11/17 Germ Theory and the Therapeutic Revolution Miasmatism, Epidemics, and Public Health Miasmas: malaria = bad air Swamps: stagnant water, stagnant air Cities: garbage and sewage: the Great Stench, London, 1856 Interventions: remove garbage, purify water, etc. Efficacy of interventions reinforced faith in underlying science Differential Susceptibility: Why Did Epidemics Spare Some? Constitution: good heredity, good upbringing Contagion and contingency: exposure Morality and behavior Early Theories of Contagionism Hooke and Leewuenhoek Cotton Mather: animalculae Fermentation and putrefaction The Rise of Germ Theory Louis Pasteur: from fermentation to spontaneous generation Germ theory: disease caused by microbes, which only arise from microbes Robert Koch, wound infections, and anthrax: Koch’s Postulates New technologies of microbiology Mycobacteria tuberculosis, Vibrio cholerae Transformation of diagnostic theory: from symptoms to cause Universalism and specificity Germ Theory and Therapeutics Pasteur’s successes with anthrax and rabies Antitoxins Magic bullets: a delayed therapeutic revolution? Germ Theory and Culture: The Gospel of Germs Needed reforms, or marketing fear?