Penicillin in Spain, 1940s–1980s: Circulating Health, Research and Gender

Abstract

My aim with this book is to present episodes in the circulation of penicillin as a scientific, medical and industrial material, in the context of Spain, the Spanish government and public, industrial manufacturing, the research laboratory and the clinic. This is a story of the antibiotic age; of a new commodity investigated through an elaboration of the meaning of circulation as an analytical category. By articulating my reconstruction around a scientific object I have introduced a set of agents involved in the movement of penicillin, or the set of penicillins in all salt forms, between a diversity of settings. These agents participated in my reconstruction as they thought of, talked about, wrote, touched and experienced the action of the new drug. This is an attempt to tell a history of Spain through a scientific and medical object, as a historical agent, its shifts and transits, and its agency in culture and society beyond industry and medicine. It is the history of a culture of consumption, of a therapeutic commodity and of healing.