Practici ştiinţifice şi norme sanitare în regulamentele Laboratorului comunal chimico bacteriologic al Bucureştiului
Scientific practices and sanitary rules in the regulations of the Municipal Chemical and Bacteriological Laboratory of Bucharest

Summary/Abstract: The study aims to analyse a specific case: the regulations that governed the activity of the chemical-bacteriological laboratory of the Bucharest City Hall in the two decades preceding the First World War. The municipal laboratory had an essential role in introducing in the sphere of food hygiene the norms and practices characteristic to the field of analytical sciences. It also played an important role in the efforts of the municipal medical corps to combat epidemic diseases. The research has two distinct objectives. The regulations were used to understand the municipality’s intentions, how the activity of the laboratory was conceived and what its functions were. We also looked at the difficulties in the operation of the laboratory. A diachronic perspective applied allowed us to see how these issues evolved between 1898 and 1913. The second objective is methodological: to open a discussion on the role that such administrative documents, formulated in an often difficult technical-bureaucratic language, can play in historical research. What kinds of answers can we construct from them, and what are the limitations and pitfalls specific to these kinds of sources?

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