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SUMMARY:Rethinking health\, disease and modernity: a view from the farm\, 
 c.1930–70 - Abigail Woods (Imperial College London)
DTSTART:20111117T163000Z
DTEND:20111117T180000Z
UID:TALK33104@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Karin Ekholm
DESCRIPTION:Focusing on veterinary understandings of livestock health and 
 disease\, this paper calls for a rethinking of the history of infectious d
 isease concepts. Most existing literature on this topic highlights the red
 uctionism of post-germ theory concepts when compared to earlier\, more eco
 logical understandings of disease. While interest in social and environmen
 tal determinants of disease did not disappear entirely\, until the 1980s i
 t was largely confined to individuals critical of industrial modernity and
  its environmental impacts. Then\, new and emerging diseases such as AIDS\
 , antimicrobial resistance\, environmentalism\, and the backlash against i
 ntensive farming brought ecological conceptions back into mainstream medic
 al thought.\n\nMy paper will challenge this narrative by revealing that ec
 ological conceptions of livestock disease were actually constitutive with 
 agricultural modernity. The mid-century shift to more intensive husbandry 
 systems and the privileging of livestock productivity led to the emergence
  of new diseases\, along with new ways of thinking about and managing them
 . Formerly viewed as a consequence of germs invading susceptible bodies\, 
 livestock disease became an ecological product of bodies interacting with 
 their environments\, a condition influenced as much by feeding\, breeding\
 , housing and stockmanship as by pathogens. At the same time\, health ceas
 ed to equate to an absence of disease symptoms\, and became one of several
  factors contributing to optimal growth and productivity. In this way\, it
  became possible to pursue health and productivity without attending direc
 tly to pathogens or disease. The paper concludes by examining the implicat
 ions of these shifts for the traditional experts in livestock disease\, ve
 terinary surgeons.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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