X Disease | Disease X: Medical Mystery-Solving and Epidemiological Change

This thesis addresses epidemiological knowledge-making in the face of new, unknown, emerging diseases. It uses two cases, Australian X Disease of the early 1900s and Disease X of the dawning 2000s, to broadly interrogate how medical mystery-solvers marshall forms of experimentation and classification to identify and contain unknown diseases. While dominant theories of millenial disease preparedness emphasize treating emergent disease like other global, virulent epidemics like Zika and Ebola – comparisons of scale and scope – this thesis uses the Australian X Disease to argue for historical approaches to the medical unknown – comparisons through space and time. Given than epidemiological practice conditions what can be known as much as what is overlooked in the face of the unknown, such long-ranging investigative energy can be instructive contra the pitfalls of established medical practice.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Science, Technology and Society

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Robbins, Gabrielle

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Wallley, Christine J.

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
• Copyright retained by author(s)

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/147295

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/147295