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VERSION:2.0
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20150429T164627Z
DTSTART:20150505T120000Z
DTEND:20150505T130000Z
SUMMARY:"The Tyranny Which Germ Theory May Exercise": Contagion and the C
 auses of Cancer in the Nineteenth Century
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DESCRIPTION:This seminar is part of the lunchtime seminar series for the 
 Centre for the History of Science\, Technology and Medicine (CHSTM). Lun
 chtime seminars are typically no more than 30 minutes in length\, follow
 ed by a period for audience questions (ending before 2pm). All are welco
 me.\n\n"The Tyranny Which Germ Theory May Exercise": Contagion and the C
 auses of Cancer in the Nineteenth Century\n\nAgnes Arnold-Forster (King'
 s College London)\n\nAbstract:\nIn 2007 Michael Worboys and Flurin Condr
 au waded briefly into a debate over whether cancer was considered contag
 ious in the nineteenth century. They cite a single reference in Worboy’s
  Spreading Germs\, which ‘makes it clear that the notion had very few su
 pporters and was anyway short-lived.’ This paper offers a rebuttal\, sug
 gesting that the question of whether cancer was contagious was subject t
 o extensive debate in various medical circles\, and as Graham Mooney cla
 imed ‘a worry amongst the general public.’\n\nWhile medical men had long
  suggested cancer might be contagious\, the debate escalated after 1860.
  Using a close analysis of primary source material – medical tracts\, tr
 eatises and periodicals\, private correspondence\, domestic medicine man
 uals\, and household encyclopedias – a variety of interpretations and co
 nclusions can be drawn from this controversy. There is ample evidence to
  suggest that the debate about cancer and contagion filtered through man
 y layers of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century society: inform
 ing lay understandings of the disease\, complicating professional concep
 tions\, and pointing to a newly-visible relation between the two. Not on
 ly do the narratives around cancer etiology provide support for the noti
 on that there were multiple ‘germ theories’ operating simultaneously\, t
 hey also attest to how malleable conceptions of contagion and infection 
 were. Finally\, it seems that to understand cancer discourse in this per
 iod we might require an alternative understanding of what contagion mean
 t to nineteenth-century actors\, as well as a reassessment of the hold g
 erm theory exerted over both professional and lay imaginations. \n\n\n
STATUS:TENTATIVE
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
CLASS:PUBLIC
LOCATION:2.57\, Simon Building\, Manchester
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