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Epidemics in Western Society Since 1600

Yale, , Prof. Frank Snowden

Updated On 02 Feb, 19

Overview

Introduction to the Course - Classical Views of Disease: Hippocrates, Galen, and Humoralism - Plague:Pestilence as Disease,Responses and Measures,Illustrations and Conclusions - Smallpox:The Speckled Monster,Jenner, Vaccination, and Eradication - Nineteenth-Century Medicine: The Paris School of Medicine - Asiatic Cholera:Personal Reflections,Five Pandemics - The Sanitary Movement and the 'Filth Theory of Disease' - Syphilis: From the - Contagionism versus Anticontagionsim - The Germ Theory of Disease - Tropical Medicine as a Discipline - Malaria:The Case of Italy,The Global Challenge - Tuberculosis:The Era of Consumption,After Robert Koch - Pandemic Influenza - The Tuskegee Experiment - AIDS - Poliomyelitis: Problems of Eradication - SARS, Avian Inluenza, and Swine Flu: Lessons and Prospects

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Lecture 6: Smallpox (I) The Speckled Monster

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Lecture Details

Epidemics in Western Society Since 1600 (HIST 234)

In the eighteenth century, smallpox succeeded plague as the most feared disease. The two maladies, however, are very different. While plague is a bacterial disease, smallpox is viral. Plague is spread by rats and fleas, smallpox is transmitted by contact and airborne inhalation. Unlike plague, smallpox can exist as an endemic as well as an epidemic disease. The dread of smallpox was a result of its agonizing and unpleasant symptoms, which, in the case of survival, often left victims permanently disfigured. Prior to the discovery and successful implementation of inoculation and vaccination regimes, a host of ineffective and often dangerous treatments were attempted, including bleeding, purging, and cauterization of affected areas.

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website httpopen.yale.educourses

This course was recorded in Spring 2010.