La grippe existe-t-elle ?
Variations in microbes and their virulence have been a constant challenge for the early microbiologists, and a focal point of exchanges with clinicians and epidemiologists. This challenge touched upon a crucial question in medicine: that of the existence of diseases as distinct entities present in n...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fra |
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Société d'Anthropologie des Connaissances
2021-09-01
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| Series: | Revue d'anthropologie des connaissances |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/rac/24324 |
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| Summary: | Variations in microbes and their virulence have been a constant challenge for the early microbiologists, and a focal point of exchanges with clinicians and epidemiologists. This challenge touched upon a crucial question in medicine: that of the existence of diseases as distinct entities present in nature, or of their understanding as historical and physiological objects. Bacteriology is considered to be the pivot of an ontological turning point, providing irrefutable proof of the existence of specific diseases caused by invisible microbes. Bringing the case of medical inquiries on influenza between 1890 and 1914 in France, the article aims to describe, on the contrary, the theoretical proliferation within this new microbiological discipline and the renewed links with other medical disciplines in order to originally define what this disease is. It sheds light on how, after the so called "Russian" flu pandemic, French bacteriologists participated in a unique way in the transformation of the medical identity of influenza into an infectious and contagious disease, without necessarily focusing on the discovery of a specific microbe. |
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| ISSN: | 1760-5393 |