Moving Along the Cold Chain Network: Cold Storage Facilities, Livestock Health, and the Biodeterioration of American Manila, 1900-1941

Abstract

This paper examines the cold storage and ice plant as vital infrastructures in managing animal and human health during the early twentieth-century Philippines. Brought about by new knowledge on thermodynamics, refrigeration, and microorganisms from the late nineteenth century, cold storage facilities were novel structures that were built to arrest the biodeterioration of perishable goods including meat products. Defined as any undesirable change in the property of a material caused by organisms, biodeterioration often results from the unintended breaking of complex nutrients. Focusing on the establishment of the Insular Cold Storage and Ice Plant in Manila, the paper considers cold storage facilities as key sites in managing livestock movement and global health. Constructed in 1900, this massive building served as a cold storage for imported meat and produced ice and distilled water for the army. Soon, the cold storage catered to the needs of Manila and nearby provinces by supplying frozen meat from Western countries to local commissaries, restaurants, hospitals, and domestic households. Through the use of archival and legal records, the argument is made that cold storage facilities were biopolitical instruments to regulate animal movement, public health, and biodeterioration. While such facilities can be seen as limiting, cold storage facilities also encouraged more animals in the form of frozen meat to be more mobile and global. In doing so, this paper explores the issues surrounding animal mobilities, global pathways of health, and invisible processes of imperial technologies.