Epidemics and Ideas Essays on the Historical Perception of Pestilence [Paperback]

This volume examines the way in which epidemics have influenced ideas from the ancient world to AIDS today.The chapters in this book look at the ways in which the great epidemic diseases of the past--from classical Athens to the present day--have shaped not only our views of medicine and disease, but the ways in which people have defined the health of society in general terms.The chapters in this book look at the ways in which the great epidemic diseases of the past--from classical Athens to the present day--have shaped not only our views of medicine and disease, but the ways in which people have defined the health of society in general terms.Epidemic diseases have always been a test of the ability of human societies to withstand sudden shocks. How are such large mortalities and the illness of large proportions of the population to be explained and dealt with? How have the sources of disease been identified and controls imposed? The chapters in this book, by acknowledged experts in the history of their periods, look at the ways in which the great epidemic diseases of the past--from classical Athens to the present day--have shaped not only our views of medicine and disease, but the ways in which people have defined the health of society in general terms.1. Introduction Paul Slack; 2. Epidemic, ideas and classical Athenian society James Longrigg; 3. Disease, dragons and saints: the management of epidemics in the Dark Ages Peregrine Horden; 4. Epidemic disease in formal and popular thought in early Islamic Society Lawrence I. Conrad; 5. Plague and perceptions of the poor in early modern Italy Brian Pullan; 6. Dearth, dirt and fever epidemics: rewriting the history of British 'public health', 17801850 John V. Pickstone; 7. Epidemics and revolutions: cholera in nineteenth-century Europe Richard J. Evans; 8. Hawaiian depopulation as a model for the Amerindian experience A. W. Crosby; 9. Plague panic and epidemic politics in India, 18961914 Rajnarayan Chandavarkar;lã¤