Beginning in the 1940s, mass production of antibiotics involved the industrial-scale growth of microorganisms to harvest their metabolic products. Unfortunately, the use of antibiotics selects for resistance at answering scale. The turn to the study of antibiotic resistance in microbiology and medicine is examined, focusing on the realization that individual therapies targeted at single pathogens in individual bodies are environmental events affecting bacterial evolution far beyond bodies. In turning to biological manifestations of antibiotic use, sciences fathom material outcomes of their own previous concepts. Archival work with stored soil and clinical samples produces a record described here as ‘the biology of history’: the physical registration of human history in bacterial life. This account thus foregrounds the importance of understanding both the materiality of history and the historicity of matter in theories and concepts of life today.

中文翻译：

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抗生素耐药性和历史生物学


从 20 世纪 40 年代开始，抗生素的大规模生产涉及工业规模的微生物生长以收获其代谢产物。不幸的是，抗生素的使用会选择耐药性。研究了微生物学和医学中抗生素耐药性研究的转向，重点是认识到针对个体体内单一病原体的个体疗法是影响远远超出身体范围的细菌进化的环境事件。在转向抗生素使用的生物学表现时，科学探索了他们自己先前概念的物质结果。对储存的土壤和临床样本的档案工作产生了此处描述为“历史生物学”的记录：人类历史在细菌生命中的物理记录。因此，这一解释强调了理解历史的物质性和物质的历史性在当今生活的理论和概念中的重要性。