Mi­cro­biopol­i­tics

by Elio

In an at­tempt to pre­serve and de­fend the good name of the salmon fished in his state, Sen­a­tor War­ren Mag­nu­son (D‑WA), in­tro­duced in 1967 a bill in the US Sen­ate pro­po­sing to change the name of Sal­mo­nella  to the more in­oc­cu­ous sound­ing Sanella. In some cir­cles it may seem com­for­ting to think that tax­o­nomic terms can be changed by an act of Con­gress. Who knows, that could come in han­dy some­day.

Salmo sp. (left) Sal­mo­nella en­ter­ica serovar Ty­phi­mu­ri­um (right)

The ASM re­sponded to the Mag­nu­son bill rather force­ful­ly. Be­low is part of a let­ter writ­ten by the chair of the ASM Tax­on­omy Com­mit­tee, William A. Clark.

I am re­minded of a pre­vi­ous at­tempt at leg­is­lat­ing sci­ence. In 1897, the In­di­ana State Leg­is­la­ture con­sid­ered a bill to change the value of Pi to a more man­age­able num­ber, 3.20 to be ex­act. The bill was en­ti­tled "A Bill for an act in­tro­duc­ing a new math­e­mat­i­cal truth and of­fered as a con­tri­bu­tion to ed­u­ca­tion to be used only by the State of In­di­ana free of cost by pay­ing any roy­al­ties what­ever on the same, pro­vided it is ac­cepted and adopted by the of­fi­cial ac­tion of the Leg­is­la­ture of 1897". The bill passed the state House but was re­jected by the state Sen­ate. Read its pic­turesque his­tory here.

Plus ça change...

 

I thank Jeff Karr, the ASM archivist, for kindly call­ing my at­ten­tion to the Mag­nu­son bill. Note that in 1969, the ASM Tax­o­nomic Com­mit­tee con­sid­ered Sal­mo­nella a "uni­cel­lu­lar, non-pho­to­syn­thetic plant" (last sen­tence). Click im­age to en­large...