A Rat's Progress: Plague and the "Migratory Rat" in British India, 1896-1899.

IF 0.9 3区 哲学 Q4 HEALTH CARE SCIENCES & SERVICES
Christos Lynteris
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Whether referring to oceanic travel on board of ships or to movement in terra firma, framings of the "migratory rat" formed a key epidemiological component of approaches to the Third Plague Pandemic (1894-1959) as the first pandemic to be understood as caused by a zoonotic disease. In this article, I examine the emergence and development of scientific framings of the migratory rat in the first, explosive years of the third plague pandemic in India (1896-1899). Examining publications and archival sources, I ask how this animal figure came to inform and transform epidemiological reasoning. Going beyond established approaches that have shown how the rat-plague relation was mobilised by colonial doctors to pathologise Indigenous lifeways, I argue that more complex and ambivalent processes were also set in motion by this figure. First, I show how the migratory rat became invested with attributes of invasiveness that assumed ontological qualities in colonial epidemiological reasoning. Second, comparing the migratory rat with the hitherto established "staggering rat," I argue that the former embodied new approaches to both space and time in epidemiology. Third, I show how Indigenous scientists came to mobilise this complex figure to contest colonial approaches to plague.

一只老鼠的进步:瘟疫和“迁徙老鼠”在英属印度,1896-1899。
无论是指船上的远洋旅行还是陆地上的移动,“迁徙鼠”的框架构成了第三次鼠疫大流行(1894-1959)方法的关键流行病学组成部分,这是第一次被理解为由人畜共患疾病引起的大流行。在这篇文章中,我研究了迁徙鼠在印度第三次鼠疫大流行爆发的头几年(1896-1899)的科学框架的出现和发展。通过查阅出版物和档案资料,我想知道这个动物形象是如何影响和改变流行病学推理的。除了已经确立的方法表明,殖民地医生如何利用老鼠与鼠疫的关系来病态化土著的生活方式之外,我认为这个数字还启动了更复杂和矛盾的过程。首先,我展示了迁徙鼠如何被赋予入侵属性,这些属性在殖民地流行病学推理中假定具有本体论性质。其次,将迁徙鼠与迄今为止建立的“惊人鼠”进行比较,我认为前者体现了流行病学中空间和时间的新方法。第三,我展示了土著科学家是如何动员这个复杂的人物来对抗殖民地对付瘟疫的方法的。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences
Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 管理科学-科学史与科学哲学
CiteScore
1.00
自引率
0.00%
发文量
40
审稿时长
>12 weeks
期刊介绍: Started in 1946, the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences is internationally recognized as one of the top publications in its field. The journal''s coverage is broad, publishing the latest original research on the written beginnings of medicine in all its aspects. When possible and appropriate, it focuses on what practitioners of the healing arts did or taught, and how their peers, as well as patients, received and interpreted their efforts. Subscribers include clinicians and hospital libraries, as well as academic and public historians.
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