Recommendations from our site
“The Cholera Years, which was published more than 50 years ago, is one of those rare classics that remains an important reference point in the field, still relevant to the politics of public health today. The story is centered in New York, which was a locus of commerce in 1832, in 1849, and in 1866 at the time when three waves of cholera came sweeping across the Atlantic. Then as now, theories of contagion became widely debated. Suddenly, whether you believed in contagion carried enormous economic significance. If you thought that cholera is contagious, you pressed to stop commerce and close ports. For Rosenberg, each cholera outbreak told the story of a changing society—moving from decrying the epidemic as God’s punishment or calling for a day of prayer, to developing new practices associated with the creation of public health. His book examines the moral, religious, and economic aspects of dealing with epidemic disease.” Read more...
Best History of Medicine Books
Keith Wailoo, Historian
