A Deep Dive in a Shallow Pool

Germ theory encouraged the reduction of diseases to simple interactions between microrganism [sic] and host, without the need for the elaborate attention to environmental influences, diet, climate, ventilation, and so on that were essential to earlier understandings of health and disease.

Harvard’s CURIOUSity Collections

Topic to explore: It seems possible to contend that the more focused, smaller-scale knowledge represented by germ theory is (in some ways, obviously not all) less beneficial to the species as a whole than some aspects of the incorrect theory. That view would have implications for science, but also for religion, the arts, etc.