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7 - Crises, fevers and poxes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2009

Mary J. Dobson
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
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Summary

Hence there is nothing so much wanted at present, either in natural history or physick, as a good general history of epidemics, or of the effects of the winds, weather, and mercury, to see the various epidemics, their different symptoms, cures, terminations or transitions in divers countries and ages. A work long wanted, highly necessary, and most extensively useful; the want of which has cost the lives of millions in a long series of ages.

(Short, 1750, p.418)

FROM MARSHLAND MALARIA TO A CHRONOLOGY OF EPIDEMIC VISITATIONS

The outstanding feature of the geography of mortality in south-east England has been explained in terms of one predominant disease. Malaria was a disease confined to the marshlands and bounded – both in time and space – by its ecological and biological controls of stagnant waters, a plasmodium parasite and a mosquito vector. Its geographical incidence emphasises the strong and direct association between the environment and the epidemiology of a single disease.

But both within and beyond the marshland zones, many other diseases and epidemics raged throughout this period. Other pockets of elevated mortality also existed elsewhere in south-east England. Some urban centres, in particular, were found to be unhealthy with large annual and seasonal fluctuations of burials, and the demographic findings suggest that low-lying and riverine areas throughout south-east England experienced higher and more unstable mortality series than upland parishes. Areas such as the High Weald, by contrast, appeared to have patterns of unusually low or stable seasonal and annual mortality.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1997

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  • Crises, fevers and poxes
  • Mary J. Dobson, University of Oxford
  • Book: Contours of Death and Disease in Early Modern England
  • Online publication: 18 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511581847.008
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  • Crises, fevers and poxes
  • Mary J. Dobson, University of Oxford
  • Book: Contours of Death and Disease in Early Modern England
  • Online publication: 18 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511581847.008
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Crises, fevers and poxes
  • Mary J. Dobson, University of Oxford
  • Book: Contours of Death and Disease in Early Modern England
  • Online publication: 18 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511581847.008
Available formats
×