Disease and History PDF

Rating: (12 reviews) Author: ISBN : 9780750935265 New from $47.92 Format: PDF

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An updated edition of this classic text which explores the impact of disease on the great events in history. The most powerful individuals and societies can be brought down by disease, such as plagues, smallpox, AIDS and SARS epidemics.

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• Product Details
• Table of Contents
• Reviews

• Series: Sutton History Classics
• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Sutton Publishing; 2 edition (August 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 075093526X
• ISBN-13: 978-0750935265
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces

Disease and History PDF

This book is a good overview of disease and history, with a particular emphasis on psychosomatic disease. In this respect it is written in a slightly different style to others in the genre which I have read, such as "Plagues and Peoples", "Man and Microbes", and "Disease" (Ridley), which focus more on physical aspects of disease. It also presents perhaps more of the alternative views and arguments than some of the others, such as the debate around the origin of syphilis, the possibility that sweating sickness evolved into influenza, political ideologies and racism around the concept of disease, and the importance of geography and psychosomatic disease has on history in general, is more emphasised. Perhaps the crux of the books argument is summarised on page 191 "we may state that all disease is to a greater or lesser degree psychosomatic".

Examples of disease and the psychological effect on individuals and history is detailed in stories such as: the suspicion that Ivan the Terrible suffered from cerebral syphilis (page 52), and also Henry the V111, Queen Victoria and haemiphilia-and the suggested links to the downfall of the Russian Monarchy, the influence of the Black Death on feudalism, and the rise of Christianity in the light of successive "incurable disease during the years which followed the life of Christ" (page 15). The history of the Napoleanic wars is argued to have been influenced as much by "General Typhus" as by "General Napoleon", and Napoleon is observed to suffer from several possible ailments-not described in former literature.