This book addresses global concerns about microbial resistance. Combining historical case studies and first-hand practitioner accounts, it offers insights beyond current literature. Contributions from leading scholars, practitioners and policy makers explore outbreaks of MRSA and compare infection control measures in different case-study contexts.

Germs and governance brings together leading historians, practitioners and policy makers to consider the past, present and future of hospital infection control. Combining historical case-studies with practitioner experiences, this volume offers a new understanding of the emergence of theories of germ transmission and containment and how these theories played out in real-world environments, networks and professional organisations. Exploring the historical context in which technologies like gloves were developed and popularised, as well as how relationships between communities and hospitals, doctors and nurses, and the emerging role of hospital bacteriologists have shaped infection control practices, the collection emphasises the diverse contexts in which ideas about germs, infection and safety circulated. The volume also addresses the historical neglect of the critical role of nurses in the development and success of infection control measures.

Introduction – Marguerite Dupree, Anne Marie Rafferty and Fay Bound Alberti Part I: Policy and infection control 1 Hospital infections and the role of the community before MRSA, 1930–1960 – Flurin Condrau 2 Cleanliness costs: the evolving relationship between infection and length of stay in antibiotic-era hospitals – Sally Sheard Part II: Infection control: Nurses and medical students 3 Pus, pedagogy and practice: how ‘dirt’ shaped surgical nurse training and hierarchies of practice, 1900–1935 – Pamela Wood 4 Septic subjects: infection control and occupational illness in British hospitalsc. 1870–1970 – Claire L. Jones 5 Learning the art and science of infection prevention and control: a practical application – Susan Macqueen Part III: Practice and infection control: Focus on gloves 6 Wax paste and vaccination: alternatives to surgical gloves for infection control, 1880–1945 – Thomas Schlich 7 The evolving role of gloves in healthcare – Jennie Wilson Part IV: Practice and infection control: In the laboratory 8 Constructing the ‘Sanitary Officer’: the Pathologist’s role in infection prevention and control at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, 1892–1939 – Rosemary Cresswell 9 Infection control from the laboratory to the clinic: John H. Bowie and the Royal Infirmary of Edinburghc.1945–1970 – Susan Gardiner Part V: Into the future 10 Infection prevention and control in the twenty-first century: the era of patient safety – Neil Wigglesworth 11 Infection control and antimicrobial resistance: the past, the present and the future – Alistair Leanord Conclusion: using the past – Marguerite Dupree, Anne Marie Rafferty and Fay Bound Alberti Index