Invisible Enemies

Bacteriology and the Language of Politics in Imperial Germany

Bibliographic Data

ID4516424
AuthorsChristoph Gradmann (0000-0003-4835-7394, Max Planck Society, corresponding author)
Year2000
Volume13
Issue1
Pages9-30
Publication date2000-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience in Context (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0269-8897 • E-ISSN: 1474-0664
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0269889700003707
PMID11624369
OpenAlexW2025837767
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited16

The ArgumentThe text analyzes the related semantics of bacteriology and politics in imperial Germany. The rapid success of bacteriology in the 1880s and 1890s was due not least to the fact that scientific concepts of bacteria as "the smallest but most dangerous enemies of mankind" (R. Koch) resonated with contemporary ideas about political enemies. Bacteriological hygiene was expected to provide answers to social and political problems. At the same time metaphors borrowed from bacteriological terminology were incorporated into the political language of the time. While the "high command of our doctors" (F. J. Cohn) fought diseases, some contemporaries were identified with members of the evil species of "bacillus communis odii."Both imperialistic politics and bacteriological science relied on images of inferior and invisible but potent enemies. Both were able to increase their prestige via a mutual interchange of their vocabularies

Bacteria · Bacteriology · Biology · Ignorance · Linguistics · Political science · Politics · Prestige · Social science · Sociology · Terminology · Historical Medical Research and Treatments · History of Science and Medicine · History of Science and Natural History · Law · Philosophy · Ecology

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