Anne Hardy. Salmonella Infections, Networks of Knowledge, and Public Health in Britain, 1880–1975

“A large family ... with a beautiful name but most unpleasant habits.” Such is a forceful description of the bacterial genus, Salmonella, the subject of Anne Hardy's new monograph. The group was confounded in the late nineteenth century by the nebulous monikers enteric fever, typhoid, and summer diarrhea, yet a century later, microbiologists recognized over two thousand and five hundred specific zoonotic serotypes of Salmonella, the most virulent being Salmonella typhi, the causative organism of typhoid fever. Hardy's goal—formidable in chronology and scope—is the weaving of three narratives; the modern history of how Salmonella became a public health problem, the laboratory research that unraveled the Salmonella family of bacteria, and public health attempts to curb food poisoning Salmonella outbreaks. Following her longstanding interest in Victorian public health, and presaged by a series of signpost journal articles on typhoid fever, food poisoning, and veterinary medicine, Hardy's Salmonella Infections is the much-anticipated culmination of a decade's worth of scholarly attention. The result is a masterful account of a previously untold story in the history of public health. Yet, rather than a straightforward “history of disease,” Hardy has produced a first-rate piece of historical scholarship that contributes to our understanding of the contested ways in which science was translated into public policy in the post-germ-theory twentieth century. “The Salmonella story,” Hardy poignantly asserts, “demonstrates how human behaviours operate to create public health problems and to complicate their resolution” (7).

Biology · Pathology · Political science · Public health · Salmonella · Scholarship · Typhoid fever · Diverse Historical and Scientific Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · History of Science and Medicine · Law · Medicine · Virology

• Anne Hardy. Salmonella Infections, Networks of Knowledge, and Public Health in Britain, 1880–1975

  Jacob Steere-Williams, Jacob Steere‐william•Journal of the History of…•2016

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• Anne Hardy. Salmonella Infections, Networks of Knowledge, and Public Health in Britain, 1880–1975

  Jacob Steere-Williams, Jacob Steere‐william•Journal of the History of…•2016

  Add to list