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The Germ Theory

850 Words4 Pages
“In the light of the germ theory…[d]jseases are to be considered as a struggle between the organism and the parasites invading it.” The aforementioned quote, by Henry Gandle, a professor of physiology at Chicago Medical College, characterizes the germ theory through the collective human struggle against disease inducing microorganisms. In a period of discovery, where the nature of various germs and diseases were brought to light, the common conception encompassed a war between humans and diseases; this analogy to a war implicates a united effort on the part of the human race in battling these dangerous microorganisms. Tomes writes in The Gospel of Germs not only of the different scientific discoveries associated with the emergent germ…show more content…
In the Southwood-Smith excerpt, he depicts the ideal method of quarantine as influenced by “neither ancient prejudices, nor an excess of anxiety to avert possible danger, should induce the continuance of restrictions inessential to their object.” In other words, Southwood-Smith acknowledges not only the active societal biases, but also that these partialities can enter the medical realm through prejudicial treatment of disease. A society with such prominent discrimination, including in those with medical clout, has the capacity to formulate racial and class bias in germ theory that is but an extension of already existing anxieties concerning other ‘less well off’ members of society. Rather than bringing people together in response to the fear of disease, quarantine had the capacity to create a more segregated society praying on the middle and upper-class fears of disease spreading through the other, discriminated members of society. African Americans are among the societal groups that lacked the societal cohesiveness Tomes attributes to the gospel of germs insofar as they remained segregates and relatively uneducated on the new germ theories in comparison to other members of society. In an
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