The Pasteurization of France

by Bruno Latour, Alan Sheridan (Translator), John Law (Translator)

What can one man accomplish, even a great man and brilliant scientist? Although every town in France has a street named for Louis Pasteur, was he alone able to stop people from spitting, persuade them to dig drains, influence them to undergo vaccination? Pasteur’s success depended upon a whole network of forces, including the public hygiene movement, the medical profession (both military physicians and private practitioners), and colonial interests. It is the operation of these forces, in combination with the talent of Pasteur, that Bruno Latour sets before us as a prime example of science in action.

Latour argues that the triumph of the biologist and his methodology must be understood within the particular historical convergence of competing social forces and conflicting interests. Yet Pasteur was not the only scientist working on the relationships of microbes and disease. How was he able to galvanize the other forces to support his own research? Latour shows Pasteur’s efforts to win over the French public—the farmers, industrialists, politicians, and much of the scientific establishment.

Instead of reducing science to a given social environment, Latour tries to show the simultaneous building of a society and its scientific facts. The first section of the book, which retells the story of Pasteur, is a vivid description of an approach to science whose theoretical implications go far beyond a particular case study. In the second part of the book, “Irreductions,” Latour sets out his notion of the dynamics of conflict and interaction, of the “relation of forces.” Latour’s method of analysis cuts across and through the boundaries of the established disciplines of sociology, history, and the philosophy of science, to reveal how it is possible not to make the distinction between reason and force. Instead of leading to sociological reductionism, this method leads to an unexpected irreductionism.

Genres: History, Philosophy, Science, Sociology, France, Nonfiction, Anthropology

292 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Bruno Latour, a philosopher and anthropologist, is the author of Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory, Our Modern Cult of the Factish Gods, An Inquiry into Modes of Existence, and many other books. He curated the ZKM exhibits ICONOCLASH and Making Things Public and coedited the accompanying catalogs, both published by the MIT Press.

Reviews

[Mark Bowles · Rating 4 out of 5]

A. Summary: This is a semiotic study of Pasteur based on three French journals. There are continuous comparisons in the book between what Tolstoy did in War and Peace and what Latour does here. Tolstoy attacks the hagiography of Napoleon showing how he was only a part of the war, Latour does the same with Pasteur. To understand the greatness of a man all the actors in which he associates must be examined. Latour concludes that the revolution in medicine in the 19th was not attributable solely to Pasteur. He followed the movement, accompanied it, sometimes preceded it, and then was offered sole responsibility for it by others.
B. Key points
1. Science is as political and chaotic as any other activity
2. There is no boundary between science and society
3. Comparison with Tolstoy throughout the book and anti-hagiography
4. Two monographs in this book (one empirical, one theoretical)
5. Pasteur as a fulcrum
6. Network of alliances is what produces results in science
7. Anti-reductionist. Latour does not wish is simply impute a revolution to Pasteur
C. War, peace, and microbes
1. Intro. Latour argues that all science is shaped by society. To prove his point he looks at a case (the biological revolution of Louis Pasteur) in which it appears that science impacted society and not the other way around. To explain this event Latour says that none of the “terms of the tribe” may be used. Latour uses semiotics and studies three scientific journals. He read the Review Scientific from 1870 to 1919 recording all references to disease, biology, health, Pasteur, microbes, doctors, and hygiene. The Annals de l’Institut Pasteur were examined from 1887 to 1919 and he measured the scientific output of the institute. The Concours Médical were examined from 1885-1905 and all allusions to Pasteur were recorded. This is not a historical account. It is presented through the network of associations that make up the Pasteurian world.
2. Strong microbes and weak hygienists. (This is an examination of the hygienists) When Latour begins to read the Revue in 1870 there is little mention of Pasteur. One idea was found throughout the journal--this was the urgent need for regeneration. Hygienists in this period constantly equated health with the wealth of a country. They believed that anything could possibly cause illness so that nothing could be ignored. This was an inadequate theory and they knew it. Pasteur and the Pasteurians provide a “fulcrum” for these hygienists. They quickly adopted and believed everything he claimed. By hybridizing the hygienists and the Pasteurians the power of both was increased.
3. You will be Pastures of Microbes. (This is an examination of Pasteur and the Pasteurians) What Pasteur and his group actually did was to connect “diseases” with the “laboratory.” Prior to this period disease could only be understood on its own grounds. It could not be introduced into an artificial environment. Pasteur was able to trigger anthrax in chickens in his laboratory. He was able to show what took place in real life also took place in the laboratory.
4. Medicine at last. Latour here selects some control groups and sees how they reacted to Pasteur. This include army doctors, civilian physicians, colonial doctors, and ordinary people. The army doctors quickly adopted Pasteur’s work for in battle they fought both disease and wounds. The civilian doctors were slow to adopt Pasteur.
D. Irreductions
1. Intro. Those who reject social studies of science reject it because they believe it is reducitonist and is ignorant of science. Sociologists argue that force is behind scientific activity. Scientists argue reason is behind scientific activity. Latour asks what would happen if no distinction was drawn between force and reason? This section consists of an introduction and then chapters of numbered propositions.

