This essay revisits the scholarly production around three major pandemics in the region: (a) the Third Plague Pandemic; (b) HIV/AIDS in the 1980s; and (c) COVID-19. The essay aims to provide a comprehensive set of resources (both printed and digital) in four languages (Portuguese, Spanish, English, and French) to examine how scholars have approached these phenomena and how their scope and interpretations have changed over time. Historians of health paid particular attention to sociocultural aspects of the disease, which enabled them to consider usually-neglected actors, such as patients of Indigenous and African descent with their own medical traditions. This added more complexity to our understanding of how these pandemics were fought and received. In addition, the essay suggests that COVID-19 prompted the emergence of historians of health as public scholars. They actively used social networks and other digital tools not only to communicate about the long history of diseases and pandemics in the region, but also to provide an authorized or informed perspective amid misinformation and fake news. In addition, the internet was crucial to the development of helpful databases and virtual conferences beyond academic campuses and paywalls.
{"title":"History of Pandemics in Latin America","authors":"José Ragas","doi":"10.1086/726994","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/726994","url":null,"abstract":"This essay revisits the scholarly production around three major pandemics in the region: (a) the Third Plague Pandemic; (b) HIV/AIDS in the 1980s; and (c) COVID-19. The essay aims to provide a comprehensive set of resources (both printed and digital) in four languages (Portuguese, Spanish, English, and French) to examine how scholars have approached these phenomena and how their scope and interpretations have changed over time. Historians of health paid particular attention to sociocultural aspects of the disease, which enabled them to consider usually-neglected actors, such as patients of Indigenous and African descent with their own medical traditions. This added more complexity to our understanding of how these pandemics were fought and received. In addition, the essay suggests that COVID-19 prompted the emergence of historians of health as public scholars. They actively used social networks and other digital tools not only to communicate about the long history of diseases and pandemics in the region, but also to provide an authorized or informed perspective amid misinformation and fake news. In addition, the internet was crucial to the development of helpful databases and virtual conferences beyond academic campuses and paywalls.","PeriodicalId":14667,"journal":{"name":"Isis","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134969461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Few diseases are extensively diffused as influenza, but though flu pandemics occur with regularity throughout history the bibliography is dominated by the 1918-1919 “Spanish influenza” pandemic. This review argues that this preoccupation is largely a product of historical epidemiology and retrospective statistical analysis which has made the Spanish flu the reference point against which other modern respiratory pandemics, including COVID-19, are measured—hence the Spanish flu’s importance for the 21st century pandemic imaginary. The review identifies six distinct thematic areas within the historiography of H1N1 Spanish influenza. These include medical writings which attempt to read the history of the Spanish flu backwards to “learn” public health “lessons” for the mitigation of future pandemics, and ecological writings in which influenza is seen as the paradigm of an emerging infectious disease and a model for the genesis of epidemics and pandemics from zoonotic reservoirs. Scholarship since 1997 also reflects a growing interdisciplinarity, one in which bioarchaeology and molecular dating techniques have furnished new insights into the history of influenza and the Spanish flu’s evolutionary origins, bringing the life sciences into closer dialogue with the medical and environmental humanities. These scientific insights have spurred both academic and popular writings on the Spanish flu, rendering its characterization as the “forgotten pandemic” something of an oxymoron. Indeed, if anything, the centenary of the Spanish flu in 2018 and the 2019-2023 COVID pandemic have provoked renewed interest in several of the themes identified in this review: including, most particularly, the writings of social historians of medicine, cultural historians, and disease demographers.
