David Barnes, assistant professor in the History of Science Department, stands before a photograph of a streetscape in the Rue du Petit-Croissant, le Havre, ca. 1900, a working-class neighborhood devastated by tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. Barnes studies the intersection of the history of medicine and the history of disgust. Photo by Kris Snibbe.

In a world remarkably similar to and yet distinct from our own, Parisians of 1880 flew into a panic when putrid odors suddenly engulfed their fair city. The French were not just nauseated by the stench, which most believed originated in the controversial sewer system. They feared for their lives.

Stories of the malodorous waftings "were in the newspapers nearly every day, while in Parliament and other governmental circles, the odors were discussed in depth," says David Barnes, assistant professor in the History of Science Department, who has dubbed the smelly phenomenon "The Great Stink of 1880." "It was seen as an urgent problem because it was widely believed that, because of the stench, a confluence of epidemics was either under way or imminent."

Barnes, whose first book is The Making of a Social Disease: Tuberculosis in Nineteenth-Century France (University of California Press, 1995), is now studying the intersection of the history of medicine and the history of disgust. On his journey through the primary French materials that form the foundation of his research, Barnes has found that a complex tapestry of social, political, and scientific threads defined and informed perceptions of health hazards, bodily substances, social order, and epidemic disease in late 19th-century France. He focuses on The Great Sink of 1880 as "the most vivid and fascinating glimpse into this phenomenon."

For centuries miasmatism -- the belief that infectious diseases were borne through the air in the noxious emanations of putrid organic matter -- held sway with many medical practitioners and the general public. But by the late 19th century a new understanding -- that of bacteriology -- was beginning to gain credibility in the public eye.

This new science held that specifically defined microorganisms, and not malodors, were the culprits in spreading disease. Louis Pasteur was the father of bacteriology, so it may seem anomalous that he would have been one of the leaders who, along with his contagionist allies, cried out that these bad smells could indeed spread disease among the populace.

But as Barnes points out, The Great Stink occurred at a time of tremendous flux in French history. "During the period 1870 to 1914," he says, "no other industrialized country in the world experienced such deep conflict, change, and crisis in so many realms as did France. French authorities fretted over an apparent increase in indices of immorality such as alcoholism and venereal disease, a sharp decline in national prestige and military might, mortality rates from infectious diseases far higher than those of rival nations, acute class conflict, and governmental instability.

"So just as Pasteur and his colleagues were proclaiming that old-fashioned ideas about miasmas and other vague influences were bankrupt and had to be replaced by the modern germ theory, along came these odors," Barnes continues. "In 1880, advocates of germ theory were confident enough to assert their authority, and yet were eager to communicate their vision of germs to wide audiences not yet convinced. Meanwhile, the lingering association of disease with foul-smelling substances was so strong that it could never be completely abandoned, even by scientists.

"Over the ensuing decades," says Barnes, "episodes of foul odors recurred periodically in Paris, but fewer and fewer people claimed that they were actually spreading disease, even though the smells were extremely unpleasant. Odors eventually became a matter of comfort more than of public health."

Barnes sees fascinating parallels between 19th-century France and America today. "I have noticed that, today, in more subtle ways, germs remain firmly associated with dirty and disgusting things," he says. "For example, prime-time television news magazine shows occasionally run stories in which they explore the hidden danger of germs in our everyday lives. Inevitably they focus on particular locations for study -- a classic place is a New York City subway car. The scientist swabs a subway pole and then confirms the presence of germs that cause horrible diseases. But they don't ask, 'Are people actually getting sick with these diseases at these locations?' And you'll notice they never go into a meadow in springtime and take a sample off the ground, although germs are everywhere and one could certainly find plenty of them, even in beautiful places."

Has the modern world fallen prey to germ neuroses that future generations will view with as much amusement as we do the miasmatists? "You cannot take medical science out of the world in which it has meaning. These elements are not separate," says Barnes. "I don't believe that because there's this profound connection between medical imperatives and cultural imperatives, that medical science and public health are a big self- delusion. Far from it. In many important ways, the focus on the danger of 'disgusting' substances like human excrement has galvanized tremendous positive change over the years.

"Disgust can be a very helpful thing," Barnes concludes, "but we should never fool ourselves into thinking that our knowledge about disease is strictly objective or unaffected by culture and emotions."