GEETAM 2004 MODULES finally approach the tubercular body as the space in which life joins hands with

death The inhemilartubercuar body thus, instantiates the exposure of the body, and of the discursive regimes that both presuppose and attempt to fix its significance, simultaneously to the limits of death and bare life. If the confrontation with the first of these limits to, or fault lines within the consistency of the tubercular sociosymbolie order results in the attempt to occlude manifestations of mortality, the reaction formation produced by the manifestation of the second limit is the transmutation of bare life into works of life the working over of bare life. Stewart 's sanatorium is once again exemplary in its exploration of this process. We have already noted that the hemorrhagic eruption formalizes dive's induction into the space of the sanatorium and introduces the figural conjunction of the disease's most material manifestation with force of life and death If, however, the hemorrhage is the most well known and dramatic sign of tuberculosis, the extended period of complete rest to which dive promptly is assigned provides the occasion for his introduction to an only slightly less classic embodiment of the disease: the expectorating tubercular body. Making the acquaintance of the sans most enduring and persistent patient, vere, dive's initial impressions find their focus in the spit flask that is his comrade's constant companion. With an expression of wonderment dive receive: veres proud prodamation this is my second bottle to-day. I filled one this morning. Oh i can spit quite well when i set my mind to it. Its strange isn't it how energetic the body can be when it's sidetracked from the main purpose After a lifetime of drifting I've found a single aim in existence filling these bottles. And I work harder and more disinterestedly at this than i've ever done at anything else My whole being is devoted to the work. I eat and sleep and rest solely that I may spit. This strange rearticulation of the Cartesian cogito at once reinforces the texts location of a tubercular ontology in gross bodily eruption and provides a counterpoint to the metaphoric conflation of the hemorrhagic flow with the flood tide of death Anxieties regarding tuberculosis frequently found their most intensely charged object in the unregulated production of sputum Even in the absence of an accurate understanding of the vectors of disease transmission the expectorative expulsion of bodily fluids generated a particularly hysterical response, one notable manifestation of which was the drive of public health reformers to secure legislative regulation promiscuous expectoration If transition from dosed to open tuberculosis is marked by the breakdown of the striated tissue that once encapsulated and contained tubercular lesions, this invisible breaching of bodily boundaries and disorganization of bodily structures finds its visible and affectively charged analogue in the chaotic eruption of bodily interiority into environmental exteriority that is commonly known as spitting. Seizing one of the most socially volatile aspects of the disease the text presents the bodily processes of sputum production as a well-regulated work of life a work that, as veres insistence that he has worked harder and more disinterestedly than ever before suggests must be understood simultaneously in the terms of physical and aesthetic labor. Both sputum and the hemorrhage are thus, particularly resonant manifestations of

tuberculosis insofar as they function simultaneously on two registers: they are on the one hand, symbolic of social chaos and, on the other, unsettling reminders of the bare life of the body, a sort of bodily anarchy. Whereas the hemorrhage if overwhelmingly associated with death and understood as an event that is visited upon the passive sufferer, however, expectoration becomes a perfectible activity and a work of life as vere insists my whole being is devoted to the work. I eat and sleep and rest solely that I may spit. This modulation of expectoration as a work of self production is perhaps most immediately comprehensible within the disciplinary program of social medicine and the anti tuberculosis movement more specifically. Focusing on the role of the national association for the prevention of tuberculosis napt,founded in, linda bryders analysis of the anti tuberculism in Britain at the turn of the century includes the compelling argument that while the napt sought to downplay eugenic inquiries into hereditary predisposition to the disease in favor of an emphasis on environmental influence it studiously avoided advocating direct social reform aimed at eliminating living condition productive of deleterious environmental factors and pursued instead an educational campaign that situated the problem at the level of individual responsibility central to this educational program was the production of propaganda prominent among which were a wide range of self help pamphlets instructing the masses in the prevention and treatment of the disease. Popularizing current biomedical knowledge regarding tuberculosis, these texts played a crucial role in effecting the antituberculosis movement's dominant belief that the disease could be most efficiently combated through the education of potential and actual suffers.A particularly interesting example of this phenomenon in the literature is f. E. Eaton's the white demon and how lo fight him vaguely dickensian eaton's text lakes the form of a children's morality tale in which young sheilah murphy an impoverished irish lass is visited by the spirit of light and her attending faeries cleanliness, fresh air, nourishing food, good temper, and perseverance. Appalled by the dingy and decrepit family home in which sheilah is doomed to live, the spirit takes the occasion of a parental absence to instruct young sheilah in the principles of proper hygiene an education she is expected to transmit to her family. The model of compassion in commenting on the death of a neighboring tubercular child, the spirit is led to proclaim: all this is very sad, as far as that particular child is concerned, but there is to my mind a much more serious side to the matter. If one child chooses to throw away his life it is bad enough. In a great many cases i do not say all he has himself to blame; but, unfortunately, this particular child does not stop there. I told you he had become dirty and careless, and when he coughs, his mouth is filled with sputum as the exhortation effiptically concludes by receding into an eloquent significatory fullness, the emphasis is distinctly removedfrom the social situation of an impoverished working-class irish family within which the dreaded sputum plays its role and falls instead on fulfillment of individual responsibility whether it be sheilas responsibility to compensate for the hygienic lack of her parents, or the irresponsibly careless behavior which constituted the now-deceased child's choice to throw away his life and endanger those of others a perfectly canonical example of the widespread

