The Beginnings of Bacteriology in American Medicine: Activities of Frederick Novy 1888-1933.

Abstract

Frederick Novy (1864-1957) was a leader among a new breed of full-time bacteriologists at American medical schools in the 1890s. Historians have not provided comprehensive accounts of these early bacteriology researchers. I describe Novy’s research and educational activities at the University of Michigan Medical School from 1891-1933, using them as a window to examine meanings of bacteriology in medicine, medical education and American society. In his medical school laboratory, Novy focused on designing innovative technology to visualize microbes and their behavior. Novy also used a makeshift bacteriology laboratory to define plague’s unusual behavior, although he could not find a biological basis for its aberrancy or convince citizens to adopt anti-plague actions. In addition, Novy developed the first full semester laboratory-based bacteriology course in America in 1889. Novy’s activities do not conform to traditional characterizations of early bacteriology in America as a merely practical application of European-derived theories. What can be learned from Novy’s composite activities at a time when laboratory science in medicine was new? His focus was on technical objectivity—devising novel instruments as a means of gaining an accurate understanding of microbes and their behavior. Through his scientific conduct, disinterested motives, and teachings, he embodied a code of ethics—a duty to search for objective truths above other commitments, whether they be practical application or personal gain. Novy intended to legitimate pure laboratory science, with disciplined hard work, search for truths, and moral code, by establishing noble “spirit” as a norm of behavior for all medical students, researchers and practitioners alike. Novy’s colleagues and students viewed his norm of “pure” science as adding legitimacy to a medical profession in need of certainty. Novy’s students saw his effort as uplifting the overall quality of medical education. The meanings of Novy’s science in American society can be viewed through the novel Arrowsmith, a representation of Novy’s activities as told by his student, Paul de Kruif. Sinclair Lewis, who collaborated with de Kruif to write Arrowsmith, offered laboratory science as having potential to provide a resonant truth and substance to an early 20th century American society portrayed as bereft of meaning.