{"title":"The “Spanish” Flu and the Pandemic Imaginary","authors":"Mark Honigsbaum","doi":"10.1086/726984","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/726984","url":null,"abstract":"Few diseases are extensively diffused as influenza, but though flu pandemics occur with regularity throughout history the bibliography is dominated by the 1918-1919 “Spanish influenza” pandemic. This review argues that this preoccupation is largely a product of historical epidemiology and retrospective statistical analysis which has made the Spanish flu the reference point against which other modern respiratory pandemics, including COVID-19, are measured—hence the Spanish flu’s importance for the 21st century pandemic imaginary. The review identifies six distinct thematic areas within the historiography of H1N1 Spanish influenza. These include medical writings which attempt to read the history of the Spanish flu backwards to “learn” public health “lessons” for the mitigation of future pandemics, and ecological writings in which influenza is seen as the paradigm of an emerging infectious disease and a model for the genesis of epidemics and pandemics from zoonotic reservoirs. Scholarship since 1997 also reflects a growing interdisciplinarity, one in which bioarchaeology and molecular dating techniques have furnished new insights into the history of influenza and the Spanish flu’s evolutionary origins, bringing the life sciences into closer dialogue with the medical and environmental humanities. These scientific insights have spurred both academic and popular writings on the Spanish flu, rendering its characterization as the “forgotten pandemic” something of an oxymoron. Indeed, if anything, the centenary of the Spanish flu in 2018 and the 2019-2023 COVID pandemic have provoked renewed interest in several of the themes identified in this review: including, most particularly, the writings of social historians of medicine, cultural historians, and disease demographers.","PeriodicalId":14667,"journal":{"name":"Isis","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134969443","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is the latest but not the first deadly pathogen to jump from animals to humans. The history of pandemics is replete with such events. The convergence of animal health, human health, and ecosystem health is a twenty-first century reality, as human activities that drive climate change also contribute to pandemic risk. Understanding the past and future of zoonotic diseases requires new models in the way we research human-animal-environment interconnections. This bibliographic essay discusses the historical development of these zoonotic diseases and incorporates sources from the history of science and medicine, environmental science, animal science, disease ecology, politics, and anthropology. Contributing to deeper understandings of zoonotic diseases, historians and anthropologists have viewed pandemics as social and biological phenomena. However, viewpoints differ whether scholars routinely examine disease links between animals and humans. These links include the ecological aspects of infectious diseases' history and the role of wildlife as vectors of zoonotic disease. In addition, challenges persist in integrating social sciences and humanities, the environmental sector, and scientific research. Ideally, historiographies of zoonotic diseases would include societies’ responses and the social, cultural, political, economic, and ecological contexts. This bibliographic essay assembles resources that would benefit such an integrated approach.
{"title":"Historical Literature Related to Zoonoses and Pandemics","authors":"Barbara Canavan","doi":"10.1086/726983","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/726983","url":null,"abstract":"The coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is the latest but not the first deadly pathogen to jump from animals to humans. The history of pandemics is replete with such events. The convergence of animal health, human health, and ecosystem health is a twenty-first century reality, as human activities that drive climate change also contribute to pandemic risk. Understanding the past and future of zoonotic diseases requires new models in the way we research human-animal-environment interconnections. This bibliographic essay discusses the historical development of these zoonotic diseases and incorporates sources from the history of science and medicine, environmental science, animal science, disease ecology, politics, and anthropology. Contributing to deeper understandings of zoonotic diseases, historians and anthropologists have viewed pandemics as social and biological phenomena. However, viewpoints differ whether scholars routinely examine disease links between animals and humans. These links include the ecological aspects of infectious diseases' history and the role of wildlife as vectors of zoonotic disease. In addition, challenges persist in integrating social sciences and humanities, the environmental sector, and scientific research. Ideally, historiographies of zoonotic diseases would include societies’ responses and the social, cultural, political, economic, and ecological contexts. This bibliographic essay assembles resources that would benefit such an integrated approach.","PeriodicalId":14667,"journal":{"name":"Isis","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134969446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay surveys the evolution of historical scholarship on epidemic diseases in the Mediterranean/Islamicate world with a particular focus on plague. Temporally, it covers the scholarship on plague epidemics during the last 1,500 years, surveyed in three major pandemics: first, second, and third pandemics of plague. Geographically, it addresses the Mediterranean basin and its hinterland, including the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the Anatolian peninsula, the Balkans, and occasionally drawing on adjacent areas such as the Black Sea region and the Persian plateau. It outlines major trends and turning points in the modern historiography; reviews prevailing paradigms, contested issues, and emergent consensuses; and identifies methodologies, sources, and approaches. Whenever possible, it highlights contributions from paleogenetic and other scientific studies, with special reference to the diversity of opinions, actors, and materials in this highly controversial but vigorous field of study. The major goal of this essay is to reunite the divided historiographies of the Mediterranean world, which are typically studied separately in the case of Europe and the Islamicate world, with a view to underscoring their shared epidemiological experiences.
