On the cusp: Epidemiology and bacteriology at the local government board, 1890-1905
On the cusp: Epidemiology and bacteriology at the local government board, 1890-1905
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DOI：
10.1017/s0025727300064012
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发表时间：
1998-07-01
期刊：
影响因子：
1.4
通讯作者：
Hardy, A
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hardy, A
流行病学历史上有一个根深蒂固的传统，1850年伦敦流行病学学会的成立以及约翰·斯诺和威廉·巴德的工作给流行病学带来了一个充满希望的开端，但随着细菌学的出现，这门学科黯然失色。”从1870年开始直到1910年，”大卫·利连菲尔德在1979年写道，“细菌学时代盖过了流行病学。在这40年里，流行病学蛰伏……9”。这一观点仍然站得住脚，它是从该学科的概念和方法发展的角度出发的，并依赖于随着细菌的发现，流行病学在追求疾病的特定因子的过程中消失了的传统。这两个标准都是有缺陷的：第一个标准代表了一种过于理论化的方法，忽视了1870年至1914年间流行病学领域长期光荣实践的现实；后者有着复杂的历史根源，至少在英格兰和威尔士，与这一时期流行病学调查的持续活力几乎没有关系。事实上，到本世纪最后十年，流行病学的从业者已经开始将细菌学视为对他们自己学科的威胁，并由此延伸到预防医学。这种特殊的学科焦虑可以在1894年到1906年之间被发现，在1894年夏天埃米尔·鲁（Emil Roux）宣布白喉的抗毒素疗法和1906年克林格（Klinger）证明健康的伤寒携带者的存在之间。当代文献中零散的参考文献证明了1894年后流行病学界日益增长的不安。1896年，《国家医学杂志》（journal of state Medicine）的一位匿名撰稿人将这一点表述得最为清楚，他一开始就哀叹流行病学与“现代科学的乐趣”——“操纵杆菌，提取毒素及其解毒剂，用
There is a well-established tradition in the history of epidemiology that, after a promising start with the foundation of the London Epidemiological Society in 1850 and the work of John Snow and William Budd, the discipline suffered an eclipse with the coming of bacteriology." Beginning in 1870 and until 1910", wrote David Lilienfeld in 1979," the Bacteriological Era overshadowed epidemiology. During these 40 years epidemiology hibernated... 9". 1 It is a view which still holds good, and which is taken from the standpoint of the development of concepts and methods in the discipline, and depends on the tradition that with thediscovery of bacteria epidemiology vanished in the pursuit of the specific agents of disease. 2 Both these criteria are flawed: the first represents an overly theoretical approach to the discipline which ignores the reality ofa long and honourable practice of field epidemiology between 1870 and 1914; the second has complex historical roots, which bear little relation, in England and Wales at least, to the continuing vitality of epidemiological investigation in this period. 3 By the last decade of the century, indeed, practitioners of epidemiology had begun to perceive bacteriology as a threat to their own discipline and, by extension, to preventive medicine. This particular disciplinary anxiety can be detected between 1894 and 1906, between Emil Roux's announcement of the anti-toxintherapy for diphtheria in the summer of 1894, and Klinger's demonstration of the existence of the healthy typhoid carrier in 1906. Scattered references in the contemporary literature testify to the growing unease of the epidemiological community in the years after 1894. Itwas perhaps articulated most clearly by an anonymous contributor to theJournal ofState Medicine in 1896, who began by deploring the dullness of epidemiology when compared to the" joys of modern science"-the" manipulation of bacilli, the extraction of toxines and their antidotes, with