“The Gospel of Germs: Microbes, Media, and Medicine in American Culture, 1870-1920” by Prof. John Warner

John Harley Warner, award-winning author and Avalon Professor of the History of Medicine at Yale University will present this fascinating illustrated lecture on media and medicine generously sponsored in part by CT Humanities. Physicians, nurses, public health officials, and the manufacturers of new hygienic products sought to convince the public that something invisible—the microbe—posed a dire threat to their health and lives. This talk explores the ways that such vehicles of popular education as health pageants, children’s plays, parades, posters, exhibitions, and silent films were enlisted in the crusade to convert the public to “the gospel of germs,” leading to a profound transformation in the ways that Americans conduct their daily lives that persist through the present.