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Contagion, Isolation, and Biopolitics in Victorian London

  • Book
  • © 2018

Overview

Authors:
  1. Matthew L. Newsom Kerr

    1. Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, USA

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  • Presents a cultural history of infectious disease and urban life
  • Addresses long-neglected topics in the history of public health
  • Appeals to scholars of public health history, London history, the cultural history of medicine, and biopolitics
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvii
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  2. Isolation, Liberalism, Biopower

    • Matthew L. Newsom Kerr
    Pages 1-29

  3. Victorian Plague Town: Quarantines, Hospitals, and the Political Birth of Isolation

    • Matthew L. Newsom Kerr
    Pages 31-82

  4. Persons Out of Place: Seclusion and Scandal in the Workhouse Hospital

    • Matthew L. Newsom Kerr
    Pages 83-117

  5. Sanitary Citizens: Masculinity, Consent, and Franchise

    • Matthew L. Newsom Kerr
    Pages 119-170

  6. Machines of Security: Architecture, Geography, and Metropolitan Governance

    • Matthew L. Newsom Kerr
    Pages 171-230

  7. Drawing Circles Around Smallpox Hospitals: Cartography, Calculation, and Surveillance

    • Matthew L. Newsom Kerr
    Pages 231-286

  8. Isolation Within Isolation: The Public and Personal Politics of Hospital Infection

    • Matthew L. Newsom Kerr
    Pages 287-351

  9. Back Matter

    Pages 353-370
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Keywords

About this book

This book is a history of London’s vast network of fever and smallpox hospitals, built by the Metropolitan Asylums Board between 1870 and 1900. Unprecedented in size and scope, this public infrastructure inaugurated a new technology of disease prevention—isolation. Londoners suffering from infectious diseases submitted themselves to far-reaching forms of surveillance, removal, and detention, which made them legible to science and the state in entirely new ways. Isolation on a mass scale transformed the meaning of urban epidemics and introduced contentious new relationships between health, citizenship, and the spaces of modern governance. Rich in archival sources and images, this engaging book offers innovative analysis at the intersection of preventive medicine and Victorian-era liberalism.

Reviews

“Contagion, Isolation, and Biopolitics in Victorian London will appeal to readers in a range of disciplines, including urban history, medical geography, history of medicine, political history, and social history. It is a compelling, well-written book that makes a particularly strong contribution to the histories of epidemiology and smallpox. Above all, it is a chilling reminder of the importance of place in public health.” (Annmarie Adams, Technology and Culture, Vol. 61 (1), 2020)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, USA

    Matthew L. Newsom Kerr

About the author

Matthew L. Newsom Kerr is Assistant Professor of History at Santa Clara University, USA.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Contagion, Isolation, and Biopolitics in Victorian London

  • Authors: Matthew L. Newsom Kerr

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65768-4

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: History, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-65767-7Published: 27 October 2017

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-88100-3Published: 25 August 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-65768-4Published: 12 October 2017

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVII, 370

  • Number of Illustrations: 20 b/w illustrations, 1 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: History of Britain and Ireland, History of Science, Urban History, Social History

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