William Watson Cheyne And The Advancement Of Bacteriology

William Watson Cheyne (1852-1932), a surgeon by training and a student of Joseph Lister, was a prominent British bacteriologist who published 60 papers and 13 monographs from 1879 to 1927. A proponent of the idea that bacteriology and medicine were interdependent disciplines, he investigated the causes and treatment of wound infections, tuberculosis, cholera, tetanus and gangrene. In 1897, he organized an historical outline of 19th century bacteriology in five landmark periods of discovery, each defined by the work of an influential figure. This study documents his contributions to the history of microbiology and describes his activities as a laboratory investigator, clinician, surgeon, translator, editor and educator.

The life of Sir William Watson Cheyne spanned the flamboyant era of colonial expansion and some of the most important medical developments of the 19th century. His own role in these advances - as an eminent surgeon, an early researcher in medical bacteriology, a staunch ally of Lord Lister, an MP, and an intrepid traveller - has not previously been studied in depth. Fittingly for a man of meticulous detail, yet with a restless and pioneering imagination, his extraordinary story emerges from a fascinating mix of family and community memory and detailed archival research. Added to this resource is the sheer wonder of the digitisation of photographs and glass lantern slides from the family home - whereby faded sepia and scratched surfaces revive the 'ghosts' who took tea on the lawns of Leagarth House or served in the medical units of the Boer War. Many of these rare images are reproduced in the biography. When the author, then the manager of the museum on the remote Shetland island of Fetlar, first began to research 'Sir Watson' in 1999, she imagined 'in some small way ... restoring him to his rightful place in history'. She has surpassed this, both for readers of biography and for social historians, not only those researching the history of medicine.

William Watson Cheyne (1852–1932), a surgeon by training and a student of Joseph Lister, was a prominent British bacteriologist who published 60 papers and 13 monographs from 1879 to 1927. A proponent of the idea that bacteriology and medicine were interdependent disciplines, he investigated the causes and treatment of wound infections, tuberculosis, cholera, tetanus and gangrene. In 1897, he organized an historical outline of 19th century bacteriology in five landmark periods of discovery, each defined by the work of an influential figure. This study documents his contributions to the history of microbiology and describes his activities as a laboratory investigator, clinician, surgeon, translator, editor and educator.

Ideas about the transmission of disease have long formed the core of modern biology and medicine. Heredity and Infection examines their development over the last century. Two scientific revolutions - the bacteriological revolution of the 1890s and the genetic revolution at the start of the twentieth century - acted as the catalysts of major change in our understanding of the causes of illness. As well as being great scientific achievements, these were social and political watersheds that reconfigured the medical and administrative means of intervention. By establishing a clear distinction between transmission by infection and genetic transmission, this shift was instrumental in separating hygiene from eugenism. The authors argue that the popular perception of such a sharp divide stabilized only after 1945 when the use of antibiotics to end epidemics became commonplace. For health professionals the separation has never become an absolute one, and the book examines the various blends of heredity and infection that have preoccupied biology, medicine and the social sciences. Heredity and Infection recontructs the changing epidemiology of such historically important pathologies as tuberculosis , cancer and AIDS. In doing so, it demonstrates the role of experimental models, medical practices and cultural images in the making of contemporary biochemical knowledge.