The Great Stink of Paris and the Nineteenth-Century Struggle against Filth and Germs [Hardcover]
Author: David S. Barnes | Language: English | ISBN: 0801883490 | Format: PDF, EPUB
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Late in the summer of 1880, a wave of odors emanated from the sewers of Paris. As the stench lingered, outraged residents feared that the foul air would breed an epidemic.
Fifteen years later—when the City of Light was in the grips of another Great Stink—the landscape of health and disease had changed dramatically. Parisians held their noses and protested, but this time few feared that the odors would spread disease.
Historian David S. Barnes examines the birth of a new microbe-centered science of public health during the 1880s and 1890s, when the germ theory of disease burst into public consciousness. Tracing a series of developments in French science, medicine, politics, and culture, Barnes reveals how the science and practice of public health changed during the heyday of the Bacteriological Revolution.
Despite its many innovations, however, the new science of germs did not entirely sweep away the older "sanitarian" view of public health. The longstanding conviction that disease could be traced to filthy people, places, and substances remained strong, even as it was translated into the language of bacteriology. Ultimately, the attitudes of physicians and the French public were shaped by political struggles between republicans and the clergy, by aggressive efforts to educate and "civilize" the peasantry, and by long-term shifts in the public's ability to tolerate the odor of bodily substances.
This fascinating study sheds new light on the scientific and social factors that continue to influence the public's lingering uncertainty over how disease can—and cannot—be spread.
- Hardcover: 328 pages
- Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press; 1 edition (May 17, 2006)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0801883490
- ISBN-13: 978-0801883491
- Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,284,482 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
During a recent trip to China in 2001, I passed fields fertilized with human waste, and saw toilets which were made by laying wooden planks across a small stream of water. In other words, the problems of human stink and poor sanitation are not only of historical interest, circa Paris 1880. In this book, the author gives a ripe account of the public outcry when the Odor of Paris turned from an almost-amusing bother to a public health emergency. He traces the change in belief about the health dangers of stink, weaving sociology and the history of science together, and gluing it firmly with an authoritative and believable re-telling of the ups and downs of local French government as it tried to serve the public, incorporate the recent discoveries of Pasteur, and educate the public in the basics of sanitation. Intended for scholars rather than the masses, this book contains a well-researched, thoughtful and complete record, which is surprisingly warm and lively, of this period in human olfactory history.By Danielle R. Reed
This book would be an interesting read by anyone interested in history, Paris, public health, disease, medicine, waste disposal, hygiene, sanitation, etc. It tells how things went from bad to worse, in 1880 when there was a garbage and sewage crisis in Paris.By Amazon Customer
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