Contemporaries ranked bacteriology and the steam engine as comparable triumphs over nature.
Evidence
The nineteenth century had customarily mea- sured the march of civilization in terms of natural obstacles over- come by science and technology. The new bacteriological discoveries may well have represented for contemporaries the most spectacular victory over nature since the steam engine. The important point here, however, is not which “revolution” was greater-the locomo- tive or modern bacteriology-but rather that many contemporaries saw them as comparable triumphs; in the end, this tendency made more natural Roume’s linking public health and railroads. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 223
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships