The 1891 London Congress of Hygiene and Demography
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The founders of modern microbiology the 1891 London Congress of Hygiene and Demography Piccadilly Circus, London, photographed in ca 1890. Francis Frith Collection hanks to the completion of the main European rail of executive capacity, and the apparent with the unsustainable claims he had network, scientists could, by the second half of the International scientifi c raw inexperience’. recently made for the therapeutic 19th century, easily travel to international congresses. powers of tuberculin. AtAt thethe eendnd ofof eacheach academicacademic yyearear ((whichwhich ttypicallyypically meetings are nothing new. The Bacteriological Section Generally, the bacteriologists present lasted only from October to May), professional groups, The proceedings on Hygiene of the were a youngish and dedicated brother- such as scientists, doctors, engineers and syndicalists, Philip Mortimer describesdescribes 1891 Congress were presided over by hood, many of whom were soon to Twould meet to present new work and debate matters of topi- Sir Joseph (soon to be Lord) Lister, make names for themselves in this cal interest. and the proceedings on Demography expanding scientifi c fi eld. Their facial This pattern was well established by the 1890s. The Great an early gathering of by Sir Francis Galton, the Victorian hair and dress may appear quaint and Powers had been at peace for two decades, trade between eugenicist. Among the activities so formal to modern eyes, but this was no nations was prospering and in the fi eld of public and interna- bacteriologists. comprehensively reported by the more than Victorian fashion required. tional health there were pressing issues to address at the annu- medical weeklies (Fig. 1) were those During their careers these men spread al Congresses of Hygiene and Demography. There were new of the Bacteriological section. A section microbiological knowledge throughout health regulations to debate and the recurrent disagreements species on semi-solid media, Pasteur had grudgingly to photograph shows that the Congress the world. They set up academic depart- over what the British Medical Journal (BMJ) referred to as the concede its value. acted as a magnet to the leading medical ments; they wrote the fi rst textbooks; ‘absurdities’ of quarantine to resolve. Fortunately, scientifi c scientists of the day (Fig. 2). Some must they taught our teachers’ teachers. progress was providing more rational bases for action, for The 1891 Congress have been attracted by the novelty example in intervening against the epidemic cholera that had In 1891 London again hosted the Congress. Its scientifi c and potential of the subject and a few, Who’s who several times swept through Europe earlier in the century. proceedings were still almost exclusively men’s business, such as Charles Sherrington, moved See Front row. The seniors are here: There was smallpox and rabies vaccination to discuss, and although the 1890s were to be the decade when women, who on in due course to other disciplines Emile Roux (1853–1933) was a man advances in the treatment of diphtheria and tetanus were on were already discreetly but effectively contributing to work (in his case physiology). Others, like surpassed in importance only by the point of being applied to patients. Ideas about the nature in the laboratory, were at last beginning to be participants Lister, were already among the elder Pasteur in the history of French micro- Fig. 1. A list of the business of the 1891 of humoral and cellular immunity were rapidly evolving. at scientifi c gatherings and not merely accompanying guests. statesmen of scientifi c medicine and biology. He was responsible for deri- Congress of Hygiene and Demography, The presentations and discussions at each Congress were Mostly, though, women had to make do with the extensive brought experience and gravitas to the ving clinical benefi ts from Pasteur’s taken from the Lancet index for that year. lively and often opinionated, and were fully reported in the social programme of receptions, concerts and excursions. proceedings. Pasteur himself might discoveries. John Burdon-Sanderson scientifi c press. An early example had been the exchanges The Lancet and BMJ viedvied withwith eacheach otherother inin describingdescribing thethe have attended if his health and his wife (1828–1905) was a leading British Institute in Paris. Josef Fodor (1843– between Koch and Pasteur at the 1882 International Con- scientifi c proceedings, faithfully reporting their high and had allowed him to do so. Koch also, pathologist, a founder of the short-lived 1901), described in Bulloch’s History gress of Hygiene and Demography in London. The animosity low points. Among the latter were delegates’ complaints (how having just discarded the wife who had Brown Institute and later of the Oxford of Bacteriology as a ‘Hungarian hygienist’, engendered by the Franco-Prussian War had not yet died familiar to organizers of meetings down the years!) that the aided him in his early researches in School of