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Article: The Epidemic Streets: Infectious Disease and the Rise of Preventive Medicine, 1856-1900.
- Article from:
- Journal of Social History
- Article date:
- June 22, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Journal of Social History. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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With all the frightening headlines about various mystery illnesses and AIDS, the fear of any sexual contact, the demand for compulsory blood tests, it is easy to forget that only a hundred years ago infectious diseases killed millions of people. But Anne Hardy's study of death and disease in nineteenth-century Britain reminds one not only of the heavy toll of epidemics in history but also how much infectious diseases were until very recently just part of the ordinary experience of living, and of course, dying. Measles, whopping cough, scarlet fever, diphtheria, small pox, typhus, typhoid, and tuberculosis ravaged the urbane populace, and if a person went to a hospital at ...