{"title":"Plague in the Mediterranean and Islamicate World","authors":"Nükhet Varlık","doi":"10.1086/726989","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/726989","url":null,"abstract":"This essay surveys the evolution of historical scholarship on epidemic diseases in the Mediterranean/Islamicate world with a particular focus on plague. Temporally, it covers the scholarship on plague epidemics during the last 1,500 years, surveyed in three major pandemics: first, second, and third pandemics of plague. Geographically, it addresses the Mediterranean basin and its hinterland, including the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the Anatolian peninsula, the Balkans, and occasionally drawing on adjacent areas such as the Black Sea region and the Persian plateau. It outlines major trends and turning points in the modern historiography; reviews prevailing paradigms, contested issues, and emergent consensuses; and identifies methodologies, sources, and approaches. Whenever possible, it highlights contributions from paleogenetic and other scientific studies, with special reference to the diversity of opinions, actors, and materials in this highly controversial but vigorous field of study. The major goal of this essay is to reunite the divided historiographies of the Mediterranean world, which are typically studied separately in the case of Europe and the Islamicate world, with a view to underscoring their shared epidemiological experiences.","PeriodicalId":14667,"journal":{"name":"Isis","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134969451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a significant challenge to countries worldwide, and South Asia has not been an exception. The region is home to over 1.8 billion people and some of the world's largest cities, making it a potential hotspot for the virus's spread. This paper presents case studies from three South Asian countries: India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan, analyzing their response to the pandemic and the measures taken to contain its spread. The paper analyzes India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka's healthcare infrastructures, their strengths and weaknesses, and the measures taken by these governments to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on the economy and society. Overall, the paper provides insights into the response to the pandemic in South Asia, highlighting the successes and challenges faced by the countries analyzed. The case studies offer valuable lessons on the importance of preparedness, effective communication, and coordinated responses to pandemics. They also underscore the need for greater investment in healthcare infrastructure and the importance of addressing socioeconomic disparities to effectively combat pandemics in the region. This paper also brings together the recent publications on the current pandemic to help understand the recent works in this area.
{"title":"COVID-19 Response in South Asia: Case Studies from India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan","authors":"Arnab Chakraborty","doi":"10.1086/726992","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/726992","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a significant challenge to countries worldwide, and South Asia has not been an exception. The region is home to over 1.8 billion people and some of the world's largest cities, making it a potential hotspot for the virus's spread. This paper presents case studies from three South Asian countries: India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan, analyzing their response to the pandemic and the measures taken to contain its spread. The paper analyzes India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka's healthcare infrastructures, their strengths and weaknesses, and the measures taken by these governments to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on the economy and society. Overall, the paper provides insights into the response to the pandemic in South Asia, highlighting the successes and challenges faced by the countries analyzed. The case studies offer valuable lessons on the importance of preparedness, effective communication, and coordinated responses to pandemics. They also underscore the need for greater investment in healthcare infrastructure and the importance of addressing socioeconomic disparities to effectively combat pandemics in the region. This paper also brings together the recent publications on the current pandemic to help understand the recent works in this area.","PeriodicalId":14667,"journal":{"name":"Isis","volume":"64 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134969216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
: The paper gives a brief overview of the historiography of infectious diseases published in German between 1792 and 2021, the majority of which was published after 1949. 3502 titles (articles and books) were selected from several printed bibliographies and online catalogues (for full data set, see https://doi.org/ 10.5281/zenodo.7096887). 71.1% of the titles are from West or Unified Germany, 5.6% from the GDR (1945-89), 13.8% from Austria and 8.4% from Switzerland. More than 40% cover the modern period, followed by the early modern period. The historiographical approaches represented by the titles are outlined, the themes addressed are mapped and the diseases covered are analysed. The approaches include all the major trends in the history of medicine, from biographies and the
