Tomes!
Further Readings:
Daniel E. Bender, 鈥楶erils of Degeneration: Reform, the Savage Immigrant, and the Survival of the Unfit鈥�, Journal of Social History, 42 (2008), pp. 5-29. e-journal
Brian Beaton, 鈥楻acial Science Now: Histories of Race and Science in the Age of Personalized Medicine鈥�, The Public Historian, 29 (2007), pp. 157-162. e-journal
Timothy Burke, Lifebuoy Men, Lux Women: Commodification, Consumption and Cleanliness in Modern Zimbabwe (London, 1996), esp. chapters 1, 5, 6.
Nathaniel Comfort, 鈥�"Polyhybrid Heterogeneous Bastards": Promoting Medical Genetics in America in the 1930s and 1940s鈥�, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 61 (2006) pp. 415-455
Arthur Daemmrich, 鈥楾he Evidence Does Not Speak for Itself: Expert Witnesses and the Organization of DNA-Typing Companies鈥�, Social Studies of Science, 28 (1998), pp. 741-772. e-journal
John Farley, 鈥楶arasites and the Germ Theory of Disease鈥�, in Charles E. Rosenberg and Janet Golden, eds, Framing Disease: Studies in Cultural History (New Brunswick NJ, 1992).
Anne Fausto Sterling, 鈥楻efashioning Race: DNA and the Politics of Health Care鈥�, d i f f e r e n c e s: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, 15 (2004), pp. 2-37. e-journal
Kaja Finkler, Experiencing the New Genetics: Family and kinship on the medical frontier (Philadelphia, 2000).
Bert Hansen, 鈥楢merica's First Medical Breakthrough: How Popular Excitement about a French Rabies Cure in 1885 Raised New Expectations for Medical Progess' The American Historical Review, 103 (1998), pp. 373-418. e-journal
Suellen Hoy, Chasing Dirt: the American Pursuit of Cleanliness (Oxford, 1995).
Annemarie Jutel, 鈥楥lassification, Disease, and Diagnosis鈥�, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 54 (2011), pp. 189-205. e-journal
Judith Walzer Leavitt, 鈥�"Typhoid Mary" Strikes Back Bacteriological Theory and Practice in Early Twentieth-Century Public Health鈥�, Isis, 83 (1992), pp. 608-629 e-journal
Am芒de M鈥檆harek, 鈥楾echnologies of Population: Forensic DNA Testing Practices and the Making of Differences and Similarities鈥�, Configurations, 8 (2000), pp. 121 158. e-journal
Joel Mokyr, 鈥榃hy "More Work for Mother?" Knowledge and Household Behavior, 1870-1945鈥�, The Journal of Economic History, 60 (2000), 1-41. e-journal
Dorothy Nelkin, M. Susan Lindee, 鈥楥hapter 1, The Powers of the Gene鈥�, in Dorothy Nelkin, M. Susan Lindee, The DNA Mystique: The Gene as a Cultural Icon (Ne York, 1995), pp. 1-18.
Dorothy Nelkin, M. Susan Lindee, 鈥楥hapter 8, Genetic Essentialism Applied鈥�, in Dorothy Nelkin, M. Susan Lindee, The DNA Mystique: The Gene as a Cultural Icon ( York, 1995), pp. 149-168.
A. Nordgren & E. T. Juengst (2009) 'Can genomics tell me who I am? Essentialistic rhetoric in direct-to-consumer DNA testing', New Genetics and Society, 28:2, 157-172, DOI:
Moses Ochonu, 鈥樷�淣ative Habits are Difficult to Change鈥�: British Medics and the Dilemmas of Biomedical Discourses and Practice in Early Colonial Northern Nigeria鈥�, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 5 (2004), no pages. e-journal
Katherine Ott, Fevered Lives: Tuberculosis in American Culture since 1870 (Cambridge, MA, 1996), pp. 53-61.
Shobita Parthasarathy, Building Genetic Medicine: Breast Cancer, Technology, and the Comparative Politics of Health Care (Cambridge, MA, 2007).
Harold L. Platt, 鈥�"Clever Microbes": Bacteriology and Sanitary Technology in Manchester and Chicago during the Progressive Age鈥�, Osiris , 19 (2004), pp. 149-16 e-journal
Chieko Nakajima, 鈥楬ealth and Hygiene in Mass Mobilization: Hygiene Campaigns in Shanghai, 1920–1945鈥�, Twentieth-Century China, 34 (2008), pp. 42-72. e-journal
Nicolas Pethes, 鈥楾erminal Men: Biotechnological Experimentation and the Reshaping of "the Human" in Medical Thrillers鈥�, New Literary History, 36 (2005), pp. 1-185 e-journal
Kaushik Sunder Rajan, Biocapital: The Constitution of Postgenomic Life (Durham, NC, 2006).
Rayna Rapp, Deborah Heath and Karen Sue Taussig, 鈥楩lexible Eugenics: Technologies of the Self in the Age of Genetics鈥�, in Alan Goodman, Deborah Heath and S Lindee, eds, Genetic Nature/ Culture: Anthropology and Science Beyond the Two Culture Divide (Berkley: University of California Press,2001) pp. 58-76. [Available at ]
Nancy Tomes, The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women and the Microbe in American Life (Cambridge, MA, 1998). e-book
John Harley Warner, 鈥業deals of Science and Their Discontents in Late Nineteenth-Century American Medicine鈥�, Isis, 82 (1991), pp. 454–478 e-journal
John Harley Warner, The Therapeutic Perspective: Medical Practice, Knowledge, and Identity in America, 1820–1885 (Cambridge, MA, Harvard Univ. Press, 1986).
Michael Worboys, Spreading Germs: Disease Theories and Medical Practice in Britain, 1865–1900 (Cambridge, 2000).
锟硷考Digital resources
On germ theory:
Films on the Wellcome's YouTube channel! Look especially at their playlist 'Hygiene' (playlists are at the bottom of this page: )
