Anthropology in Our Backyards presents: 

Dr. Lianne Tripp, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, UNBC

Undulant fever (also known as brucellosis) is a debilitating disease that is often caused from consuming unpasteurised goat’s milk. Originally discovered in Malta in 1887, the undulant fever bacteria caused great illness in the Maltese islands throughout the nineteen hundreds. Dr. Tripp’s presentation focuses on why the disease persisted on the island for nearly a hundred years. Through comparisons with the British colony of Gibraltar, factors such as the cultural traditions of goat-herding and consumption of raw milk; and the distrust of colonizers and the scientific community will be discussed.

Dr. Tripp is a biomedical anthropologist whose primary research area focuses on the demography and health of small scale communities. Her study populations are marginalized colonial settings situated in the 19th and 20th centuries. Her areas of interest include the study of epidemics, which have covered an array of infectious diseases: cholera, influenza, tuberculosis and undulant fever. 

Anthropology in our Backyards is a speaker series brought to you by the Department of Anthropology at the University of Northern British Columbia: unbc.ca/anthropology. The watering can artwork appears under Creative Commons license. It was created by Claire Skelly at Noun Project. Image source: Sir David Bruce, 1900, Wellcome Library London, UK.