Letters from Libman: Dispatches from an American Abroad

American physician Emanuel Libman (1872-1946) was a generalist with Sherlockian diagnostic skills ("secret-divining eyes" according to Einstein) whose achievements were recognized by the scientific community and the public. Personal aspects of Libman were revealed in an oral history conducted with psychiatrist George L. Engel, a nephew who was raised in his house, and show Libman to be an intensely private person, contrasting with the image of him as a mentor and teacher. Yet Libman as a young physician and investigator remains absent in these opposing biographical reflections. His papers housed at the National Library of Medicine contain a series of letters sent home from his year of postgraduate study in Europe in 1897. These letters, which have not been previously described in the medical literature, create a window into the experiences of a young American physician abroad. Libman's letters create a framework for understanding a typical European course of study for American physicians while tracing his career and personal development. Specifically, his correspondence highlights foundational experiences in bacteriology and pathology and explores his encounters with European anti-Semitism. The letters reveal a young doctor interested in history and sightseeing, awed by medical luminaries, concerned about establishing a career, and increasingly aware of intolerance.

Tuberculosis, Cholera, Anthrax: Dreadful Culprits

Dreadful culprits from the minuscule world, indeed, but … what about poverty, war, and terrorism in the macroscopic nowadays world?

The "Petri" Dish: A Case of Simultaneous Invention in Bacteriology

Richard Julius Petri's status as inventor of the culture dish that bears his name has been subject to a number of challenges over the years. Both those bacteriologists who claimed self-recognition for the invention, and those to whom it was attributed by their various advocates were all contemporaries of Petri. The evidence assembled here indicates that no single individual-including Petri-ought to be accorded credit for the inception of that shallow, circular, covered culture dish which, it transpires, is a simultaneous invention made by half a dozen bacteriologists active in the mid-1880s and ultimately owes its emergence to the prevailing bacteriological zeitgeist.

[A Japanese in Marburg : Excerpts from the Memories - Jiden - of the Japanese Bacteriologist Taichi Kitashima (1870-1956)]

The heart of this article is the transmission of selected chapters from the Japanese bacteriologist Taichi Kitashima's (1870-1956) autobiographical memoirs (in Japanese, Jiden) published in 1955, in which Kitashima reports on his stay in Marburg in a very personal and subjective way. Like other Japanese physicians of his generation, Kitashima spent several years in Germany in order to work with the serum researcher Emil von Behring and continued his education there. The contact came through Kitashima's teacher Shibasaburô Kitasato, who had worked with Behring in Berlin on questions of immunology. The memoir gives insight into Behring's laboratory work and his relation to his "subordinates". The editors investigate to what extent Kitashima's assessment, made from a distance of fifty years, of his stay in Germany as "wasted time" was accurate, given the advantages that arose from having been part of a vibrant European scientific community, including encounters in the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and why he cultivated his contacts with Germany and the Behring family during National Socialism.

[The role and contribution of chief physician Matija Perak (1914‑1992) to the foundation and development of phtisiology in Petrinja (1946‑1978)]

The study shows the contribution of Matija Perak to the development of phthisiological service in Petrinja and the suppression of TB in the Sisak - Banija region in the period from 1946 to 1978. Having obtained data from the archive documents, it was possible to reconstruct his curative and preventive activities in the suppression of morbidity and mortality from TB in the Sisak - Banija region. His organizational and managerial, professional-scientific and publicistic work is highlighted, as well as his role in the reorientation of the profession towards chronic non-TB diseases and the education of new generations of phthisiologists in Petrinja.

Illustrating microorganisms: Sir William Watson Cheyne (1852-1932) and bacteriology

Sir William Watson Cheyne is largely known to medical history as Lord Lister's 'trusted assistant'.¹ He spent a lifetime defending Joseph Lister's (1827-1912) antiseptic principle in the wake of scepticism and misunderstanding. However, his main contribution to Lister's work was in the embryonic field of bacteriology in the 1870s-1890s, which brought him into contact with continental researchers, particularly Robert Koch (1843-1910). In this field, Cheyne built an independent reputation as an assessor, chronicler and promoter of continental laboratory methodology. He pioneered bacteriological training in British teaching hospitals and incorporated laboratory testing into case notes as standard procedure. This paper reconsiders Cheyne's contribution to the development of bacteriology in British medicine at the end of the 19th century. It examines his motives in promoting new laboratory techniques and the methods he used to embed them in hospital procedure. It also considers how he continued to use bacteriological arguments to keep the Listerian antiseptic principle on the medical agenda well after Lister withdrew from active involvement in the field.

