Photography, zoonosis and epistemic suspension after the end of epidemics

Abstract

Through the study of the photographic production accompanying the Chinese-Russian plague expedition to South Siberia and Mongolia in the summer of 1911, this chapter examines the way in which photography after the end of epidemics is implicated in processes of epistemic uncertainty and doubt. The chapter examines photographs contained in two unpublished albums compiled by China’s founding epidemiologist, Wu Liande. Arguing that these both portray and foster uncertainty and doubt over Wu’s hitherto proclaimed thesis that Siberian marmots were the origin of the devastating plague epidemic in Manchuria between October 1910 and April 1911, the chapter considers the role of visual representations in epidemiological reasoning in periods following the end of epidemic outbreaks, often experienced as inter-epidemic intervals.