ABSTRACT
This volume brings together environmental and human perspectives, engages with both historians and scientists, and, being mindful that environments and disease recognize no boundaries, includes studies that touch on Europe, the wider Mediterranean world, Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
Disease and the Environment in the Medieval and Early Modern Worlds explores the intertwined relationships between humans, the natural and manmade environments, and disease. Urgency gives us a sense that we need a longer view of human responses and interactions with the airs, waters, and places in which we live, and a greater understanding of the activities and attitudes that have led us to the present. Through a series of new research studies, two salient questions are explored: What are the deeper patterns in thinking about disease and the environment? What can we know about the environmental and ecological parameters of emergent human diseases over a longer period – aspects of disease that contemporary persons were not able to know or understand in the way that we do today?
The broad chronological and geographical approach makes this volume perfect for students and scholars interested in the history of disease, environment, and landscape in the medieval and early modern worlds.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
section Section I|48 pages
Cleansing and Managing Local Airs, Waters, and Places
chapter 1|19 pages
“For the Good and Pacific State of the People and the Commune”
chapter 3|13 pages
From Helpful Gardens to Hateful Words
section Section II|59 pages
Recalibrating Airs, Waters, and Places
chapter 4|24 pages
“Turkey is Almost a Perpetual Seminary of the Plague”
section Section III|81 pages
Science Meets Historical Disease Environments