[Pierre and François Mauriac, a privileged friendship between brothers]

Pierre and François have been the key figures of the Mauriac five children. Pierre introduced his hospital service in Bordeaux to bio-clinic and was a well-known professor before he became the dean of the Faculty from 1936 to 1945. As hero during the Great War he remained loyal to the "victor of the battle of Verdun" while his brother Frangois became a fervent 'Gaullist', "each of them climbing the same mountain along another side" according to François Mauriac in 1966. Pierre was a writer too and a medical adviser for the novelist.

Victor Vaughan (1851-1929) and the birth of bacteriology in the United States

Victor Vaughan is well known for his numerous accomplishments and services to science, medicine, and public health. This paper discusses one of Dr Vaughan's earliest and most significant accomplishments: founding the Hygienic Laboratory at the University of Michigan in 1887, the first in the United States. The vision, initiative and planning demonstrated by this episode illustrate the characteristics that enabled Vaughan to have such an accomplished and storied career.

[The protagonist microbe: notes on the communication of bacteriology in the Gazeta Médica da Bahia journal, nineteenth century]

Germ theory, derived particularly from the work of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch, shook the foundations of medical knowledge in the second half of the nineteenth century and triggered a revolution in the "art of healing." The search for specific microbes for diseases guided the investigations of the researchers converted to the Pasteurian tenets. This paper aims to show what role the Gazeta Médica da Bahia journal played in spreading knowledge about bacteriology to the medical communities in Bahia and throughout Brazil. Some works and reflections by the newspaper's authors at the time are presented, as are some of the controversies that help depict the way germ theory was divulged in Brazil throughout the nineteenth century.

Bacterial Transformation and the Origins of Epidemics in the Interwar Period: The Epidemiological Significance of Fred Griffith's "Transforming Experiment"

Frederick Griffith (1879-1941) was an English bacteriologist at the Pathological Laboratory of the Ministry of Health in London who believed that progress in the epidemiology and control of infectious diseases would come only with more precise knowledge of the identity of the causative microorganisms. Over the years, Griffith developed and expanded a serological technique for identifying pathogenic microorganisms, which allowed the tracing of the sources of infectious disease outbreaks: slide agglutination. Yet Griffith is not remembered for his contributions to the biology and epidemiology of infectious diseases so much as for discovering the phenomenon known as 'transformation'. Griffith's discovery, for many, was a pure case of serendipity whose biological relevance had also largely escaped him. In this paper, I argue that the key to understanding the significance of bacterial transformation - and the scientific legacy of Fred Griffith - rests not only on it initiating a cascade of events leading to molecular genetics but also on its implications for epidemiology based on the biology of host-parasite interactions. Looking at Griffith's entire career, instead of focusing only on the transformation study, we can better appreciate the place of the latter within Griffith's overall contributions. Presented in this way, Griffith's experiment on bacterial transformation also ceases to appear as an anomaly, which in turn leads us to rethink some of the most prevalent historical conceptions about his work.

'Tipping the Balance': Karl Friedrich Meyer, Latent Infections, and the Birth of Modern Ideas of Disease Ecology

The Swiss-born medical researcher Karl Friedrich Meyer (1884-1974) is best known as a 'microbe hunter' who pioneered investigations into diseases at the intersection of animal and human health in California in the 1920s and 1930s. In particular, historians have singled out Meyer's 1931 Ludwig Hektoen Lecture in which he described the animal kingdom as a 'reservoir of disease' as a forerunner of 'one medicine' approaches to emerging zoonoses. In so doing, however, historians risk overlooking Meyer's other intellectual contributions. Developed in a series of papers from the mid-1930s onwards, these were ordered around the concept of latent infections and sought to link microbial behavior to broader bio-ecological, environmental, and social factors that impact hostpathogen interactions. In this respect Meyer-like the comparative pathologist Theobald Smith and the immunologist Frank Macfarlane Burnet-can be seen as a pioneer of modern ideas of disease ecology. However, while Burnet's and Smith's contributions to this scientific field have been widely acknowledged, Meyer's have been largely ignored. Drawing on Meyer's published writings and private correspondence, this paper aims to correct that lacuna while contributing to a reorientation of the historiography of bacteriological epidemiology. In particular I trace Meyer's intellectual exchanges with Smith, Burnet and the animal ecologist Charles Elton, over brucellosis, psittacosis and plague-exchanges that not only showed how environmental and ecological conditions could 'tip the balance' in favor of parasites but which transformed Meyer thinking about resistance to infection and disease.