{"title":"A Survey of Historical Works on Pandemics in the German Language","authors":"Heiner Fangerau, Ulrich Koppitz, Alfons Labisch","doi":"10.1086/726996","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/726996","url":null,"abstract":": The paper gives a brief overview of the historiography of infectious diseases published in German between 1792 and 2021, the majority of which was published after 1949. 3502 titles (articles and books) were selected from several printed bibliographies and online catalogues (for full data set, see https://doi.org/ 10.5281/zenodo.7096887). 71.1% of the titles are from West or Unified Germany, 5.6% from the GDR (1945-89), 13.8% from Austria and 8.4% from Switzerland. More than 40% cover the modern period, followed by the early modern period. The historiographical approaches represented by the titles are outlined, the themes addressed are mapped and the diseases covered are analysed. The approaches include all the major trends in the history of medicine, from biographies and the","PeriodicalId":14667,"journal":{"name":"Isis","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134969450","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
From ancient theorization about invisible forces to the advent of modern microbiology, the pursuit of a detailed understanding of organisms invisible to the human eye has been a recurrent focus in philosophical and scientific communities and beyond. This article interrogates some of the dominant themes of historical scholarship in this area, highlighting in particular the increasing recognition of the social dimension of microbes and microbial science. It also reflects on the porosity between pre- and post-bacteriological concepts of disease and disease causation, noting the continuity of practice observed by many historians of the modern period. Since we are at present grappling with a crisis of antimicrobial resistance, long in the making, the article draws together scholarship which helps us to make sense of how science has framed microbial organisms and our interactions with them. This provides a platform for researchers to explore new responses to contemporary microbiology, as well as find new ways to interrogate past trends.
{"title":"Making Microbes: Theorizing the Invisible in Historical Scholarship","authors":"James Stark","doi":"10.1086/726982","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/726982","url":null,"abstract":"From ancient theorization about invisible forces to the advent of modern microbiology, the pursuit of a detailed understanding of organisms invisible to the human eye has been a recurrent focus in philosophical and scientific communities and beyond. This article interrogates some of the dominant themes of historical scholarship in this area, highlighting in particular the increasing recognition of the social dimension of microbes and microbial science. It also reflects on the porosity between pre- and post-bacteriological concepts of disease and disease causation, noting the continuity of practice observed by many historians of the modern period. Since we are at present grappling with a crisis of antimicrobial resistance, long in the making, the article draws together scholarship which helps us to make sense of how science has framed microbial organisms and our interactions with them. This provides a platform for researchers to explore new responses to contemporary microbiology, as well as find new ways to interrogate past trends.","PeriodicalId":14667,"journal":{"name":"Isis","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134969454","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This review essay explores the potential of a European perspective on the history of epidemics and pandemics over the last three centuries. To this end, it follows Benoît Majerus’ proposal to distinguish four different “European” perspectives on the history of medicine. Europe is simultaneously an imaginary, geographical, imperial, and integrative space. As an imaginary space (1), “European” ideas about pandemics reveal a specific conception of public health and the state; as a geographical space (2), many historical case studies examined the development of comparable “European” practices at the national level; as an imperial space (3), it is necessary to provincialize Europe and ask about knowledge production and practices in non-European countries; and as an integrative space (4), European responses to pandemics and epidemics represent a neglected but important aspect of European integration. This essay can only suggest that the European perspective is an interesting analytical category for both the history of pandemics and the history of “Europe.”
{"title":"The European Perspective on Pandemics","authors":"Leander Diener, Flurin Condrau","doi":"10.1086/726993","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/726993","url":null,"abstract":"This review essay explores the potential of a European perspective on the history of epidemics and pandemics over the last three centuries. To this end, it follows Benoît Majerus’ proposal to distinguish four different “European” perspectives on the history of medicine. Europe is simultaneously an imaginary, geographical, imperial, and integrative space. As an imaginary space (1), “European” ideas about pandemics reveal a specific conception of public health and the state; as a geographical space (2), many historical case studies examined the development of comparable “European” practices at the national level; as an imperial space (3), it is necessary to provincialize Europe and ask about knowledge production and practices in non-European countries; and as an integrative space (4), European responses to pandemics and epidemics represent a neglected but important aspect of European integration. This essay can only suggest that the European perspective is an interesting analytical category for both the history of pandemics and the history of “Europe.”","PeriodicalId":14667,"journal":{"name":"Isis","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134969441","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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