Division of Infectious Disease, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
Clin Infect Dis. 2012 Nov 15;55(10):1373-8. doi: 10.1093/cid/cis693. Epub 2012 Aug 14.
The 1900 San Francisco plague is a significant event in which citizens, physicians, and public health officials denied a diagnosis of plague on economic, political, and social grounds. To resolve the controversy, Surgeon General Walter Wyman appointed an independent federal commission of university-based experts to investigate whether plague was present. I use the activities of Frederick Novy, the commission bacteriologist and professor at the University of Michigan, to explore one circumstance in which bacteriology attempted to redefine traditional conceptions of disease during the early germ era. Novy showed plague was present in the city but without its characteristic clinical features and devastating epidemiological pattern. Physicians who understood plague by its classic features, however, contested Novy's scientific evidence. His bacteriologic redefinition had no special authority to prevail over opposing conceptions about plague; it was accepted and acted upon once it served the overall interest of the city--to avert a trade embargo.
1900 年旧金山鼠疫是一起重大事件，市民、医生和公共卫生官员出于经济、政治和社会等原因否认鼠疫的诊断。为了解决争议，卫生局局长沃尔特·怀曼（Walter Wyman）任命了一个由大学专家组成的独立联邦委员会，以调查是否存在鼠疫。我利用委员会细菌学家、密歇根大学教授弗雷德里克·诺维（Frederick Novy）的活动，探讨了细菌学在早期 germs 时代试图重新定义传统疾病概念的一种情况。诺维表明，鼠疫确实存在于该市，但没有其特征性的临床特征和毁灭性的流行病学模式。然而，那些根据典型特征理解鼠疫的医生对诺维的科学证据提出了质疑。他的细菌学重新定义并没有特别的权威来战胜对鼠疫的相反概念；只有当它符合城市的整体利益——避免贸易禁运时，它才会被接受并付诸实施。