Beyond Biomedicine: Relationships and Care in Tuberculosis Prevention

With attention to the experiences, agency, and rights of tuberculosis (TB) patients, this symposium on TB and ethics brings together a range of different voices from the social sciences and humanities. To develop fresh insights and new approaches to TB care and prevention, it is important to incorporate diverse perspectives from outside the strictly biomedical model. In the articles presented in this issue of the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, clinical experience is married with historical and cultural context, ethical concerns are brought to bear on global health, and structural analyses shed light upon the lived experience of people living with TB. The relational and reciprocal dimensions of care feature strongly in these discussions, which serve as a poignant reminder that behind each of the yearly deaths from TB is a deeply personal story. No single discipline holds a monopoly on how to care for each of these people, but strong cases are made for support from mental health and social workers in addressing the kaleidoscope of needs in TB prevention. As the World Health Organization moves towards the goal of eliminating TB globally by 2050, attending to the needs of TB patients serves global interests to lower disease burden and to develop better integrated communities worldwide.

[[The Lactéol's laboratory of Dr Boucard (Laboratoire du Dr Boucard]

Shortly before 1910, Dr Boucard creates his laboratory in Paris. It manufactures and sells a drug based on lactic ferments the " Lactéol du Dr Boucard" (Dr's Boucard Lactéol) that will make the fortune of the physician. The article explains Dr Boucard's life and his relationship with the arts (painting and photography), and tells the story of his laboratory until the 2000s, referring to the pharmacists who succeeded them, as well as the various buildings where were elaborated Lactéol's variants.

[The Hygienist Karl Roelcke, M.D. (1907-1982). Annotations to the family biography]

Volker Roelcke, the well-known historian of medicine, wrote a biographical sketch on his father's role in National Socialism. Karl Roelcke (1907-1982) was an important hygienist at the University of Heidelberg and assistant to Ernst Rodenwaldt (1878-1965). Attempts to discuss the Nazi issue with his father directly ended unsuccessfully in the 1970s. In his essay of 2014, Volker Roelcke portrayed his father as quite sophisticated, but did not mention all aspects of his work. The present essay therefore offers new insights into the person of Karl Roelcke which are not constrained by family interests.

Disinfection in the laboratory: theory and practice in disinfection policy in late C19th and early C20th England

This article examines the relationship between theory and practice in nineteenth century English public health disinfection practice. Disinfection undertaken by local authorities and practised on objects, spaces and people became an increasingly common public health practice in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and was part of a newly developed public health system of 'stamping out' disease as described by Hardy. Despite disinfection's key role in public health policy, it has thus far not received significant investigation or historiographical attending. This article explores the development of disinfection policy at local level, highlighting that despite commentators assumptions that increasingly exacting standards of disinfection required professional oversight rather than that of the 'amateur' public, there was a significant gap between laboratory based knowledge and evidence derived from practical experience. Laboratory conditions could not replicate those found in day-to-day disinfection, and there were myriad debates about how to create a mutually understandable scientific standard for testing. Despite increasing efforts to bring local disinfection in line with new ideas promulgated by central government and disinfection researchers, the mismatches between the two meant that there was greater divergence. This tension lay at the heart of the changes in disinfection theory and practice in the second half of the nineteenth century, and illustrate the complexities of the impact of germ theory on public health policy.

[Semmelweis Memorial Speech on the 150. Anniversary of His Death]

Two questions emerge as regards Semmelweis's reception and public memory: 1. How and why could turn Semmelweis into an emblematic representative of 19th-20th century science and medicine? 2. What sort of values and ideals does the fate of Semmelweis represent for us? Author calls our attention to the fact, that in Semmelweis's case, not only his discoveries and thought proved to be of abiding value, but during the last 120 years also his fate inspired a number of scientific, popular, non fictional and fictional analysis all over the world. Semmelweis, as a mythic representative of the modern "scientist" still owes a peculiar place in the common memory. His manipulated and partly intentionally coined story--based however on empirical facts--even today represents a relevant message and plays an important role in the making of the myth of modern physician. Author however emphasizes, that Semmelweis myth represent a somewhat different message for the international public and for the Hungarian one.

