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The article recommends mutually illuminating interdisciplinary approaches involving literary, media, and scientific studies to exploring knowledge in stories. The author argues that such approaches will improve literary criticism and aid in recognizing how knowledge can link history and culture. Using the example of German writer Theodor Fontane's most famous novel, "Effi Briest," the author reviews the work's references to microbes, newly discovered at that time, as well to spiritualism and the then-popular phenomena of mediums.