Modern usage of ‘epidemic’ to politicise or instil with “urgency” an agenda has made the term too broad to define, but this quasi-metaphorical use of the word represents a new diversity in its definition. Epidemics create a window from which the social historian has access to both the “complexities of human nature” and the “political arenas that control and disseminate information”: an insight to political, cultural, religious and social life that in other circumstances may elude the chroniclers of the past. There is no categorical, empirical or quantifiable rule in defining epidemics; instead they are subject to a series of accepted truisms - that they have both a start and an end, that they elicit large social response, that they fragment …show more content…
There has been a tendency to study epidemics with harsher symptoms and higher chances of death under the assumption that these fragment society and culture more than “mild” epidemics like influenza. The main example of this would be the countless studies of Cholera and the Plague, the former of which took the lives of fifty per-cent of its victims with intense rapidity (in nineteenth-century Britain: “healthy in the morning, dead in the evening”), the latter imposing a mortality rate as high as forty seven per-cent (in the case of Newcastle 1636). However, the modern usages of the word do not always fit into this model. The epidemic of obesity for example is a medical topic, which has been termed an epidemic by using current social dissatisfaction as much as effect on mortality. Rosenberg deconstructs ‘disease’ stating that it is a “specific repertoire of verbal constructs reflecting medicine’s intellectual and institutional history”, which would accept that obesity is a disease. His statement that an epidemic is an event, not a trend, in need of a common dramaturgy, a beginning and an end, and a “mobilisation of community to reaffirm social values”, does not allow for the classification of obesity as an epidemic. Here, it seems that epidemic has been motivated by society rather than by a medical profession, making a definition yet more abstract; both Hansen on homosexuality and MacDonald on suicide show that the “political, religious, social and cultural” setting can cause a medicalisation of a behavioural issue. This in turn can expand the ways in which we use the term epidemic: the medicalisation of homosexuality and suicide share themes common in definitions of epidemics: both elicit a social response, both are used to advance a political agenda, “reveal areas of the social fabric which do not appear clearly in everyday life”, and both have
Eleventh Plague is a fiction novel by Jeff Hirsch about Stephen, his father, Jenny, Jackson and Settlers Landing. When disaster causes America to be a desolate place, Stephen and his dad are forced to find a way to survive. The book opens with the burying of Stephen’s grandfather, which has significance has his grandpa’s voice and advice run through his mind. Stephen’s dad falls into a river and falls unconscious, suffers skull damage, several broken ribs and other fatal injuries. Then Stephen sets up camp. When other people come near, Stephen is very protective of his father. The group invites him to come with them to a place called Settlers Landing, which Stephen agrees to but he is suspicious towards the
Disease and plague, something that has been with man since the beginning, always challenging them, forcing them to adapt and change. Plagues and Peoples by William H. McNeill is a book explaining the hardships, facts, and evidence of how plagues caused man to adapt and move. Documented encounters with disease, ranging from the height of the Chinese empire, to the medieval kingdoms in Europe and Spain, as well as the colonization of the Americas, and the great genocide of the native peoples of South America. The illusory idea that man had won the battle in 1974 was quickly proven wrong yet again, for man may never win the battle against disease, and forever be in a constant battle. McNeill’s claim of fact as well as Ethos allowed him to write a consistent story including rhetoric devices, showing the true purpose of the informative book and conveying his main point of how plagues shaped the course of humankind development.
The plague, otherwise known as “the Black Death”, brought on much turmoil and suffering for the habitants of Pistoia. Numerous ordinances were put into effect with the primary goal of limiting the spread of the plague as well as to keep the city as healthy as possible. These ordinances typically focused on confinement, i.e. no one goes to Pisa and Luca and no one from Pisa and Luca is allowed to enter Pistoia (ordinance 1), how death and burials are to be processed (ordinances 3-12), and how butchers were to handle their animals and animal carcasses (ordinances 13-19). Essentially, confinement was targeted in hopes of stopping the spread of the infection while keeping the city isolated. Secondly, how the bodies of plague victims and their
Diseases have always been a threat to humans, all throughout history. One of the most destructive disease outbreaks in history was the plague outbreak which peaked in 1346 to 1353, in Europe, commonly known as the Black Death. This plague outbreak was extremely deadly and killed 30-60% of the European population at the time of the outbreak. The outbreak is commonly believed to have been caused by the bubonic plague, but modern evidence suggests that the Black Death was caused by pneumonic plague, a much more contagious and deadly infection.
The Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century will have the greatest impact on the 16th and 17th centuries. The plague caused the European population the drop by 25 to 50 percent, induced movements and many revolts, and prompted changes in urban life. The European population dropped by 25 to 50 percent between 1347 and 1351. So, if the European population was 75 million, this would mean the 18.75 to 37.5 million people died in four years. There were also major outbreaks that lasted many years until the end of the 15th century. Mortality figures were incredibly high. As a result, the European population did not begin to recover until the 16th century. It took many generations after that to achieve thirteenth-century levels. The plague induced movements and many revolts in Europe.
The Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century will have the greatest impact on the 16th and 17th centuries. The plague caused the European population the drop by 25 to 50 percent, induced movements and many revolts, and prompted changes in urban life. The European population dropped by 25 to 50 percent between 1347 and 1351. So, if the European population was 75 million, this would mean the 18.75 to 37.5 million people died in four years. There were also major outbreaks that lasted many years until the end of the 15th century. Mortality figures were incredibly high. As a result, the European population did not begin to recover until the 16th century. It took many generations after that to achieve thirteenth-century levels. The plague induced
Let’s begin, in the year 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean and landed in america. That was the start of The Great Plague, see Columbus was from Italy and sailed with and english crew, so their immune systems were built to resist dangerous diseases, but just because it didn’t affect them doesn’t mean that it wasn’t there, so when they landed in ‘India’ and he saw the ‘Indians’, he passed on the still living plague on to them, and since they never encountered the plague they weren't built to resist it so they began to pass the plague on to other Natives and soon most of the population had the disease.
Between 1315 and 1317, crop s failed and created the greatest famine in the Middle Ages
In Marchionne di Coppo di Stefano Buonaiuti’s, “Florentine Chronicle of Marchionne di Coppo di Stefano Buonaiuti, he provides first-hand documentation of the effect of the Black Plague in Florence, Italy. The muse for his inspiration to record this testimony on the matter, just three decades later, was an attempt to sway the Italian delegations when his political career ran into a predicament the time. In which, he enlightened upon how much the Black Plague shook the morals of the people and the effects. In his testimony, he describes how the act of abandonment became standard for kindred of the infected as shown in one quote from his document, “Sons abandoning fathers, husbands wives, wives husbands, one brother the other, one sister the other.”(Usher,
In the Middle Ages, nothing caused more chaos than the Black Plague. It was a large disease that spread all across Western Europe causing one-third of the population to disappear. As the Black Plague spread further and further, more problems erupted. People did not know how to react to the plague so they killed their neighbors. Cities were forced to raise taxes to pay for the expenses of the plague, but nothing could solve the large amount of debt that was due. The Black Plague led to the decline of feudalism because the problems it caused, led to more issues.
The Black Death arrived in Europe in October 1348. It was also known as The Blue Sickness or the Great Mortality (Extra, 2011). Today it is known as The Plague, The Black Death or The Black Plague.
The plague killed a lot of victims during the time of the 1348. Whole towns were whipped out, a quarter of Europe’s population was killed by the plague. The black death resulted in No one caring for money anymore which lead to small prices for everything. Cattle, sheep, crops, everything was left to itself and the Black Death also fell over animals. The black was killing everything in its path from animals to humans, doctors were dieing as well so there were very little doctors left to help. In the end it killed an estimated 1.5 million of the 4 million people living in Europe at that time. During the time of 1348 peasants went on strike and demanded higher wages, because there was barely anyone left to do specific jobs, so they demanded higher pay, or they would go else were to find someone offering a higher
Previously, the Age of Destitute was a time of desolation, desperation, and intolerance because of Chinggis and his empire. What saved China from succumbing to doom was their cleansing of plague and value of hygiene. They kept to themselves and never expanded and reached out to the outside world to the point where they were invisible. We never learned how they lived and what diseases they were suffering, and so when the plague hit in 2010, disaster struck. Millions have died globally, spreading from China, who opened trade to Europe. The plague stayed with China for many years (who had developed immunity from it) until they decided to connect with the outside world.
The Plague (French, La Peste) is a novel written by Albert Camus that is about an epidemic of bubonic plague. The Plague is set in a small Mediterranean town in North Africa called Oran. Dr. Bernard Rieux, one of the main characters, describes it as an ugly town. Oran’s inhabitants are boring people who appear to live, for the most part, habitual lives. The main focus of the town is money. “…everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits. Our citizens work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich. Their chief interest is in commerce, and their chief aim in life is, as they call it, 'doing business’” (Camus 4). The citizens’ unawareness of life’s riches and pleasures show their susceptibility to the oncoming plague.
The novel, The Plague, written by Albert Camus, will be the focal point of the Multicultural essay. Further delving into Albert Camus and his life, he was a French philosopher, author, and journalist. At a young age, he lost his father due to an injury suffered during World War I, and was raised under the domineering hand of his grandmother alongside his mother (Lottman 52). Camus did exemplary in school and through his political engagement led him to join the Communist Party. Deeply advocating for individual rights, he became opposed to French colonization and argued for the empowerment of his people in politics and labor, leading him to later joining the French anarchist movement. Camus introduced and elaborated on elements of absurdism