France’s defeat and demographic anxiety drove acceptance of Pasteur’s germ theory

Evidence

Although the implications of this discovery were initially resisted, by the 188o’s a constellation of circumstances predisposed several different interest groups to act upon Pasteur’s findings. Defeat in 1870 followed by the Paris Commune, continued outbreaks of cholera and typhoid, and a falling birthrate convinced many legislators that the nation was degenerating. The especially high number of doctors in republican ranks-doctors who were used to thinking of the nation (and of its decline) in medical terms-en- couraged this perception. Microbiology offered scientific and ob- jective solutions to what was increasingly perceived as a problem of national security. These solutions were also compatible with soli- darist notions of the state’s social responsibility for its citizens emerging among republicans in the 189o’s. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 208

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Domestic French anxiety over degeneration directly shaped colonial hygiene policy the reader is tracing.

Related

• French republicans embraced germ theory as a national-security solution to perceived degeneration (similarity 0.88)
• Germ theory expanded public demand for government health regulation (similarity 0.84)
• Germ theory newly enabled Europeans to prevent disease and expand empire (similarity 0.83)
• National decline fears made republicans embrace Pasteur’s microbiology as security policy (similarity 0.83)
• The germ theory of disease drove French hygiene priorities in West Africa (similarity 0.80)
• French public accepted germ theory faster than doctors did. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Germ theory newly enabled Europeans to prevent disease and expand empire #expands (0.50) — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 207
• Defeat in Algeria paradoxically produced a stronger France #complicates (0.40)