Typhoid, Cockles, and Terrorism: The turbulent history of Anglo-Irish typhoid control in revolutionary Dublin
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Paediatrics
Abstract
Typhoid, Cockles, and Terrorism uncovers the intimate connection between imperial and revolutionary public health politics in 20th century Dublin. Our project anchors and expands a multi-award winning Anglo-Irish research collaboration on the international history of typhoid and uses digital humanities approaches to:
a) conduct innovative research on the (post)colonial politics of Anglo-Irish public health and typhoid control in Dublin.
b) design a major blended physical/digital exhibition and educational resources on Dublin's enteric past, and
c) create a pioneering open access database of spatially coded historical disease, environmental, and infrastructural data.
Our project explores the impact and limits of imperial sanitary and microbiological interventions in the turbulent context of colonial and revolutionary Ireland. Forthcoming research by our named postdoc, Emily Webster (University of Chicago), indicates that cities like Dublin and Belfast struggled with typhoid fever epidemics well into the twentieth century despite adopting water and sewer systems modelled on the metropolitan design of London and comparable regulations of food and milk supplies.
We will use a mix of historical and digital humanities methods to analyse and digitise historical disease data, medical correspondence, cultural ephemera, infrastructural records, and meteorological data to understand why British bacteriological and sanitary interventions proved impractical in Dublin and how they were perceived by local populations. We will focus specifically on how a London-inspired sewage system inadvertently contaminated Dublin's shellfish banks, which were an important source of sustenance for poorer segments of the population, the effects of limited investment in public health laboratory capacity, and how a local mental asylum was used to test English-developed typhoid vaccines.
Imperial public health politics had long-term consequences. Over time, British authorities' relative neglect of Irish public health became a rallying cry for supporters of Irish independence. Our project explores how Irish revolutionaries argued for better preventive action against typhoid but were also implicated in one of the earliest bioterrorism scares when Sinn Féin was accused of trying to contaminate the milk supply of British troops with typhoid in 1920. Even after independence was achieved, imperial legacies remained in the form of sanitary infrastructures and a pronounced public health focus on Catholic hygiene habits and religious practices - including shellfish consumption at wakes.
Our research will create an important academic legacy in the form of a tailor-made open access database of geospatially coded disease, infrastructural, hydrological, and meteorological data as well as typhoid-related cultural ephemera. We will also design an innovative blended physical-digital exhibition on typhoid in Dublin. The exhibition will be hosted at Dublin City Library and Archive (DCLA) and the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland (RCPI). It will feature documents and objects relating to the city's infectious past. We will draw on the success of our multi-award winning international Typhoidland exhibitions to design cutting-edge animations and virtual tours of typhoid prevalence and sanitary interventions over time as well as educational resources and games on vaccine development and hygiene (Mary Mallon's Cooking Class/ Sir Almost Right's Vaccine Lab). All outputs will be made available open access on our www.typhoidland.org website and will be integrated into our museum partners' well-developed outreach programs for schools and local audiences.
By reconstructing the turbulent history of typhoid control in 20th century Dublin, Typhoid, Cockles, and Terrorism will make significant contributions to research and engage audiences from all age groups on the importance of equitable access to effective sanitary infrastructure and vaccines.
a) conduct innovative research on the (post)colonial politics of Anglo-Irish public health and typhoid control in Dublin.
b) design a major blended physical/digital exhibition and educational resources on Dublin's enteric past, and
c) create a pioneering open access database of spatially coded historical disease, environmental, and infrastructural data.
Our project explores the impact and limits of imperial sanitary and microbiological interventions in the turbulent context of colonial and revolutionary Ireland. Forthcoming research by our named postdoc, Emily Webster (University of Chicago), indicates that cities like Dublin and Belfast struggled with typhoid fever epidemics well into the twentieth century despite adopting water and sewer systems modelled on the metropolitan design of London and comparable regulations of food and milk supplies.
