overview of scientific developments, published on the occasion of the world exhibition in Liège or the Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Liège in 1905: “Dans le développement grandiose des sciences biologiques au cours du dernier siècle, une large part revient, sans contredit, à la bactériologie. Aucune autre, parmi ces sciences, n’a fait autant et d’aussi rapides progrès. Il va une cinquantaine d’années, elle n’existait pas même de nom; aujourd’hui, la grandeur de ses découvertes et l’immense portée de leurs résultats l’imposent à l’universelle attention”.6 The beginning of the 20th century was the heyday for bacteriology. As a branch of microbiology, its development had been caused by the microscopic observations of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) during the second part of the 17th century. Only when researchers such as Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) proved a connection between bacteria and diseases and successfully immunized animals against diseases through vaccines and serums (1880-1881), the science of bacteriology gained its momentum.7 Around 1890, German physician Emil Adolf von Behring (1854-1917) discovered a serum
for the treatment of diphteria. After this discovery, serology became a “progressive and fast-growing branch of pathological bacteriology” and there was a hope that other bacteriological conditions could be treated with a serum as well.8 One of the scientists sharing this hope for new discoveries in the field of serology was Joseph Denys (fig. 10)9 Originally from Ruysselede, he studied pathological anatomy in Strasbourg, which he would later teach at the Catholic University of Leuven between 1884 and 1920. Within his classes of pathological anatomy at the Catholic University of Leuven, he started to include elements of bacteriology from 1885 onwards.10 The university annual of 1900 proves that Denys, who was even the dean of the medicine faculty at that time, managed to institutionalize bacteriology successfully.11 For his research, experiments and classes, Denys could count on the cooperation of teaching assistants, young doctors and doctoral students.12 The period photographs often show Denys in the middle of his staff (fig. 11). Although these pictures are representations of a carefully staged reality, they nevertheless show us the ambition of Denys to be a scientist in the midst
6 Emile VAN ERMENGEM, “Les sciences bactériologiques et parasitologiques”, in: Le mouvement scientifique en Belgique 1830-1905, 2, Brussels: Société Belge de Librairie, p. 3. 7 “Bacteriology”, in: Encyclopaedia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/48314/bacteriology (accessed on May 12 2013). 8 Lyvia DISER, “Stables of the Bacteriological Institute”, in: Mark DEREZ e.a. (ed.), Album of a scientific world: the University of Louvain around 1900, Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2012, p. 174. 9 Lyvia DISER, “Stables of the Bacteriological Institute”, in: Mark DEREZ e.a. (ed.), Album of a scientific world: the University of Louvain around 1900, Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2012, p. 174. 10 “De eerste medewerkers van Gustaaf Verriest”, in: KU Leuven - Faculteit Geneeskunde, http://med.kuleuven.be/ nl/geneeskunde/vc/anatomie/de-eerste-medewerkers-van-gustaaf-verriest (accessed on May 12 2013).
32