Bazillen, Krankheit und Krieg Bakteriologie und politische Sprache im deutschen Kaiserreich

Bibliographic Data

ID11307809
AuthorsChristoph Gradmann (0000-0003-4835-7394, Heidelberg University, corresponding author)
Year1996
Volume19
Issue2-3
Pages81-94
Publication date1996-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueBerichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0170-6233 • E-ISSN: 1522-2365
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/bewi.19960190204
PMID11630275
OpenAlexW2052858675
LanguageDE
Citations received7
References cited5

The text analyses metaphors of bacteriology which were extensively used in Germany during the era of William II. These display – in a vivid exchange with the scientific concepts of the age – a specific popular understanding of disease based on bacteriology. Disease is essentially seen as a war of physicians against microbes. While popularizing science bacteriological metaphors became part of the political language of their age. At the same time the prestige of bacteriology was in turn employed to lend credibility to pictures of assumed enemies – by portraying them as infectious diseases. Although the political language of bacteriology differed from the social darwinism of the age in important structural and semantic aspects, it nevertheless influenced the political language of its time, for example by becoming a blueprint of antisemitic rhetorics

Bacteriology · Biology · Linguistics · Political science · Politics · Classics · Historical Medical Research and Treatments · History · History of Science and Natural History · Law · Philosophy

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