Pandemics, Society, and Public Health, 1517–1925 - Contextual Essays

Britain watched in shock and disbelief as a previously unknown deadly disease made its way steadily westwards from the other side of the world. Any early hopes that escape might be possible were quickly acknowledged to be wishful thinking. The... Read more →

Empire and the Industrial RevolutionThe United Kingdom was hit by cholera outbreaks on just four occasions over four decades: 1831–1832, 1848–1849, 1853–1854 and in 1866. Yet the speed and violence with which cholera killed its victims made it the most... Read more →

In March 1916 England’s Local Government Board (LGB), then the highest medical authority in the country, forwarded a report to the Treasury calling for the creation of “a reserve of medical personnel for epidemics”.[1]Sir Arthur Newsholme, the then head of... Read more →

The Registrar General’s report on the English cholera epidemic of 1848–1849 compared the arrival of the disease to that of an invasion of “a foreign army”.[1] Epidemics and pandemics threaten the security of states. Governments, central and local, must take... Read more →

Five centuries ago, an outbreak of contagion in Italy happened so suddenly and severely that it acquired the name that it has had ever since: influenza, referring to the cosmic influence that was thought to cause the disease. Today, although... Read more →