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Article: Contagious Diseases
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society
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Contagious Diseases
Death in early childhood was a heartbreaking fact of life everywhere until the early twentieth century. Gravestones from the nineteenth century and earlier commemorate the death before the end of their first decade of life of between a quarter and half of all the children born into most families. Nearly all died of contagious diseases.
Definition of Contagious Disease
Contagious means infectious by direct contact, but in common usage the word usually applies to diseases that are highly infectious and dangerous, implying something more serious than a common cold (although colds are among the most contagious of all diseases). In his 1548
De Contagione
the Italian monk ...