How early twentieth century fumigation technologies transformed
maritime quarantine practices and inspired utopian visions of
disease-free global trade.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, fumigation
technologies transformed global practices of maritime quarantine through
chemical and engineering innovation. One of these technologies, the
widely used Clayton machine, blasted sulphuric acid gas through a docked
ship in an effort to eliminate pathogens, insects, and rats while
leaving the cargo and the structure of the vessel unharmed, shortening
its time in quarantine and minimizing the risk of importing infectious
diseases. In Sulphuric Utopias, Lukas Engelmann and Christos Lynteris
examine this overlooked but historically crucial practice at the
intersection of epidemiology, hygiene, applied chemistry, and
engineering. They show how maritime fumigation inspired utopian visions
of disease-free trade to improve global shipping and to encourage
universally applicable standards of sanitation and hygiene.
Engelmann and Lynteris chart the history of ideas about fumigation,
disinfection, and quarantine, and chronicle the development of the
Clayton machine in 1880s New Orleans. Built by the Louisiana Board of
Health and adapted and patented by Thomas Clayton, the machine offered a
barrier against bacteria and pests and enabled a highway to global
trade. Engelmann and Lynteris chronicle the Clayton machine's success
and examine its competitors, including carbon-based fumigation methods
in Germany and the Ottoman Empire as well as the "Sulfurozador" in
Argentina. They follow the international standardization of maritime
fumigation and explore the Clayton machine's decline after World War I,
when visions of "sulphuric utopia" were replaced by a pragmatic
acknowledgment of epidemiological complexity.
