Miasmata

Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) established that some diseases are caused by microorganisms and not, as was thought to be the case at the time, by miasmas, evil spirits or divine intervention. Despite the scepticism of physicians, as illustrated above, Pasteur s work inspired a British surgeon, Joseph Lister, to introduce antiseptic methods into surgery in order to prevent wound infection. In March 1865, he operated for the first time using an antiseptic, carbolic acid (phenol). There were no infections after the surgery - a rare occurrence at that time. 

Lockyer s studies of the solar spectrum revealed to him that the sun is a miasma of chemical elements. Where did they come from In 1873 Lockyer developed the theory, later expounded in his Chemistry of the Sun (1887), that in the hottest (blue-white) stars the stellar matter is broken apart into the constituents of atoms themselves subatomieparticles, the protyle discussed by Dumas. Then, as the stars cooled, these particles combined to form regular elements - including some, like helium, not (then) known on Earth. 

Actaea asiatica . Lai Ye Sheng Ma (Asian baneberry) (aerial part) frans-Aconitic acid. This herb is toxic.51 A prophylactic against pestilence, malaria, evil miasma. 

Astilbe longicarpa (Hay.) Hayata A. chinensis (Maxim.) Franch. et Sav. Luo Xing Fu (whole plant) Astilbin, bergenin, quercetin, 2-hydroxphenylacetic acid.53 Antitoxic, against pestilence, malaria, evil miasma. 

Cholera is a dreadful disease. It causes diarrhea so severe that a person suffering from it can lose as much as ten liters of water in a day. If left untreated, cholera can lead to rapid dehydration and death within a few days. The disease first appeared in Europe in 1831, an import from the Indian subcontinent, where it was endemic. Over fifty-thousand Britons died within a year, sparking widespread panic. Physicians didn t know what to do. They plied their patients with arsenic and strychnine, they gave them tobacco enemas, they wrapped them in flannel soaked in turpentine, they bled them with leeches, and they blistered them with nitric acid. All, of course, to no avail. No one knew what caused the disease, but the prevailing opinion seemed to be that cholera was somehow transmitted by the bad air, or miasma, that emanated from the sick and from garbage. One London dentist actually announced that the... 

The preceding paragraphs were a rough outline of the gradual dispersal of the miasma veiling the catalytic processes further, it should once more be underlined that catalysis, from the phenomenological standpoint, does not occupy any specific position in the group of processes which take place at phase boundaries. 

DOB is purported to move the user s point of view to "the edge of reality." In other words, one s locus of identity tends to become detached and objective in a manner reminiscent to the "witness consciousness" described in various spiritual traditions. Some claim that in this condition unpleasant or "dark" aspects of one s life and psyche can be examined especially closely, because although the pain associated with such observations may be experienced intensely, the user does not necessarily lose his or her sense of self within the ensuing emotional miasma. This quality purportedly allows users to inspect these less-savory dimensions of their existence with a diminished sense of threat. 

That there is some cursed item in your house that is spreading evil as the miasma of a fetid marsh spreads fever. It is a talisman in reverse, a source of misfortune instead of good. Whatever it is, it should be hunted down and destroyed. Alfeo can at least identify the source of the evil for you. ... 

Shrewsbury S, Pyke S, Britton M. A meta-analysis of increasing inhaled steroid or adding salmeterol in symptomatic asthma (MIASMA). Br Med J 2000 320 1368-1373. 

Heinrich von Staden notes in early Greek culture a recurrent, well-known tradition according to which women are exceptionally susceptible to impurity and dirt ( Women and Dirt, Helios 19 (1992), 13) see also Parker, Miasma, 101-3. 

Parker, Robert. Miasma Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion. Oxford Clarendon Press, 1983. 

Miasma Poisonous vapor formerly supposed to arise from decomposing animal or vegetable matter. swamps, etc. 

Smeth objected (with reason) to the name fixed air , since it has no true relation to common air. It is the astus of the ancients. Van Helmont s gas syl-vestre, and Boyle s factitious air, which occurs in the Grotto del Cane and other caves. It varies with the body from which it is disengaged and does not exist ready formed in bodies it is a miasma composed of the detritus from the collision of the particles of solids and liquids, being formed only by the violent... 

In 1773 the cathedral of Dijon became so infected by putrid exhalations from bodies buried in it that it was deserted. De Morveau, suspecting that the miasma were rich in ammonia gas, purified it by fumigation with hydrochloric acid gas generated from salt and sulphuric acid. ... 

Of conrse, cholera followed, but no one could at first understand what caused the disease - it was thought by many to be transmitted by the foul smell which was called miasma . However, London physician John Snow demonstrated that there was a connection between cholera and sewage-contaminated water supplies when he traced an outbreak of cholera in Broad Street, Soho, in which 127 people died in August 1854, to a particular source of contaminated water. 

Before the late nineteenth century, disease was perceived to be caused by bad air , or miasmas. By the turn of the twentieth century, the miasmic model of harm had been replaced by germ theory. Within 40 years, a model of pollution developed that privileged linear causal links between a discrete pollutant and its pollution, and the quantification of harm. 

Miasmas exemplify what I call the influence model of harm, in contrast to the particle model of harm used today that describes the actions of discrete pollutants. Models, as Mary Morgan and Margaret Morrison (1999) explain in Models as Mediators, provide us with a tool for investigation, giving the user the potential to learn about the world or about theories or both because of their characteristics of autonomy and representational power, and their... 

This chapter first outlines the miasma theory of disease, the influence model of harm and our current model of pollution, focusing on each model s internal architecture and physical form its agency, or mechanism of harm and its geography, or the spatial relations within bodies and the spaces outside of them. It then compares the two models with the phenomenon of plastic body burdens. Each model generates modes and points of intervention, and I argue that the miasma theory provides better representations, and thereby more appropriate interventions for mitigating the effects of bodily plastic pollution, than current dominant models and solutions. 

Miasmas were inextricable from the landscape, urban architecture and the human population. Their mechanism of harm was not direct, but additive and somewhat mysterious weather, personal histories, architecture, diet, the alignment of stars, the location of cesspools, plumbing and employment conditions all had to be counted by physicians trying to cure the sick, and by sanitarians aiming to reduce the presence of miasmas in their locales. As... 

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