Pathology. Next to him sat reported to the Congress an 1890 down and Koch was the brash young representative of grow- cloakrooms were inadequate, the keynote events unpunctual favour of a young Berlin actress, was Lister who needs no description here. outbreak of 1,000 cases of typhoid ing German imperial power. Pasteur, by contrast, was an and the translation facilities lamentable. In its editorial about detained elsewhere. Another reason Saturnin Arloing (1846–1911) was a due to a hospital’s water closets leaking experienced scientist and a French patriot. Nevertheless, the 1891 Congress the BMJ wrote:wrote: ‘we are loath to dim so bright for Koch’s failure to attend might have comparative pathologist whose school directly into a town water supply, a when Koch demonstrated his technique for isolating bacterial a picture by referring to the innumerable shortcomings, the want been the widespread disenchantment at Lyon rivalled the work of the Pasteur nosocomial infection in reverse. 54 microbiology today may 06 microbiology today may 06 55 from 1887, Director of the Veterinary School at Alfort where did, North American participation. In 1891, the Johns Pasteur and Roux did many of their experiments. Nocard Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore had only just was an outstanding researcher. His obituary refers to the been founded, but within a decade it had become one of extraordinary range of his work, and ends with this tribute: the world’s leading hygienic institutes, and was sending ‘at international congresses, which he frequently attended, his out many graduates. George Steinberg, the US Surgeon ready wit and charm of exposition impressed his hearers. What General, was closely associated with the school and wrote he said was always listened to with attention for he never spoke the outstanding contemporary textbook of microbiology in unless he had light to throw upon the subject, the light of a fi nely English. The academic centre of gravity had begun its now critical mind replete with knowledge’. seemingly irreversible shift from Europe to the USA. Watson Cheyne was Lister’s most distinguished pupil. By WWI, the Congresses of Hygiene and Demography had He quickly saw the importance of bacteriology to surgery petered out. The study (or more precisely the use) of the and studied the new science in Berlin and Paris in the early term ‘hygiene’ became unfashionable, its connotations being 1880s. He was a leading fi gure in the application to surgery, too narrow to embrace the widening scope of microbiology. fi rst of antiseptic and then of aseptic technique. Demography, meanwhile, was establishing itself as a separate, Percy Faraday Frankland (b. 1858) taught successively at essentially statistical, discipline and distancing itself from the Royal School of Mines (i.e. Imperial College, London), the eugenic attitudes of the Victorians. Dundee and Birmingham. He pioneered the application of The decline of ‘hygiene’ was also marked by the renaming bacteriological methods to the provision of safe water sup- of various ‘Institutes of Hygiene’ around Europe, and of the plies and the treatment of sewage – not fashionable work Journal of Hygiene itself. Nevertheless, few of the uses to which perhaps, but arguably bringing more human benefi t than microbiology are put can be as important as the promotion the endeavours of most of the delegates. Frankland was of what participants at the 1891 Congress would have more generous than some of his male contemporaries in understood by hygiene, e.g. potable water, effective drainage acknowledging the contribution of his wife; they co-authored and waste disposal, hand and air cleanliness. Today their a textbook. He is also sartorially outstanding – note the wing relevance has certainly not diminished and it could be high collar, the spotted cravat, and the waxed moustache. time to rehabilitate ‘hygiene’ and its associated international David Douglas Cunningham (1843–1914) was a member congresses. of the Indian Medical Service, a student of tropical disease, and a distinguished naturalist. He had travelled furthest to Philip Mortimer attend the Congress (the Japanese Kitasato had been working Health Protection Agency, 61 Colindale Avenue, in Germany for the previous 6 years; only later in 1891 did he London NW9 5HT, UK (t 02080208 327327 6600;6600; return to Tokyo). Cunningham was the leading protagonist e [email protected]) on the Anglo-Indian side in the protracted debate between Middle row. Karl Lehmann (b. 1858) of an authoritative early bacteriology Fig. 2. The Bacteriology Section of the the ‘locationists’ who argued that cholera emerged from Further reading International Congress of Hygiene and published an early atlas of bacteriology textbook. Metschnikoff andand Kitasato the environment, and those who backed Koch’s discovery Adami, J.G. (1889). Notes on an epizootic of rabies; and on Demography 1891. This image hung which went though seven editions. were both soon to become famous for many years on a wall of the Central (achieved in a fortnight’s visit to Calcutta) of a pathogenic a personal experience of M.