Frederick Novy and the Development of Bacteriology in Medicine

by Powel H. Kazanjian

Overview

At the turn of the twentieth century, Frederick Novy was the leader among a new breed of full-time bacteriologists at American medical schools. Although historians have examined bacteriologic work done in American health department laboratories, there has been little examination of similar work completed within U.S. medical schools during this period.
 
In Frederick Novy and the Development of Bacteriology in Medicine, medical historian, medical researcher, and clinician Powel H. Kazanjian uses Novy’s archived letters, laboratory notebooks, lecture notes, and published works to examine medical research and educational activities at the University of Michigan and other key medical schools during a formative period in modern medical science.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813585093
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	04/30/2017
Series:	Critical Issues in Health and Medicine
Pages:	250
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

POWEL H. KAZANJIAN, MD, PhD is a professor and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, at the University of Michigan Medical Center and a professor in the department of history at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction
1    Frederick Novy and the Origins of the Michigan Hygienic Laboratory
2    What Novy Did in His Medical School Laboratory
3    Making Medical Education Scientific
4    Defining Bacteriology as a Discipline in Its Early Years
5    Significance for American Culture: Arrowsmith
6    Making a Scientific Career in Medicine
Conclusion

Notes
Index

 

Editorial Reviews

"Novy has been unduly neglected by historians to date, and Kazanjian performs an important service in correcting this gap; Frederick Novy and the Development of Bacteriology in Medicine  is a well-written and timely piece that alters our understanding of the rise of biomedical teaching and research in the United States."

Harvard Medical School and author of The Antibiotic Era - Scott H. Podolsky

"Kazanjian has given us a much desired account of a very significant career. His main point, that Novy’s bacteriology differed from the application-focused William Welchian science of public health, expands our knowledge of American medical bacteriology. It is well founded and important. The book expands our scope of what the history of medical bacteriology is all about."

Bulletin of the History of Medicine

"The 'hero narrative' of science that honours stars such as Isaac Newton and Marie Curie often obscures the multitudes who lay the foundations - that centuries-old chain of curious minds. In this biography, physician and historian Powel Kazanjian pulls one from that multitude into the light: microbiology pioneer Frederick Novy. Kazanjian's detailed and authoritative account reveals how Novy (1864-1957) did fundamental work that shaped the field's development, and introduced basic research into medical training."

Nature

"Powel Kazanjian's Frederick Novy and the Development of Bacteriology in Medicine tells a critical, insightful, and overlooked story in the history of medicine and science.  It is a triumph of scholarship and narrative."

author of An Anatomy of Addiction and When Germs Travel - Howard Markel

"The great value of Kazanjian’s work is in providing a case study of how American medicine was made scientific in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries." 

Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences

"The 'hero narrative' of science that honours stars such as Isaac Newton and Marie Curie often obscures the multitudes who lay the foundations - that centuries-old chain of curious minds. In this biography, physician and historian Powel Kazanjian pulls one from that multitude into the light: microbiology pioneer Frederick Novy. Kazanjian's detailed and authoritative account reveals how Novy (1864-1957) did fundamental work that shaped the field's development, and introduced basic research into medical training."

Nature Lib

"The great value of Kazanjian’s work is in providing a case study of how American medicine was made scientific in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries." 

From the Publisher