Historian David S. Barnes examines the birth of a new microbe-centered science of public health during the 1880s and 1890s, when the germ theory of disease burst into public consciousness. Tracing a series of developments in French science, medicine, politics, and culture, Barnes reveals how the science and practice of public health changed during the heyday of the Bacteriological Revolution.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [271]-306) and index.

Introduction -- "Not everything that stinks kills" : odors and germs on the streets of Paris, 1880 -- The santiarian's legacy, or how health became public -- Taxonomies of transmission : local etiologies and the equivocal triumph of germ theory -- Putting germ theory into practice -- Toward a cleaner and healthier republic -- Odors and "infection," 1880 and beyond -- The legacy of the twentieth century.