Cholera and plague in India: the bacteriophage inquiry of 1927-1936.
نویسنده
چکیده
!HE Bacteriophage Inquiry was the name given to a project, cooperatively organized by the government of British India, The Indian Research Fund Association, several hospitals in India, and several medical research institutes in India. The purpose of the project was to evaluate bacteriophage as treatment, and, to some extent, as prophylaxis, for cholera. The story of this project illuminates several interesting questions: How were medical and public health decisions made and implemented in colonial India? How was laboratory research translated into clinical application? And, how was a new therapy evaluated? This account follows these three themes in parallel and interrelated fashion. It starts with an account describing a convoluted trail of communications between scientists, diplomats, and public health authorities and shows how, in this case, a few committed individuals were able to carry out their plans in spite of bureaucratic misgivings and the rather unsettled political conditions in India. The application of phage therapy and prophylaxis both in the hospital setting and in the field trials seem to have been possible because of the confidence inspired by the main proponent of these trials rather than by much experimental support for his program. Yet, after nearly ten years of study, the role of bacteriophages in the treatment and prevention of cholera was still debated. The account of the trials of phage therapy and prophylaxis shows the difficulties faced in complex field trials, the shifting standards by which success was judged, and the part played by alternate and possibly competing approaches to prevention. It might be said that this story starts in 1921 on the fictional West Indian island of St. Hubert, when Dr. Martin Arrowsmith triumphantly pre-
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عنوان ژورنال:
- Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences
دوره 48 3 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 1993