ABSTRACT
The selection of pesticides has been exchanged among emerging networks of museum professionals. Dissemination regarding experiences in dealing with old or new active ingredients and agents, as well as discussions pertaining to the latest technical advances in pest control, occurred at conferences and in specialist journals. Adolph Bernhard Meyer, Willy Foy, and Johann Bolle were the pioneers in Germany who promoted mass fumigation to combat harmful insects in large plants. Georg Thilenius and Friedrich Rathgen were their imitators. Bolle was also a central key figure in networking between museums and industry. Due to his position, he traveled throughout Europe and made a name for himself as a botanist far beyond his field of expertise, whereby he spread his knowledge of pest control in museums. As a welcome speaker at relevant conferences and a publisher in specialist museum journals, he effectively fostered communication and collaboration between museums. This is remarkable because, in the period under review, only a few museum experts had the appropriate technical and personnel equipment to carry out their own experiments in pesticide development. In addition to Bolle and others, Alexander Scott and Harold James Plenderleith from the British Museum in London are standing for international progress in pest control in museums. In addition, a certain pragmatism can be observed when museum professionals are sometimes helpless in the face of insect infestation in their collections of organic materials. If one’s own “know-how” was insufficient, active ingredients, agents, and methods for the control and prevention of harmful insects were simply used when recommended elsewhere. There were also active ingredients and agents that proved to be too complicated to use. This was the case if they were too complex to manufacture, or if they had not proven themselves in practice.