paranoia regarding the socially deleterious effects of wanton sputum production eaton's text makes the regulation of the anarchy it represents a matter of individual self regulation the logical extension of which is the ubiquitous presence of the spit flask. This regulation of promiscuous expectoration via the self regulation of the expectorator its rationale not from the perfection of the physical body but of the social body. 0f no therapeutic value, the discipline of the spit flask is a measure designed to reduce contagion the social chaos with which sputum is symbolically permeated. The logic of this regulatory program if, however, more than merely hygienic in the limited sense of being governed by the desire to curtail contagion. It involves the reorganization of individual character, or the production of character, in the habitualization of spitting dutifully filling one's flask does not merely save one's neighbors from possible contagion but changes one's mode of identification. Understanding the work of expectoration in disciplinary terms too narrowly conceived obscures the aesthetic register on which expectoration functions at least within stewarts representation thereof the work of self-production for which vere's expectoration provides the occasion after all the disciplinary procedures of moral regulation in terms of aesthetic production and appreciation. Drawing on the category of disinterestedness whose aesthetic genealogy ranges at least from kant to arnold, the text articulates the production of both life character in terms of the work of art. It if necessary, in this context, to approach the work at which this formation aims casts and works of life the working over of bare life. Stewart's sanatorium is once again exemplary in its exploration of this process. We have already noted that the hemorrhagic eruption formalizes dive's induction into the space of the sanatorium and introduces the figural conjunction of the disease's most material manifestation with the force of life and death If, however, the hemorrhage is the most well known and dramatic sign of tuberculosis, the extended period of complete rest to which dive promptly is assigned provides the occasion for his introduction to an only slightly less classic embodiment of the disease: the expectorating tubercular body. Making the acquaintance of the sans most enduring and persistent patient, vere, dive's initial impressions find their focus in the spit flask that is his comrade's constant companion. With an expression of wonderment dive receive:veres proud prodamation this is my second bottle to-day. I filled one this morning. Oh i can spit quite well when i set my mind to it. Its strange isn't it how energetic the body can be when it's sidetracked from the main purpose After a lifetime of drifting I've found a single aim in existence filling these bottles. And I work harder and more disinterestedly at this than i've ever done at anything else My whole being is devoted to the work. I eat and sleep and rest solely that I may spit. This strange rearticulation of the Cartesian cogito at once reinforces the text's location of a tubercular ontology in gross bodily eruption and provides a counterpoint to the metaphoric conflation of the hemorrhagic flow with the flood tide of death Anxieties regarding tuberculosis frequently found their most intensely charged object in the unregulated production of sputum Even in the absence of an accurate understanding of the vectors of disease transmission the expectorative expulsion of bodily.fluids generated a particularly hysterical response, one notable

manifestation of which was the drive of public health reformers to secure legislative regulation of promiscuous expectoration If transition from dosed to open tuberculosis is marked by the breakdown of the striated tissue that once encapsulated and contained tubercular lesions, this invisible breaching of bodily boundaries and disorganization of bodily structures finds its visible and affectively charged analogue Number 462