Agostino bassi microbiology study

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Italian bacteriologist, who anticipated

To browse Academia. Agostino Bassi was the first to translate aetiological ideas on the microbiological genesis of diseases into an actual research programme. He was also responsible for intuitions on the concepts of immunity, healthy carriers, predisposal to contracting infections and the dynamics of epidemics. He understood that all infections are a product of parasitic beings that invade other living organic beings.

This led to the microbiological theory of infectious dis- eases that would make enormous developments with the German, Robert Koch, and Frenchman, Louis Pasteur. Developed in a series of papers from the mids 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 host-pathogen 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. But where did this modern, bio-ecological understanding of infectious disease come from, and who were the medical researchers and scientific networks responsible for the integration of these perspectives into medical microbiology and public health?

Building on the work of J. Andrew Mendelsohn, Warwick Anderson, and others, this two-day workshop at Queen Mary University London on July will bring together historians of medicine and the allied sciences to explore the neglected contributions of medical researchers who advanced a more dynamic view of health and disease in the early and middle decades of the 20th century.

In the process we hope to shed light on the origins of modern ideas of disease ecology and illuminate current scientific debates around antibiotic resistance, EIDs and the genesis of epidemics. Indeed, the workshop is predicated on the belief that an historical inquiry into the origins of modern ideas of disease ecology will illuminate the way that science and policy first interacted in this context and provide a more comprehensive understanding of why it is that the modern practices of disease control and global health are crafted in the way they are.

The deadline for submission of abstracts is 1 February For more information email: mark.