Contagionism Catches On
Medical Ideology in Britain, 1730-1800
Authors: DeLacy, Margaret
Free Preview- Provides the social outcome of the acceptance of contagionism, proposed and explored in DeLacy’s first book, The Germ of an Idea (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)
- Appeals to cultural and social historians, as well as historians of medicine and eighteenth century Britain
- Describes the consequences of the evolution of contagionism in eighteenth century Britain
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- About this book
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This book shows how contagionism evolved in eighteenth century Britain and describes the consequences of this evolution. By the late eighteenth century, the British medical profession was divided between traditionalists, who attributed acute diseases to the interaction of internal imbalances with external factors such as weather, and reformers, who blamed contagious pathogens. The reformers, who were often “outsiders,” English Nonconformists or men born outside England, emerged from three coincidental transformations: transformation in medical ideas, in the nature and content of medical education, and in the sort of men who became physicians. Adopting contagionism led them to see acute diseases as separate entities, spurring a process that reoriented medical research, changed communities, established new medical institutions, and continues to the present day.
- About the authors
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Margaret DeLacy is the author of The Germ of an Idea: Contagionism, Religion and Society in Britain, 1660-1730 (Palgrave MacMillan, 2016), Prison Reform in Lancashire, 1700-1850: A Study in County Administration (Stanford University Press, 1986), and articles on medical history. She is an independent scholar in Portland Oregon.
- Reviews
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“This book is a study of a revolution in pathology that occurred in Britain in the second half of the eighteenth century. … Margaret DeLacy’s study is a valuable contribution to the existing literature.” (Laurence Brockliss, Isis, Vol. 109 (4), December, 2018)
- Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Introduction
Pages 1-18
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Fever Theory and British Contagionism in the Mid-Eighteenth Century
Pages 19-54
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Contagionism after 1750: John Pringle and James Lind
Pages 55-87
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Animate Disease after 1750: Exanthemata Viva
Pages 89-123
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Counting and Classifying Diseases: Contagion, Enumeration and Cullen’s Nosology
Pages 125-164
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- Contagionism Catches On
- Book Subtitle
- Medical Ideology in Britain, 1730-1800
- Authors
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- Margaret DeLacy
- Copyright
- 2017
- Publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan
- Copyright Holder
- The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)
- eBook ISBN
- 978-3-319-50959-4
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-3-319-50959-4
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-3-319-50958-7
- Softcover ISBN
- 978-3-319-84531-9
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- IX, 347
- Topics
