The symbiosis of disease with society
From the Palaeolithic era to the 20th century, the ‘symbiosis of disease with society’ becomes clear. The neolithic revolution may have solved starvation, but proximity to animals resulted in the transfer of pathogens and brought forth new afflictions: smallpox, influenzas and rhinoviruses (the common cold). War and colonisation could turn epidemics into pandemics, and cities, with their bustling populations and poor public health, remained deadly until the 19th century – proving, as Porter writes, that ‘progress brings pestilence’.
‘A superb book – fluent, lucid, scary and even funny’
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For centuries, curious treatments often prevailed: the ancient Roman cure for malarial fever was ‘bed bugs mashed with meat and beans’; one 6th-century Greek physician advised epileptics to ‘take a nail of a wrecked ship, make it into a bracelet and set therein the bone of a stag’s heart taken from its body whilst alive’. But gradually the art of medicine became a science. Anatomy, surgery and pharmacology took shape, and the Western model spread across the globe. Its rejection of the ‘traditional wisdom of the body’, says Porter, is key to both its ‘strengths and weaknesses’.
In his new introduction for this edition, Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust and former student of Roy Porter, recalls lectures delivered with infectious enthusiasm and describes Porter’s eminence as a historian, teacher, reviewer and author.