The Burdens of Disease
The Burdens of Disease
Epidemics and Human Response in Western History
In this updated volume, with revisions and additions to the original content, including the evolution of drug-resistant diseases and expanded coverage of HIV/AIDS, along with recent data on mortality figures and other relevant statistics, J. N. Hays chronicles perceptions and responses to plague and pestilence over two thousand years of western history. Disease is framed as a multidimensional construct, situated at the intersection of history, politics, culture, and medicine, and rooted in mentalities and social relations as much as in biological conditions of pathology. This revised edition of The Burdens of Disease also studies the victims of epidemics, paying close attention to the relationships among poverty, power, and disease.
Hays has written a remarkable book. He too has a message: that epidemics are primarily dependent on poverty and that the West has consistently refused to accept this. Hays's book should be in every undergraduate library and be recommended reading, as a whole or in part, in a wide range of history of medicine courses.'
Required reading for any university-level course on the social history of disease and, indeed, of medicine generally. A masterly and reliable synthesis.'
This is an impressive piece of work. It delivers more than it promises, for it not only treats epidemics and Western responses to them, but also discusses conflicting ideas about disease in relation to such topics as population, tuberculosis, technology, and empire—and all in a lucid, even-handed, and generous way. A fine and focused overview of a significant range of topics in the history of medicine.'
In The Burdens of Disease J. N. Hays has synthesized a very large literature dealing with the history of medicine and disease. The result is an original and impressive book that deserves a wide readership. It provides a fascinating perspective on contemporary health issues.'
An impressive text. Hays has presented us with a well-researched and insightful thesis, which deserves a wide readership not only among the microbiologically inclined, but also among all those concerned with the impact of microbial disease on public policy.
List of Tables ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
One: The Western Inheritance: Greek and Roman Ideas about Disease 9
Two: Medieval Diseases and Responses 19
Three: The Great Plague Pandemic 37
Four: New Diseases and Transatlantic Exchanges 62
Five: Continuity and Change: Magic, Religion, Medicine, and Science, 500–1700 77
Six: Disease and the Enlightenment 105
Seven: Cholera and Sanitation 135
Eight: Tuberculosis and Poverty 155
Nine: Disease, Medicine, and Western Imperialism 179
Ten: The Scientific View of Disease and the Triumph of Professional Medicine 214
Eleven: The Apparent End of Epidemics 243
Twelve: Disease and Power 283
Notes 315
Suggestions for Further Reading 341
Index 357