[Matthew Sun · Rating 5 out of 5]

i did not expect to enjoy this book so much. perhaps one of my favorite pieces of theory I’ve ever read! the first half is a (somewhat) straightforward accounting of the history of the pasteurization movement in France, but the latter half devolves into this bizarre mixture of philosophical / auto theory / memoir that i was absolutely obsessed with. quite moving and lyrical at times, actually. it’s a tragedy that Latour is understood as the poster boy for “all of science is socially constructed” - his whole point is that both “science” and “society” are reductive concepts that cannot adequately explain the world by themselves! i think this is an example of theory where reading the Wikipedia summary of actor network theory is woefully inadequate for absorbing the full thrust of the argument as written. the persuasive force is in the style as much as it is in the content.

would recommend book clubbing if reading for the first time! and the latter half imo is where it really gets weird, interesting, and good

[Shulamith Farhi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm only reviewing part 2: Irreductions. I don't wish to give the impression that Latour is a charlatan - there are many interesting insights here, and we would be mistaken if we chastised the book for not being philosophy, since it never claims to be. Latour incisively criticizes the 'symbolic' and 'spiritual', preferring the letter. Unfortunately, a lot of the novelty here is essentially restating the position of Thrasymachus in the Republic, especially the emphasis on the priority of force - it's strange to see Latour presenting these ideas as daring interventions. Latour's target is the concept of reduction, opposing the religious concept of reduction to the irreligious one of networked emergentism. This binary suppresses a third option: reality is neither flat nor fixed in a hierarchy but rather articulated at a variety of stratified levels, with some possessing a stronger claim to truth than others. Broadly speaking, this alternative would account for these networks stereoscopically, acknowledging that moral truth isn't reducible to an 'atomic moron' while still naturalizing the normative force of these commitments as evolutionary responses to an environment.

***

Take two. The concept of black boxes, is, on second thought, pretty useful. It's good to have opacity when information is sensitive. One can be both continuous and discreet.

***

Take three. Wolfendale cracked this one. The theory is still nice, but it's broken. It can't be fixed. The solution requires jettisoning the foundational deleveling assumption of OOO. This blows up the theory. The alternative is articulated by Ray Brassier - start from scratch and ground your theory on formalism.

[Asa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A microbial soap opera narrated by an alien anthropologist: dazzling in conceptual scope, but so obsessed with bacterial networks and conceptual flattening that it forgets who’s getting cholera in the slums. An essential read if you enjoy theory that’s more fermented than pasteurized.

[Luther Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second part of this book lays out in Tractatus-fashion Latour's "metaphysics"...and if that don't blow your mind, I don't know what will...I'm hooked & ready for more of this...

[Trystan Hopkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oft held as a genius in postmodern sociology circles, and as a buffoon in pretty much everywhere else.

