The Army's Medical Research Program During World War II

When the U.S. military created a bioweapons research program at Fort Detrick, Maryland, following World War II, it enlisted microbiology in the production of modern warfare. Biological weapons magnify the potential of germs to harm humans, remaking the terms of risk to account for natures that have been engineered to be more contagious, fatal, and far-reaching. This alliance between war and science also bracketed certain ways of knowing nature by creating spaces and mechanisms to control microbes according to human desires. Beyond the weapon itself, bioweapons research promulgated knowledge of containment, designing top-secret, high-security laboratory spaces for the safe study of deadly microbes, thereby materializing the belief that microbes must (and could) be contained.

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The Economics of Crisis Innovation Policy: A Historical Perspective

AEA Papers and Proceedings ◽

10.1257/pandp.20211106 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 111 ◽

pp. 346-350

Author(s):

Daniel P. Gross ◽

Bhaven N. Sampat

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Medical Research ◽

Historical Perspective ◽

Research Policy ◽

Innovation Policy ◽

Research Effort ◽

World War ◽

War Effort ◽

Flu Vaccine

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, policymakers, researchers, and journalists have made comparisons to World War II. In 1940, a group of top US science administrators organized a major coordinated research effort to support the Allied war effort, including significant investments in medical research that yielded innovations like mass-produced penicillin, antimalarials, and a flu vaccine. We draw on this episode to discuss the economics of crisis innovation. Since the objectives of crisis R&D are different than ordinary R&D, we argue that appropriate R&D policy in a crisis requires going beyond the standard Nelson-Arrow framework for research policy.

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Chinese Area Studies in Prewar China: Japan's Tōa Dōbun Shoin in Shanghai, 1900–1945

The Journal of Asian Studies ◽

10.2307/2056604 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 45 (5) ◽

pp. 945-970 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Douglas R. Reynolds

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

East Asia ◽

Research Program ◽

Academic Discipline ◽

World War ◽

Government Service ◽

Area Studies ◽

Common Culture ◽

History Of ◽

Training And Research

The history of “area studies” as an academic discipline remains to be written. When it is, it will have to begin with a little known, historically important Japanese institution in China. That institution, Tōa Dōbun Shoin (East Asia Common Culture Academy or, after 1939, College) in Shanghai, 1900–1945, was established to train young Japanese for business and government service related to China. The author focuses upon the area studies dimensions of this pioneering institution's training and research program. After identifying five requisites of area studies training and research, he moves on to examine the origins, raison d'être, and meaning of Tōa Dōbun Shoin's program and to chart the phases of that program's development through each of the five requisites. In important ways, the center's curriculum, facilities, research, and publications equalled or surpassed the best American post–World War II language and area programs.

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Child Infectious Morbidity in the USSR during the World War II

Kazan medical journal ◽

10.17816/kmj2020-452 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 101 (3) ◽

pp. 452-458

Author(s):

S A Sher ◽

V Yu Albitskiy ◽

A A Baranov

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Medical Research ◽

Early Years ◽

Control Measures ◽

World War ◽

Public Health Services ◽

Sexually Transmitted ◽

Childhood Infections ◽

Infectious Morbidity ◽

Wide Range

This article presents the results of a historical and medical research reflecting infectious morbidity among children during the Second World War (the Great Patriotic War 19411945). The research, based on archival and literary sources, aims to highlight the situation with infectious morbidity of children in the USSR during the war. The study is relevant because the majority of historical and medical research devoted to the war had been carried out in the Soviet epoch and did not always depict an objective image due to the ideological concepts of that time, which often prohibited the publication of certain information. Inconsiderable in number studies have been conducted on this topic in post-Soviet Russia, yet are selective or localized. A review of a wide range of sources provides an independent perspective on the dramatic situation concerning the significant increase of childhood infections during the war both in the occupied territory and in the regions of childrens evacuation. As a result of systemic control measures carried out by central and regional public health services, childhood infections had not become endemic. Despite the rising number of tuberculosis cases, sexually transmitted diseases, and malaria in the early years of the war, further spread of the socially significant pathologies was prevented.

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Child Infectious Morbidity in the USSR during the World War II

Global Journal of Medical Research ◽

10.34257/gjmrkvol20is3pg33 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 33-37

Author(s):

Sher S.A. ◽

Albitskiy V.Yu. ◽

Baranov A.A.

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Medical Research ◽

Early Years ◽

Control Measures ◽

World War ◽

Public Health Services ◽

Childhood Infections ◽

Infectious Morbidity ◽

Wide Range ◽

Soviet Russia

This article presents the results of historical and medical research reflecting infectious morbidity among children during the Second World War (the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945). The research is based on archival and literary sources. The study is relevant because the majority of historical and medical research devoted to the war had been carried out in the Soviet epoch and did not always depict an objective image due to the ideological concepts of that time, which often prohibited the publication of certain information. Inconsiderable in number studies have been conducted on this topic in post-Soviet Russia, yet are selective or localized. A review of a wide range of sources provides an independent perspective on the dramatic situation concerning the significant increase of childhood infections during the war. As a result of systemic control measures carried out by public health services, childhood infections had not become endemic. Despite the rising number of tuberculosis cases, STDs, and malaria in the early years of the war, further spread of the socially significant pathologies was prevented.

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The Summing Up: The Astonishing Successes of the LMB and the Dawn of a New Structural Biological Era

Architects of Structural Biology ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198854500.003.0010 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 247-266

Author(s):

John Meurig Thomas

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Molecular Biology ◽

Neurodegenerative Diseases ◽

Medical Research ◽

Research Council ◽

Scientific Research ◽

World War ◽

Cavendish Laboratory ◽

Biological Unit ◽

Immense Potential

The contrast between the related pre-World War II attitudes to scientific research and those of the current era are described and how this affects modern research. There follows a summary of the numerous major achievements in advanced research conducted at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) from its existence as a biological unit at the Cavendish Laboratory from 1957 onwards. The impressive commercial successes of the LMB, made possible by recent changes in the policy of the Medical Research Council, are also outlined. The second half of the chapter describes the arrival, importance, and immense potential of electron cryo-microscopy (which is described in a non-technical manner) in structural molecular biology, with examples drawn from the study of neurodegenerative diseases and other areas of biology.

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