Overview
Winner of the 2019 Archivists and Librarians in the History of the Health Sciences Best Monograph Award
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Table of contents (10 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
Contagionism is an old idea, but gained new life in Restoration Britain. The Germ of an Idea considers British contagionism in its religious, social, political and professional context from the Great Plague of London to the adoption of smallpox inoculation. It shows how ideas about contagion changed medicine and the understanding of acute diseases.
Reviews
“The book is a serious contribution to the study of Cartesian physiology in the seventeenth century and beyond. … it certainly contains essential reading for scholars of Cartesianism.” (Klaas van Berkel, ISIS, Vol. 109 (1), March, 2018)
“This review cannot do justice to the incredible level of detail displayed in this book … It provides scholars of the history of early modern medicine and science, and of cultural and social history, with an excellent insight into London in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and in doing so draws our attention to the nexus linking religious and political beliefs, on the one hand, with medical ideas, on the other.” (Sietske Fransen, ISIS, Vol. 108 (4), December, 2017)
“The Germ of an Idea provides a useful account, based on exhaustive research, of a fascinating moment in British medical history. Most striking is DeLaey's demonstration of how social and political factors underwrote both the articulation of contagionist theories and the opposition to them." (John Waller, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, October, 2017)
"Overall DeLacy accomplishes an amazingly comprehensive and succinct survey in fewer than two hundred pages." (Ann G. Carmichael, American Historical Review, Vol. 122 (3), June, 2017)
"Margaret DeLacy has been studying the early roots of contagion theory for many years and has now produced the most important book on the topic to appear for quite some time." (Kevin Siena, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 91 (2), 2017)
“The book’s importance to historians of this era and medical historians especially is self-evident, because it occupies a lacuna in the scholarship. … Although this book is written for scholarly audiences and densely packed, it is clear and accessible to general readers with avid interest in medical history. For Health Humanities professionals, this book underscores–with a twist–one of the primary lessons we hope to teach our medical students.” (Sandra G. Weems, MedHum Daily Dose, medhumdailydose.com, June, 2016) “Was early eighteenth-century British medicine in a slump? DeLacy addresses this historical trope with subtle erudition and lively skepticism. Her story is as much about religion (spontaneous generation) and politics (quarantine), as it is about disease concepts and contagionism. Drawing on a wide array of sources, both public and private, including letters, she connects the works of Machamont Nedham and Benjamin Marten to famous figures, like Sloane and van Leewenhoek, of the master narrative. In the end, she writes about history itself, explaining how the “lost half century” came to be misplaced and deserves to be found.”
-Jacalyn Duffin, Hannah Professor of the History of Medicine, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada
“Margaret DeLacy has been studying contagion’s contaminations and contours for decades and has now amassed an archive of its modern appearances well worth having. Her exhaustive accumulation and erudite analysis is destined to compel readers of diverse backgrounds to rethink their own limits of what they have been considering contagion’s Western history to have been.”
-George Rousseau, Professor of History Emeritus, Oxford University, England
About the author
Margaret DeLacy is an independent scholar. She received her Ph.D. in British history from Princeton University, USA. She is the author of Prison Reform in Lancashire, 1700-1850: A Study in County Administration and several articles on British medical history.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Germ of an Idea
Book Subtitle: Contagionism, Religion, and Society in Britain, 1660-1730
Authors: Margaret DeLacy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-57529-6
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan New York
eBook Packages: History, History (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-57527-2Published: 20 January 2016
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-57558-9Published: 16 February 2016
eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-57529-6Published: 05 March 2016
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXI, 305
Topics: History of Britain and Ireland, History of Science, History of Medicine