TheMaterialismofBiologicalEncounters 129
a totally new form of journalism, one that was interested in fresh, often
short-livedbutalwayssensationalnews.^80
Diseases, especially dangerous mass diseases were just "the right
stuff" for this type of journalism. For the price of a nickel (hence its
name), these tabloids provided easy-to-read stories about real or
imagined deadly diseases. As Nancy Tomes has shown, "[m]akers and
distributors of new forms of mass media, including newspapers,
magazines, films, and radio, discovered that stories about disease
outbreaks and treatments helped to sell their own and their advertisers'
products" ("Epidemic Entertainments" 628).^81 What the journalists and
other media people learned, in other words, is that disease sells, and
epidemic disease sells absolutely. For "an effective disease 'sell'" (628)
not all pathologies were equally useful but only those that were
somehow "dark," mysterious in their workings, interventionist and at
least potentially deadly—a description to which infectious diseases
causedbyintensifiedhumanmobilityansweredperfectly.
Inkeepingwiththisoverallrationale,then,anew,"differentstyleof
reportage featured what might be styled mini-epidemics; that is,
comparatively small outbreaks of an unusual disease garnered intense
but short-lived newspaper attention, often with an overtly political
purpose in view" (Tomes, "Epidemic Entertainments" 630). All of the
above explains the intense media attention to "Typhoid Mary." Another
good example of such a "mini-epidemic" that was essentially the
brainchild of the media and not based on medical findings is the so-
calledParrotFeverepidemicof1929/1930.^82 Psittacosis,orparrotfever,
(^80) For the evolvement of the popular media, I am indebted,interalia, to Tomes
("EpidemicEntertainments"628-43)andFellow(85-109).
(^81) ThisillustratesTomes'slargerpoint,namelythat"portrayalsofdeadlydisease
function as cultural commodities... Narratives of disease serve not only as
personal accounts or ideological markers of cultural anxieties; they also
constitute potentially profitable forms of news and entertainment" ("Epidemic
Entertainments"627).
(^82) Aside from an article in theJournal of Avian Medicine and Surgeryplus
occasionalbriefreferencessuchastheoneinHughCook's2005novelBamboo
Horses, my narrative depends almost completely on historian Jill Lepore's "It's
Spreading."LeporealsoquotesfromanarticlebyE.B.Whiteinthe1930erNew
Yorkerwhich reflects on the larger cultural ramification of the media creating