The Politics of Bacteriology: Epidemics, Medicine and Scientific Racism in Romania, 1880–1914

Abstract This article examines the scientific contributions of Romanian medical elites to the struggle against some of the deadliest epidemic diseases prevalent around the turn of the twentieth century. It begins by analyzing the participation of Romania in international sanitary conferences and the important role it played in shaping regional political, scientific and racial narratives employed on the ground to halt the spread of cholera, plague, and yellow fever. The article further discusses some of the key moments in the development of bacteriology in Romania and the subsequent understanding of the interrelationship between the management of human and non-human microbes, tracing the political and social consequences of laboratory science. Finally, the article examines how bacteriology became the central solution to the spread of epidemic diseases and came to hold a central place in racial narratives that targeted vulnerable ethnic and social groups in Romania and beyond.