TheMaterialismofBiologicalEncounters 151
places, a doubt as to how benevolent the United States had been to its
Little Brothers—Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua—and the editors and
politicians were grateful to Martin for this proof of their sacrifice and
tenderwatchfulness.(385)Arrowsmithstands at the intersection of literature (literary satire),
pop-cultural storytelling, and also non-fiction science writing. It is, as
Charles Rosenberg in his influential reading of the novel has
emphasized, a "recapitulation in one man's life of the development of
medicine in the United States. Each stage of Arrowsmith's career
correspondstoaparticularstageintheevolutionofAmericanmedicine"
(450). Sections of the novel were written in collaboration with Paul de
Kruif, soon ofMicrobe Huntersfame. De Kruif, then a fellow at the
Rockefeller Institute,^98 provided Lewis with insider information about
laboratory procedure and also with some portrayals of fictional
characters; he also got a portion of the royalties (Fangerau 82-86;
Rosenberg448-53;Schorer432-34).
Later variants of the medical Sherlock format are for the most part
unabashedly pop-cultural, among them Dustin Hoffman inOutbreak
(1995, Wolfgang Peterson, dir.). In this film which rehearses some of
the motifs of Richard Preston's non-fiction bestseller,The Hot Zone
(1994), Hoffman stars as Col. Sam Daniels, a leading virologist of the
United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases
(USAMRIID).Inoneofitsearliestscenes,thefilmtakescaretoexplain
thedivisionoflaborgoverningthesubsequentaction:priortosettingout
for the mission, a General informs Daniels: "I'm the bureaucrat, you're
the detective, remember?" (Dworet and Pool 9). In the main plot of the
filmic narrative Daniels does act the part thus defined, finding out
almost single-handedly the hidden ties which have brought the deadly
virus "out of Africa" and into an unsuspecting suburban community in
California. What is more, like his hard-boiled predecessors in the urban
(^98) The Rockefeller Foundation, during the 1920s and 1930s, was active
internationally in programs against smallpox. For the geographical and
geocultural aspects involved cf. Hochman, Gilberto. "Priority, Invisibility and
Eradication:TheHistoryofSmallpox andtheBrazilianPublic Health Agenda."
MedicalHistory53.2(2009):229-52.Print.