Disease and Society in Premodern England

<p><em>Disease and Society in Premodern England</em> 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. </p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p>