Experiments in Dealing with Epidemics in Seventeenth-Century Siam

Abstract

This article uses a study of two epidemic outbreaks of smallpox in late seventeenth-century Siam to interrogate the developing “social meaning” of the disease in Thai society at the time. Through this case study the article examines the problems of translation and the limitations of our source bases for understanding premodern approaches to epidemic management. It suggests ways of reading across various sources to reconstruct how intercultural learning, exchange, and experiment among communities who suffered epidemic disease contributed to global constructions of concepts of disease.