ABSTRACT
In the archaic-metaphorical conception of disease, disease is defined in social and cultural terms, as when the sick are viewed as deviants and people believe disease is caused by religious forces or actions of human agents that would have been avoided were it not for the sufferers' social or moral failings. The relationship between metaphorical constructions of diseases and fear of contagion is ambiguous, and any generalization is fraught with risk. Prior to the development of scientific medicine, religion was a dominant force in the social construction of disease. Even though physicians had begun to separate medical interpretations of disease from religious interpretations by the time of the Black Death, religious interpretations still played a major role. Which individuals and groups are selected as scapegoats is usually a function of the social structure. During the course of the nineteenth century, evidence that cholera was related to environmental conditions accumulated.
