ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I discuss the history of medical police, an early biopolitical institution developed to ensure the health of individuals and the public. The medical police were explicitly tasked with addressing the eruptions of nature into civilization. I then examine a set of situations—neglect and contamination—in which nature erupts into contemporary society, and which U.S. law has difficulty capturing as unlawful. In conclusion, I argue that these difficulties in the law produce ideas about order and disorder related to the place of nature in society that are congealing into criminal types who serve as threats to civilization.
