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The Black Death and Other Pandemics
Published in Scott M. Jackson, Skin Disease and the History of Dermatology, 2023
As miasma theory was the dominant theory to explain infectious diseases at the time, it was believed that the source of infection lay in the stench of the axillary and inguinal boils. Strong perfumes were developed at this time to mask the offensive odors, and the sweet-smelling essences—cinnamon, cloves, musk, saffron, rose oil, and camphor—were applied to clothing to protect a person from the miasma emitted from the diseased person. Doctors wore long robes and beaked masks filled with fragrant herbs to protect themselves on the job. For medieval medical and surgical management of the plague, Guy de Chauliac offered the most comprehensive advice. He instructed his readers to flee the regions where the plague is flourishing, but if plague is omnipresent, use purgative pills and get phlebotomized while keeping the air in one's surroundings pure by burning a fire in the hearth. He recommended theriac to help the heart and sweet-smelling items to rectify the humors. He treated active cases with phlebotomy, laxatives, electuaries (herbals mixed with honey), and sweet cordials, and advanced the buboes with ground figs, boiled onions, yeast, and butter, while gas-filled carbuncles were scarified and cauterized.53
Disease of town-dwelling Chinese
Published in Kah Seng Loh, Li Yang Hsu, Tuberculosis – The Singapore Experience, 1867–2018, 2019
While knowledgeable and highly regarded, Simpson’s role in history was nevertheless not merely as an individual. His visit to Singapore tied the island to wider trends in imperial medical history. Simpson belonged to a group of public health experts involved in an expanding collaboration with the British Colonial Office, which actively promoted research on tropical medicine between 1895 and 1914.29 This collaboration was driven by two developments. One was the emergence of germ theory in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, which largely replaced the miasma theory of disease. Germ theory did not merely trace diseases to pathogens and parasites, but also shaped their study in distinct fields of research and expertise. Two institutions founded in the late 1890s led the way in this research in Britain: the London School of Tropical Medicine, which trained doctors for the colonial service (and where Simpson taught), and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, which provided experts for outbreaks of disease in the tropics. The second factor, which provided the practical motivation for the research, was the growing concern of the Colonial Office in the health of Europeans based in tropical territories.30
History of public health
Published in Liam J. Donaldson, Paul D. Rutter, Donaldsons' Essential Public Health, 2017
Liam J. Donaldson, Paul D. Rutter
Essentially, the miasma theory was based on the idea that the disease threat came from the external world, in other words, from nature. In contrast, the theory of contagion held that the poison was generated from within the human body. It was then passed from person to person by direct contact or indirectly by their possessions, clothing and bedding. The more superstitious believed that catching the eye of an infected person (the evil eye) was enough. The actions flowing from the theory of contagion seem eminently sensible today. Quarantine on arrival of ships from infected areas was widely applied. Indeed, when the plague came into Europe in the fourteenth century, the Venetian authorities set up a sophisticated system to sift and deny entry to ships that might carry contagion; they also quarantined people and cargoes. Sustaining the miasmist rationale in response to this relatively effective contagionist control measure was the argument that ships carried air from the infected town in its hold so that it became released when the vessel docked in a new area and its hold was opened. This microclimate idea seems particularly absurd in retrospect, but Galen’s reach through the centuries was long.
CERAMIC transmission 2020
Published in Journal of Visual Communication in Medicine, 2021
Described the pathological state of the atmosphere was associated with infectious diseases and this became the miasma theory of contagion. I chose the model of a balloon decorated with Tuberculosis bacteria and suggestively full of bad air. The sound attached is a wheeze (Figures 6 and 7).