Little monstersAfter the germ theory of disease in the 1890s, disinfectants became the method of choice to control foot-and-mouth disease. This gave rise to a new industry of disinfection. William Schupbach, Curator of the Iconographic Collections in the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, explains. |
How did people control foot-and-mouth disease in the past? After the establishment of the germ theory of disease in the 1890s, disinfectants became the method of choice, giving rise to a new industry of disinfection.
One of the companies that seized this opportunity was Laboratoires Anios, which was founded in Lille in 1898 by a chemist called Collet-Delval, originally to sell products and services to clean the vats of the growing brewing industry of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais. The Anios firm is still based near Lille today, offering hygiene services to industry, hospitals, kitchens and old people's homes, throughout Europe and the Middle East.
A poster in the Wellcome Library dating from around 1910 shows representatives of different occupations pouring liquid Anios disinfectant or throwing the powdered equivalent at the microbes of infectious diseases. The microbes are represented as little monsters: anthrax and foot-and-mouth disease ('Fièvre Aphteuse') for the farm workers; cholera and tuberculosis for the waiters and cafe society from the city; and mildew presumably for the postman!
Strangely, they seem to be standing on the clifftop to prevent the microbes from crossing the Channel: I wonder why?