Disease and Society in Premodern England examines the impact of
infectious disease in England from the everyday to pandemics in the
period c. 500-c. 1600, with the major focus from the eleventh century
onward.
Theilmann blends historical research, using a variety of primary
sources, with an understanding of disease drawn from current scientific
literature to enable a better understanding of how diseases affected
society and why they were so difficult to combat in the premodern world.
The volume provides a perspective on how society and medicine reacted to
"new" diseases, something that remains an issue in the twenty-first
century. The "new" diseases of the Late Middle Ages, such as plague,
syphilis, and the English Sweat, are viewed as helping to lead to a
change in how people viewed disease causation and treatment. In addition
to the biology of disease and its relationship with environmental
factors, the social, economic, political, religious, and artistic
impacts of various diseases are also explored.
With discussions on a variety of diseases including leprosy,
tuberculosis, malaria, measles, typhus, influenza, and smallpox, this
volume is an essential resource for all students and scholars interested
in the history of medicine and disease in premodern England.
