The Germ of an Idea

Contagionism is an old idea, but gained new life in Restoration Britain. The Germ of an Idea considers British contagionism in its religious, social, political and professional context from the Great Plague of London to the adoption of smallpox inoculation. It shows how ideas about contagion changed medicine and the understanding of acute diseases.

Winner of the 2019 Archivists and Librarians in the History of the Health Sciences Best Monograph Award

Autorentext

Margaret DeLacy is an independent scholar. She received her Ph.D. in British history from Princeton University, USA. She is the author of Prison Reform in Lancashire, 1700-1850: A Study in County Administration and several articles on British medical history.

Klappentext

Germ of an Idea shows how a belief in contagion began to spread among a group of medical reformers who had been forced by nationality and religious nonconformity to follow alternative pathways to medical education and professional status in early eighteenth century Britain. It explains how contagionism shaped their ideas about the nature and behavior of diseases such as smallpox, plague, syphilis, and consumption and how it interacted with the belief that diseases were not imbalances, but specific entities.

Zusammenfassung
Contagionism is an old idea, but gained new life in Restoration Britain. The Germ of an Idea considers British contagionism in its religious, social, political and professional context from the Great Plague of London to the adoption of smallpox inoculation.

Inhalt
Preface

1. Introduction: Medical Theory In Early Modern Europe
2. Restoration Medicine And The Dissenters
3. Populist Writing On Diseases In The Late Seventeenth Century
4. The Search For Middle Ground: Disease Theory As Natural History
5. Animalcules And Animals
6. English Contagionism And Hans Sloane's Circle
7. An English Treatise On Living Contagion: Benjamin Marten's New Theory Of Consumptions, 1720
8. Smallpox Inoculation And The Royal Society, 1700-1723
9. Contagion And Plague In The Eighteenth Century
   Conclusion