The book is, however, definitely still a worthwhile read. The argument Latour puts forth as his pièce de résistance (the disagreement between Pasteur and Pouchet) takes very little critical thinking to see as wanting.

It is like a Swiss cheese, full of holes!

To his credit Latour is a linguistically dexterous, however vapid, writer.

Overall, sadly, a perfect example of a mind left rotten from reading too much French postmodernism.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A provocative reconceptualization of how to write of the history of science. He argues that below the (in his view artificially) created social/natural distinction there exist networks of actors/agents (including, in this case, bacilli) and that their interactions should be the subject of analysis.

[Sharad Pandian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book by Latour, published close to his Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society (although translated into English later). In the first ~150 pages, he sets out the historic tale of how Pasteur's techniques won popularity in France, and in the last ~80 pages, he sets out his actant-network theory in the form of brief-ish numbered propositions. It's well-written, deeply insightful, hilarious, and vicious, making it a fantastic resource and read.

Here are some choice excerpts from the early parts of the historical section, with an emphasis on Latour's pointing to how history itself needs to be created by scientists:

Sociologists of the sciences often claim to be providing a political or social explanation of the content of a science, such as physics, mathematics, or biology. But the sociology of the sciences is too often powerless, because it thinks it knows what society is made up of. Faithful to its tradition, it usually defines society as made up of groups, interests, intentions, and conflicts of interest… The exact sciences elude social analysis not because they are distant or separated from society, but because they revolutionize the very conception of society and of what it comprises. (38)

To speak of "revolution" is difficult enough in politics, but it is impossible in such a subject. The temporal framework itself is useless. What makes the history of the sciences - so respectable elsewhere - usually disappointing is that it sets out from time in order to explain the agents and their movements, whereas the temporal framework merely registers after the event the victory of certain agents. If we really wanted to explain history, we would have to accept the lesson that the actors themselves give us. Just as they made their societies, they also made their own history. The actors periodize with all their might. They give themselves periods, abolish them, and alter them, redistributing responsibilities, naming the "reactionaries," the "moderns," the "avant-garde," the "forerunners," just like a historian no better, no worse. We ought to ask history to display the same humility that we have asked sociology to do. Just as we asked sociology to abandon its "social groups" and its "interests" and to allow the actors to define themselves, we ought to ask history to abandon its "periods," its "high points," its "development," and its "great breaks." Nothing would be lost by this, for the actors are just as good historians as sociologists. Something would surely be gained by this: instead of explaining the movements of the actors by time and dates, we would explain at last the construction of time itself on the basis of the agents' own translations. (51)

To discover the microbe is not a matter of revealing at last the "true agent" under all the other, now "false" ones. In order to discover the "true" agent, it is necessary in addition to show that the new translation also includes all the manifestations of the earlier agents and to put an end to the argument of those who want to find it other names. It is not enough to say simply to the Academie, "Here's a new agent." It must be said throughout France, in the court as well as in town and country, "Ah, so that was what was happening under the vague name of anthrax!" Then, and only then, bypassing the laboratory becomes impossible. To discover is not to lift the veil. It is to construct, to relate, and then to "place under." (81)

The very existence of anthrax as an agent disturbing the peace of the countryside depended on a first science, statistical epidemiology. This anthrax was no more "outside" than Pasteur's anthrax. It was simply in the offices of the Ministry of Agriculture, obtained by movements of civil servants, researchers, and inspectors, which made it possible to obtain the mortality figures and, in a single spot, the statistics. This evidence is always forgotten: neither the existence of anthrax as a national danger nor the efficacy of Pasteur's vaccine as a national salvation would have been visible without this first measuring apparatus, the statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture, whose history must be written in the same terms. (91-92)

"Well, Mister Know-It-All, did Pasteur discover the cause of anthrax or not?"

