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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 5: Plague (III) Illustrations and Conclusions

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Lecture Details

Epidemics in Western Society Since 1600 (HIST 234)

One of the major cultural consequences of the second plague pandemic was its effect on attitudes towards death and the "art of dying." As a result both of its extreme virulence and the strictness of the measures imposed to combat it, plague significantly disrupted traditional customs of dealing with death. This disruption made itself felt not only in religious belief and burial practices but also in art, architecture and literature. European culture was profoundly shaped by the experience of the plague, as witnessed by the advent of symbols such as "vanitas" and the danse macabre in iconography, as well as the visual representations associated with the new cults of plague saints. The successful containment of the plague might be seen to have exercised a similarly powerful effect in shaping the philosophical project of the Enlightenment, in that the measures taken to ward off death gave material substance to theoretical claims of progress.

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

This course was recorded in Spring 2010.