Armies of Pestilence: The Impact of Disease on HistoryJames Clarke & Company Limited, 15. juni 2004 - 276 sider "We have lived in a world that had, until the arrival in 2020 of the coronavirus Covid-19, not suffered a serious pandemic for a century, and society had almost forgotten the enormous impact created by highly infectious diseases. Infectious diseases, however, played major roles in ending the Golden Age of Athens, wrecked Justinian's plans to restore the Roman Empire to its former glory, and killed untold millions in Latin America after the Spanish invasion. Armies of Pestilence explores the impact of these diseases on history. Despite their importance, historians have tended to minimise the role of infectious disease - partly because of a lack of scientific knowledge, and this has resulted in a distorted view both of the past and of the danger of disease to modern society. In Armies of Pestilence, R.S. Bray, a distinguished biologist who here shows himself also to be an able historian, corrects this view. The book surveys the principal epidemics around the world and across the centuries, in each case discussing the origins of the outbreaks, the symptoms, the mortality rate and the social and economic effect. Where particular diseases cannot be identified with certainty the best scholarly opinions are discussed. Bray pays special attention to the infamous Yersina pestis, the organism that caused the Black Death. Other diseases discussed include malaria, smallpox, typhus, cholera and influenza, and AIDS. One of the themes of the book is the relationship between disease and war, with the former often causing more deaths than the latter, as was the case with the great influenza pandemic of 1918-19, at the end of the First World War. The inability of governments to deal effectively with disease is also made clear." |
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Side 1
... evidence is arguable . Early written evidence is only a little more reliable as we have to interpret from a wholly alien concept of disease . There is , for instance , the story that the Hittite Empire disappeared coincidentally with a ...
... evidence is arguable . Early written evidence is only a little more reliable as we have to interpret from a wholly alien concept of disease . There is , for instance , the story that the Hittite Empire disappeared coincidentally with a ...
Side 2
... evidence of such plagues having any disastrous consequences in the early days of the civilisations of the Tigris / Euphrates basin . The greatest source of medical information of those early days are the medical papyri of the Egyptians ...
... evidence of such plagues having any disastrous consequences in the early days of the civilisations of the Tigris / Euphrates basin . The greatest source of medical information of those early days are the medical papyri of the Egyptians ...
Side 6
... Evidence for this may be found in the fact that there was a complete disappearance of all birds of prey : they were not to be seen either around the bodies or anywhere else . But dogs , being domestic animals , provided the best ...
... Evidence for this may be found in the fact that there was a complete disappearance of all birds of prey : they were not to be seen either around the bodies or anywhere else . But dogs , being domestic animals , provided the best ...
Side 14
... evidence to diagnose the disease accurately or to determine the death toll due to it . He proceeds to make a complete review of the sources available , noting that the Antonine plague was followed by another plague in 189 which may have ...
... evidence to diagnose the disease accurately or to determine the death toll due to it . He proceeds to make a complete review of the sources available , noting that the Antonine plague was followed by another plague in 189 which may have ...
Side 15
... evidence for more . Here it is necessary to part company with Gilliam . Not only does this argument ignore any drop in birth rates due to uncertainty over the future but the Black Death figures used are for the first three years of a ...
... evidence for more . Here it is necessary to part company with Gilliam . Not only does this argument ignore any drop in birth rates due to uncertainty over the future but the Black Death figures used are for the first three years of a ...
Innhold
1 | |
11 | |
19 | |
28 | |
35 | |
CHAPTER 6 The Black Death part 1 | 48 |
CHAPTER 7 The Black Death part 2 | 57 |
CHAPTER 8 The Black Death part 3 | 68 |
CHAPTER 16 Smallpox part 3 | 129 |
CHAPTER 17 Typhus part 1 | 135 |
CHAPTER 18 lYpbus part 2 | 144 |
CHAPTER 19 Cholera part 1 | 154 |
CHAPTER 20 Cholera part 2 | 167 |
CHAPTER 21 Cholera part 3 | 174 |
CHAPTER 22 Cholera part 4 | 187 |
CHAPTER 23 Influenza part 1 | 193 |
CHAPTER 9 Plague The Bombay Plague | 81 |
CHAPTER 10 Malaria part 1 | 89 |
CHAPTER 11 Malaria part 2 | 96 |
CHAPTER 12 Malaria part 3 | 101 |
CHAPTER 13 Yellow Fever | 107 |
CHAPTER 14 Smallpox part 1 | 114 |
CHAPTER 15 Smallpox part 2 | 123 |
CHAPTER 24 Influenza part 2 | 202 |
CHAPTER NOTES | 212 |
Bibliography | 223 |
Index | 237 |
Back Cover | 261 |
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