Simon Schama's history of 18th and 19th century disease outbreaks speaks powerfully to the present
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Sunday, September 3, 2023
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These concepts have been at the forefront of our minds for over three years now.
Key Points:
- These concepts have been at the forefront of our minds for over three years now.
- Having lived through the height of the COVID pandemic, it would be easy for us to imagine we have just experienced something unique in human history.
- In Foreign Bodies, Schama demonstrates that the histories of medicine and public health are deeply entwined with broader understandings of social history.
- This is what Schama does best: he uses the macro history to highlight the intricacies of the micro histories.
The ‘other’
- We have a natural tendency to look for an “other” to blame – people from other cultures that we do not truly understand.
- This is exemplified by Waldemar Haffkine, the central figure in much of Schama’s narrative.
- Of Jewish origin, Haffkine was the “other”: a person whose ancestors have often borne the blame for pandemics throughout European history.
- In the 14th century, for example, at the time of the Black Plague, it was believed that Jewish people were poisoning wells.
Inoculation
- During her time in Turkey, Lady Montagu was exposed to the traditional practice that would come to be known in European medical circles as inoculation (or variolation).
- Inoculation was seen as counterproductive to many in the English medical establishment and viewed with suspicion in broader society.
- Schama highlights that the form of inoculation Lady Montagu introduced to English society was not, in fact, an entirely new concept within the British Isles.
- He touches on the fact that versions of inoculation were already practised in Wales and the Scotish Highlands.
Medicine and politics
- Foreign Bodies is heavily invested in the history of the intersection of medicine and politics.
- Schama examines the role of the great European powers of the 18th and 19th centuries in the management of pandemics and the proliferation of life-saving medical procedures, such as vaccination.
- Of course, the rules of quarantine did apply to non-European travellers, as Schama demonstrates, indicating once again where the blame was being squarely placed.
- There is an extensive list of disease outbreaks that Schama could have chosen to explore this concept.
- If you want to believe scientific knowledge will eventually prevail, he observes, “it is probably best not to ask a historian”.