{"id":18441,"date":"2021-05-18T05:41:21","date_gmt":"2021-05-18T05:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/?p=18441"},"modified":"2025-08-03T08:50:31","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T06:50:31","slug":"who-and-miasma-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/sciencesurf\/2021\/05\/who-and-miasma-theory\/","title":{"rendered":"WHO and miasma theory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Coming from asthma and air pollution research I have supported aerosol research and mask wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic long before the WHO.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/science_surf\/status\/1283689607759114240\">https:\/\/twitter.com\/science_surf\/status\/1283689607759114240<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But wait there is an historical background for the dumb hand washing videos promoted by Maria Van Kerkhove during the first months of the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xcCDvpZt7bg\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwup-that-helped-covid-kill\/?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&amp;utm_campaign=e656772d64-briefing-dy-20210517&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-e656772d64-45855130\">WIRED<\/a> has the interesting story that goes far back into history.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Part of medical rhetoric is understanding why certain ideas take hold and others don\u2019t. So as spring turned to summer, Randall started to investigate how Wells\u2019 contemporaries perceived him. That\u2019s how she found the writings of Alexander Langmuir, the influential chief epidemiologist of the newly established CDC. Like his peers, Langmuir had been brought up in the Gospel of Personal Cleanliness, an obsession that made handwashing the bedrock of US public health policy. He seemed to view Wells\u2019 ideas about airborne transmission as retrograde, seeing in them a slide back toward an ancient, irrational terror of bad air\u2014the \u201cmiasma theory\u201d that had prevailed for centuries. Langmuir dismissed them as little more than \u201cinteresting theoretical points.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Addendum 24 Nov 2022<\/span><\/p>\n<p>two years later&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-25476\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/bafkreig6edmun7kooiml4xm5qnp57nxq4ejlcoyazkvwuixusiaxtoeuze-620x719.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"620\" height=\"719\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/bafkreig6edmun7kooiml4xm5qnp57nxq4ejlcoyazkvwuixusiaxtoeuze-620x719.jpg 620w, https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/bafkreig6edmun7kooiml4xm5qnp57nxq4ejlcoyazkvwuixusiaxtoeuze-431x500.jpg 431w, https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/bafkreig6edmun7kooiml4xm5qnp57nxq4ejlcoyazkvwuixusiaxtoeuze.jpg 722w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_21147\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-21147\" style=\"width: 620px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Bildschirmfoto-2022-11-24-um-07.57.21.jpg\" data-rel=\"key-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"key wp-image-21147 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Bildschirmfoto-2022-11-24-um-07.57.21-620x215.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"620\" height=\"215\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Bildschirmfoto-2022-11-24-um-07.57.21-620x215.jpg 620w, https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Bildschirmfoto-2022-11-24-um-07.57.21-768x266.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Bildschirmfoto-2022-11-24-um-07.57.21.jpg 919w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-21147\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">https:\/\/www.science.org\/content\/article\/who-s-departing-chief-scientist-regrets-errors-debate-over-whether-sars-cov-2-spreads<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"bottom-note\">\n  <span class=\"mod1\">CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 20.04.2026<\/span>\n <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coming from asthma and air pollution research I have supported aerosol research and mask wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic long before the WHO. https:\/\/twitter.com\/science_surf\/status\/1283689607759114240 But wait there is an historical background for the dumb hand washing videos promoted by Maria Van Kerkhove during the first months of the pandemic. WIRED has the interesting story that &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/sciencesurf\/2021\/05\/who-and-miasma-theory\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">WHO and miasma theory<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[3391],"class_list":["post-18441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-note-worthy","tag-covid-19"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18441"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25477,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18441\/revisions\/25477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}