French republicans embraced germ theory as a national-security solution to perceived degeneration

Evidence

In France, the work of Pasteur hardly came out of the blue; more than half a century of public health research, activity, and legislation had prepared the way for his identification of germs as vectors of disease in the 186o’s. 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-encouraged this perception. Microbiology offered scientific and objective solutions to what was increasingly perceived as a problem of national security. These solutions were also compatible with solidarist 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

• XREF: Relevant to the reader’s goal of how French republican ideology was exported to West Africa — the solidarist, science-driven civilizing rationale for colonial medicine emerges here. — connects to: Germ theory expanded public demand for government health regulation — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2630