This article explores the values attributed to the new science of bacteriology in five early stories of bacteriologists: H. G. Wells’ ‘The Stolen Bacillus’ (1894), T. Mullett Ellis’s Zalma (1895), W. L. Alden’s ‘The Purple Death’ (1895), Algernon Blackwood’s ‘Max Hensig’ (1907), and Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Adventure of the Dying Detective’ (1913). I argue that the new science becomes a vehicle for anxieties about anarchist terrorism and German militarism. Responding to Martin Willis’s (2011) account of the microscope’s creative function at the fin de siecle, I suggest that the distinctive qualities of bacteriological science inflect the plot and style of these tales, as well as the nature of their fictional antagonists. These qualities include the magnification of an otherwise invisible threat and the ensuing distortion of the scientist’s moral judgement, the discrepancy between microbial size and potency, and German dominance in the field. The formal mechanisms of the texts, their patterns of tension and revelation, are also shown to interact with the new dynamics of bacteriological science and its play of visibility and invisibility. Comparing these texts with contemporaneous advertisements, I point out that the bacteriologist was simultaneously portrayed, to the same audiences, as a vector of threat and a trustworthy authority underwriting new commercial products. This divergence suggests the pliancy of bacteriology’s cultural significance and the limited influence of fiction on commercial uses of bacteriology. I argue that such fiction exploits limited public knowledge of the bacteriologist to develop an enduring motif of bacteriology as a moral and political danger.

中文翻译：

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关于隐形威胁：小说和期刊广告中的细菌学家，1894-1913

本文探讨了细菌学家五个早期故事中细菌学新科学的价值：HG Wells 的“被盗芽孢杆菌”（1894 年）、T. Mullett Ellis 的 Zalma（1895 年）、WL Alden 的“紫色死亡”（1895 年） 、阿尔杰农·布莱克伍德的《马克斯·亨西格》（1907 年）和亚瑟·柯南·道尔的《垂死侦探的冒险》（1913 年）。我认为，新科学成为对无政府主义恐怖主义和德国军国主义的焦虑的载体。为了回应 Martin Willis (2011) 对显微镜在世纪末的创造性功能的描述，我认为细菌科学的独特品质影响了这些故事的情节和风格，以及他们虚构对手的性质。这些品质包括放大了原本看不见的威胁和随之而来的科学家道德判断的扭曲、微生物大小和效力之间的差异以及德国在该领域的主导地位。文本的形式机制，它们的张力和启示模式，也被证明与细菌科学的新动态及其可见性和不可见性的作用相互作用。将这些文本与同时代的广告进行比较，我指出细菌学家同时被描绘成同样的受众，既是威胁的载体，也是承销新商业产品的值得信赖的权威。这种分歧表明细菌学的文化意义的柔顺性和小说对细菌学商业用途的有限影响。