Now I should like to reply at last in the affirmative. But this affirmative is also accompanied by a lot of accessories. Once the statistical apparatus that reveals the danger of anthrax and the efficacy of the vaccine, has been stabilized, once at the Institut Pasteur the procedures for weakening, conditioning, and sending the vaccine microbe have been stabilized, once Pasteur has linked his bacillus with each of the movements made by the "anthrax," then and only then is the double impression made: the microbe has been discovered and the vaccine is distributed everywhere. This double projection in time and space is not false; it only takes long, like any projection in the cinema, to construct, to focus, and to tune. I would be prepared to say that Pasteur had "really discovered" the truth of the microbe at last, if the word "true" would add more than confusion. (93)

[AskHistorians]

Latour does a good job at showing the social and cultural prerequisites necessary to encourage the French to accept Pasteur's microbes as revealed truth, as well as the process by which these conditions are obscured in favor of the "Great Man" thesis.

[Jerry Balzano]

I'm actually reading the "appended" manifesto "Irreductions", which is absolutely brilliant.

[Keming Gao · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absurdly good book. I cannot recommend it enough. What begins as a seemingly academic and dry analysis of forces involved in the development of germ theory ends with a glorious spinout into an innovative form that blends poetry, satire, analytic philosophy, rants and raves, and ends with a window into the author's thoughts in his final moments before he is immolated by nuclear missiles. 10/10 incredible literary/scientific/philosophical/observational/political/anthropological whatever work.

[Ms211 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part one only

[Dan Zarfati · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book, providing a clear example on how an agenda and manipulation and clever presentation of data could make up "heroes", masking up a more complex picture of reality.

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did not expect that reading War and Peace would have prepared me to read this

[Bella Baxter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Μια κοινωνιολογική μελέτη για το πώς οι ιδέες του Παστέρ (η θεωρία των μικροβίων) έγιναν ευρέως αποδεκτές και άλλαξαν τη Γαλλία. Ο Λατούρ αναλύει ένα "δίκτυο δυνάμεων" —όπως το κίνημα δημόσιας υγιεινής, οι γιατροί, οι πολιτικοί— που συνεργάστηκαν για να κάνουν την "παστερίωση" εφικτή.
Ο κεντρικός σκοπός του Λατούρ, ως φιλόσοφος της επιστήμης, είναι να αμφισβητήσει τον παραδοσιακό τρόπο που βλέπουμε την επιστημονική πρόοδο. Θέλει να δείξει ότι η επιστήμη και η κοινωνία οικοδομούνται ταυτόχρονα. Δεν ήταν μόνο η ιδιοφυΐα του Παστέρ, αλλά η ικανότητά του να "στρατολογήσει" συμμάχους (αγρότες, βιομήχανους, στρατιωτικούς γιατρούς) και να μετατρέψει τον κόσμο σε ένα "εργαστήριο" όπου τα μικρόβια μπορούσαν να δράσουν.
Ο Λουί Παστέρ παρουσιάζεται όχι μόνο ως ένας λαμπρός επιστήμονας, αλλά ως ένας ικανός "στρατηγός" και διπλωμάτης. Έχει την ικανότητα να πείθει, να οργανώνει και να επιβάλλει τη δική του οπτική .
Είναι ένα βιβλίο που θεωρώ απαραίτητο για ένα παιδί που ενδιαφέρεται πραγματικά για το πώς λειτουργεί η επιστήμη πέρα από τους μύθους. Η προσέγγιση του Λατούρ είναι ευφυής και σε κάνει να βλέπεις τον κόσμο με άλλο μάτι.
Μια συναρπαστική ματιά στο παρασκήνιο της επιστήμης .

[Read a Book · Rating 1 out of 5]

Going against much of the crowd, the first part of the work has significantly more substance than his 'Irreductions.' Latour is clearly a significant scholar on the subject of science and technology policy and history, yet the translation to English is spotty and sometimes difficult to read. However, I could easily see why the second part of his work is more appealing, and is more forward thinking than his "War and Peace of Microbes."