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Creature features: The lively narratives of bacteriophages in Soviet biology and medicine
Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science ( IF 0.880 ) Pub Date : 2020-01-15 , DOI: 10.1098/rsnr.2019.0035
Dmitriy Myelnikov 1
Affiliation  

The term ‘bacteriophage’ (devourer of bacteria) was coined by Félix d'Herelle in 1917 to describe both the phenomenon of spontaneous destruction of bacterial cultures and an agent responsible. Debates about the nature of bacteriophages raged in the 1920s and 1930s, and there were extensive attempts to use the phenomenon to fight infections. Whereas it eventually became a crucial tool for molecular biology, therapeutic uses of ‘phage’ declined sharply in the West after World War II, but persisted in the Soviet Union, particularly Georgia. Increasingly isolated from Western medical research, Soviet scientists developed their own metaphors of ‘phage’, its nature and action, and communicated them to their peers, medical professionals, and potential patients. In this article, I explore four kinds of narrative that shaped Soviet phage research: the mystique of bacteriophages in the 1920s and 1930s; animated accounts and military metaphors in the 1940s; Lysenkoist notions on bacteriophages as a phase in bacterial development; and the retrospective allocation of credit for the discovery of the bacteriophage during the Cold War. Whereas viruses have been largely seen as barely living, phage narratives consistently featured heroic liveliness or ‘animacy’, which framed the growing consensus on its viral nature. Post-war narratives, shaped by the Lysenkoist movement and the campaigns against adulation of the West, had political power—although many microbiologists remained sceptical, they had to frame their critique within the correct language if they wanted to be published. The dramatic story of bacteriophage research in the Soviet Union is a reminder of the extent to which scientific narratives can be shaped by politics, but it also highlights the diversity of strategies and alternative interpretations possible within those constraints.



中文翻译:

生物特征:苏联生物学和医学中噬菌体的生动叙事

Félixd'Herelle在1917年创造了“噬菌体”一词(细菌吞噬者),以描述细菌培养物的自发破坏现象和负责任的媒介。关于噬菌体性质的争论在1920年代和1930年代肆虐,人们进行了广泛的尝试来利用这种现象来对抗感染。尽管它最终成为了分子生物学的重要工具,但“噬菌体”的治疗用途在第二次世界大战后的西方急剧下降,但在苏联尤其是乔治亚州仍然存在。苏联科学家与西方医学研究越来越孤立,他们发展出了自己对“噬菌体”,其性质和作用的隐喻,并将其传达给同龄人,医疗专业人员和潜在患者。在本文中,我探讨了塑造苏联噬菌体研究的四种叙述:1920年代和1930年代的噬菌体之谜;1940年代的动画叙述和军事隐喻;Lysenkoist认为噬菌体是细菌发展的一个阶段;以及对冷战时期发现噬菌体的追溯分配。尽管病毒在很大程度上被视为勉强生存,但噬菌体叙事始终具有英雄般的活泼性或“生命力”,这构成了对其病毒性质日益增长的共识。由里森科主义运动和反对西方崇拜的运动所塑造的战后叙事具有政治权力-尽管许多微生物学家持怀疑态度,但如果要发表评论,他们必须用正确的语言来构成批评。

更新日期:2020-01-15
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