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Author Pelis, Kim, 1963- author

Title Charles Nicolle, Pasteur's imperial missionary : typhus and Tunisia / Kim Pelis
Published Rochester, NY : University of Rochester Press, 2006

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Description 1 online resource (xix, 384 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations
Series Rochester studies in medical history
Rochester studies in medical history
Contents Prelude: the substance of shadows -- Introduction: the door of the sadiki -- Thesis: embracing missions -- Staring at the sea: Nicolle and the Pasteur Institute of Tunis -- The threshold of civilization: typhus in Tunisia -- Rupture: things fall apart -- Light & shadow: lousy war and fractured peace -- Antithesis: mosaics of pieces -- Alliances: "Emperor of the Mediterranean"? -- Invisible forces: or, action at a distance -- Synthesis: mosaics of power -- Reservoir docs: birth, life, and death of infectious disease -- Mosaics of power: confronting paris -- Denouement -- At home with my shadows: patrie de nomade
Summary Kim Pelis uses a wide range of French and Tunisian archival materials and a close reading of Nobel Prize-winning bacteriologist Charles Nicolle's scientific papers and philosophical treatises to explore the relationship of scienceand medicine to society and culture in the first third of the twentieth century. This book examines the biomedical research of Nobel Prize-winning bacteriologist Charles Nicolle during his tenure as director of the Pasteur Institute of Tunis. Using typhus as its lens, it demonstrates how the complexities of early twentieth century bacteriology, French imperial ideology, the "Pastorian mission," and conditions in colonial Tunisia blended to inform the triumphs and disappointments of Nicolle's fascinating career. It illuminates how thesediverse elements shaped Nicolle's personal identity, the identity of his institute, and his innovative conception of the "birth, life, and death" -- or, the emergence and eradication -- of infectious disease. Kim Pelis blends exhaustive archival research with a close reading of Nicolle's written work -- scientific papers, philosophical treatises, and literary contributions -- to explore the complex relations between biomedical ideas and socioculturalcontext. The result is a study that will be of interest not only to students of French history, colonial medicine, and the history of the biomedical sciences but also to anyone seeking to understand how individuals have attemptedto deal creatively with complex times and ambiguous knowledge. Kim Pelis, a medical historian by training, is a writer for the director of the National Institutes of Health
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 351-371) and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Nicolle, Charles, 1866-1936.
SUBJECT Nicolle, Charles, 1866-1936
Nicolle, Charles, 1866-1936 fast
Subject Institut Pasteur de Tunis -- History
SUBJECT Institut Pasteur de Tunis
Institut Pasteur de Tunis fast
Subject Bacteriologists -- France -- Biography
Typhus fever -- Tunisia -- History
Bacteriology.
Bacteriology
Bacteriology -- history
Typhus, Epidemic Louse-Borne -- history
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Science & Technology.
SCIENCE -- Life Sciences -- Biology.
SCIENCE -- Life Sciences -- Microbiology.
MEDICAL -- History.
Bacteriology
Bacteriologists
Typhus fever
SUBJECT France
Tunisia
Subject France
Tunisia
Genre/Form Biographies
History
Biographies.
Biographies.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781580466561
1580466567