Contagion - Perspectives from Pre-Modern Societies

Contagion - even today the word conjures up fear of disease and plague and has the power to terrify. The nine essays gathered here examine what pre-modern societies thought about the spread of disease and how it could be controlled: to what extent were concepts familiar to modern epidemiology present? What does the pre-modern terminology tell us about the conceptions of those times? How did medical thought relate to religious and social beliefs?

List of contents

Contents: Introduction; China: Epidemics, weather and contagion in traditional Chinese medicine, Shigehisa Kuriyama; Dispersing the foetal toxin of the body: conceptions of smallpox aetiology in pre-modern China, Chia-Feng Chang; The threatening stranger: Kewu in pre-modern Chinese paediatrics, Christopher Cullen; India: Notions of contagion in classical Indian medical texts, Rahul Peter Das; Does ancient Indian medicine have a theory of contagion?, Kenneth G. Zysk; Middle East and Europe: Old Testament leprosy, contagion and sin, Elinor Lieber; Did the Greeks have a word for it?, Vivian Nutton; A 9th-century Muslim scholar’s discussion of contagion, Lawrence I. Conrad; Contagion and leprosy: myth, ideas and evolution in medieval minds and societies, François-Olivier Touati; Index.

About the author

Richard Settersten

Summary

The nine essays here examine what pre-modern societies thought about the spread of disease and how it could be controlled. They study the extent to which concepts familiar to modern epidemiology were present and what the pre-modern terminology tells us about the conceptions of those times.

Product details

• Authors: Lawrence I. Conrad, Dominik Wujastyk, Wujastyk Dominik
• Assisted by: Lawrence I. Conrad (Editor), Dominik Wujastyk (Editor)
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 28.07.2000
• EAN: 9780754602583
• ISBN: 978-0-7546-0258-3
• No. of pages: 242
• Weight: 498 g
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Medicine > General; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Religion: general, reference works; Epidemiology & medical statistics, MEDICAL / History, MEDICAL / Biostatistics, MEDICAL / Epidemiology, History of Medicine, Epidemiology and Medical statistics