The strength of a loosely defined movement: eugenics and medicine in imperial Russia

This essay examines the 'infiltration' of eugenics into Russian medical discourse during the formation of the eugenics movement in western Europe and North America in 1900-17. It describes the efforts of two Russian physicians, the bacteriologist and hygienist Nikolai Gamaleia (1859-1949) and the psychiatrist Tikhon Iudin (1879-1949), to introduce eugenics to the Russian medical community, analysing in detail what attracted these representatives of two different medical specialties to eugenic ideas, ideals, and policies advocated by their western colleagues. On the basis of a close examination of the similarities and differences in Gamaleia's and Iudin's attitudes to eugenics, the essay argues that lack of cohesiveness gave the early eugenics movement a unique strength. The loose mix of widely varying ideas, ideals, methods, policies, activities and proposals covered by the umbrella of eugenics offered to a variety of educated professionals in Russia and elsewhere the possibility of choosing, adopting and adapting particular elements to their own national, professional, institutional and disciplinary contexts, interests and agendas.

Professor Yakov Yulievich Bardakh (1857-1929): pioneer of bacteriological research in Russia and Ukraine

Odessa physician Yakov Bardakh had an unusually high number of bacteriological 'firsts' to his credit: in 1886, while working at the Odessa Bacteriological Station, he was the first to test Louis Pasteur's anti-rabies vaccine on himself in order to demonstrate its safety. In the 1890s, in addition to conducting pioneering research on diphtheria, he created the first extensive course in bacteriology at the Novorossiya University--the first such course in Russia--and established the first university laboratory in Russia to specialize in bacteriology. In 1903 he created the first Medical Emergency Service in Russia.

Typhoid Fever in nineteenth-century Colombia: between medical geography and bacteriology

This paper analyses how the Colombian medical elites made sense of typhoid fever before and during the inception of bacteriological ideas and practices in the second half of the nineteenth century. Assuming that the identity of typhoid fever has to be understood within the broader concerns of the medical community in question, I show how doctors first identified Bogotá's epidemics as typhoid fever during the 1850s, and how they also attached specificity to the fever amongst other continuous fevers, such as its European and North American counterparts. I also found that, in contrast with the discussions amongst their colleagues from other countries, debates about typhoid fever in 1860-70 among doctors in Colombia were framed within the medico-geographical scheme and strongly shaped by the fear of typhoid fever appearing alongside 'paludic' fevers in the highlands. By arguing in medico-geographical and clinical terms that typhoid fever had specificity in Colombia, and by denying the medico-geographical law of antagonism between typhoid and paludic fevers proposed by the Frenchman Charles Boudin, Colombian doctors managed to question European knowledge and claimed that typhoid fever had distinct features in Colombia. The focus on paludic and typhoid fevers in the highlands might explain why the bacteriological aetiology of typhoid fever was ignored and even contested during the 1880s. Anti-Pasteurian arguments were raised against its germ identity and some physicians even supported the idea of spontaneous origin of the disease. By the 1890s, Pasteurian knowledge had come to shape clinical and hygienic practices.

Odo Bujwid - an eminent Polish bacteriologist and professor at the Jagiellonian University

To celebrate the 650th Jubilee of the Jagiellonian University, we would like to give an outline of the life and work of Odo Bujwid, known as the father of Polish bacteriology. The intention of the authors is to recall the beginnings of Polish bacteriology, the doyen of which was Professor Odo Bujwid, a great Polish scholar who also served as a promoter of bacteriology, a field created in the 19th century. He published about 400 publications, including approx. 200 in the field of bacteriology. He is credited with popularizing the research of the fathers of global bacteriology - Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur - and applying it practically, as well as educating Polish microbiologists who constituted the core of the scientific staff during the interwar period.

Dr Ahmed Zaky Abushady: author, beekeeper, doctor and poet

Ahmed Zaky Abushady, (1892-1955) was an author, beekeeper, doctor and poet. This paper follows his life from his upbringing in Egypt and his time as a medical student in England to his later life as a pathologist working in Alexandria and Cairo and finally his years in the United States of America. It emphasises his contributions in several fields not directly related to medicine and looks at his continuing influence.