We will use a mix of historical and digital humanities methods to analyse and digitise historical disease data, medical correspondence, cultural ephemera, infrastructural records, and meteorological data to understand why British bacteriological and sanitary interventions proved impractical in Dublin and how they were perceived by local populations. We will focus specifically on how a London-inspired sewage system inadvertently contaminated Dublin's shellfish banks, which were an important source of sustenance for poorer segments of the population, the effects of limited investment in public health laboratory capacity, and how a local mental asylum was used to test English-developed typhoid vaccines.
Imperial public health politics had long-term consequences. Over time, British authorities' relative neglect of Irish public health became a rallying cry for supporters of Irish independence. Our project explores how Irish revolutionaries argued for better preventive action against typhoid but were also implicated in one of the earliest bioterrorism scares when Sinn Féin was accused of trying to contaminate the milk supply of British troops with typhoid in 1920. Even after independence was achieved, imperial legacies remained in the form of sanitary infrastructures and a pronounced public health focus on Catholic hygiene habits and religious practices - including shellfish consumption at wakes.
Our research will create an important academic legacy in the form of a tailor-made open access database of geospatially coded disease, infrastructural, hydrological, and meteorological data as well as typhoid-related cultural ephemera. We will also design an innovative blended physical-digital exhibition on typhoid in Dublin. The exhibition will be hosted at Dublin City Library and Archive (DCLA) and the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland (RCPI). It will feature documents and objects relating to the city's infectious past. We will draw on the success of our multi-award winning international Typhoidland exhibitions to design cutting-edge animations and virtual tours of typhoid prevalence and sanitary interventions over time as well as educational resources and games on vaccine development and hygiene (Mary Mallon's Cooking Class/ Sir Almost Right's Vaccine Lab). All outputs will be made available open access on our www.typhoidland.org website and will be integrated into our museum partners' well-developed outreach programs for schools and local audiences.
By reconstructing the turbulent history of typhoid control in 20th century Dublin, Typhoid, Cockles, and Terrorism will make significant contributions to research and engage audiences from all age groups on the importance of equitable access to effective sanitary infrastructure and vaccines.
Publications
Kirchhelle Claas
(2022)
Typhoid: The past, present, and future of an ancient disease
Puttick N
(2023)
Representation of ethnic and racial minority groups in European vaccine trials: a quantitative analysis of clinical trials registries
in BMJ Public Health
Saldanha S
(2022)
Between paternalism and illegality: a longitudinal analysis of the role and condition of manual scavengers in India.
in BMJ global health
Thomas T
(2023)
The collective voice of early phase COVID-19 vaccine trial participants: Insights for improving confidence in novel vaccines
in Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics
Title | Imperial Typhoid In Bangalore |
Description | Join Suresh, a teenager from colonial Bangalore, on a journey through space and time to explore the many faces of typhoid fever in Bengaluru. |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Year Produced | 2022 |
Impact | Increased engagement from India. |
URL | https://typhoidland.org/our-research/imperial-typhoid-in-bengaluru/ |
Description | From Research to Engagement Workshop |
Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
URL | https://www.hsmt.ox.ac.uk/event/workshop-from-research-to-engagement-social-sciences-and-infectious-... |
Description | Typhoid Elimination: Challenges and Opportunities |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
URL | https://www.coalitionagainsttyphoid.org/typhoid-conference/past-conferences/12th-conference-resource... |
Description | Medical and Digital Humanities Lunchtime Workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | A talks to hear from scholars working in Medical Humanities and how they make use of digital tools in their research. Xiurong Zhao, the Gale Asia Pacific Digital Humanities Oxford Fellow, discussed her use of GIS mapping for disease in Victorian England; Jo Hedesan discussed digital humanities and early modern medicine; and Samantha Vanderslott shared her insights from the multi-media Typhoidland project. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/610d589d-b1cf-48c0-b59b-948441a2b245/ |