How to Manage Plague and COVID-19: Parallels and Differences Between Today and Premodern and Early-Modern Medical Theories
Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been growing interest in outbreaks of epidemic diseases that occurred earlier on in history. One of the recurring themes in such treatments seems be a desire to highlight how modern perceptions have advanced enormously compared to the past, at least in the Estonian press, to which this essay reacts. The aim of this piece is, on the contrary, to provide a brief overview of some of such past ideas about the causes of the infectious diseases (especially the plague), with an emphasis on how, despite the undoubtedly remarkable development of medical science, perceptions of such diseases and the methods used to combat them have remained surprisingly similar in many respects over the centuries. The article looks at some of the early modern understandings of the plague, drawing mainly on the English physician John Allen (ca. 1660-1741) and the Austrian physician and writer Adam von Lebenwaldt (1624-1696). Both of them were personally engaged as plague doctors and drew on their own experience, comparing it with views from antiquity and contemporary literature. Early modern authors had introduced many new theories compared to the Middle Ages and as Europe was struck by several plague epidemics in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the amount of material to draw on increased substantially.
Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been growing interest in outbreaks of epidemic diseases that occurred earlier on in history. One of the recurring themes in such treatments seems be a desire to highlight how modern perceptions have advanced enormously compared to the past, at least in the Estonian press, to which this essay reacts. The aim of this piece is, on the contrary, to provide a brief overview of some of such past ideas about the causes of the infectious diseases (especially the plague), with an emphasis on how, despite the undoubtedly remarkable development of medical science, perceptions of such diseases and the methods used to combat them have remained surprisingly similar in many respects over the centuries. The article looks at some of the early modern understandings of the plague, drawing mainly on the English physician John Allen (ca. 1660-1741) and the Austrian physician and writer Adam von Lebenwaldt (1624-1696). Both of them were personally engaged as plague doctors and drew on their own experience, comparing it with views from antiquity and contemporary literature. Early modern authors had introduced many new theories compared to the Middle Ages and as Europe was struck by several plague epidemics in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the amount of material to draw on increased substantially.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Introduction: Health and Biopolitics in COVID-19 Times – What Constitutes a Healthy Society? 1
- Preliminary Remarks for a Biopolitical History of Western Plague Narratives 25
- How to Manage Plague and COVID-19: Parallels and Differences Between Today and Premodern and Early-Modern Medical Theories 47
- “Civilization is Sterilization”: Utopia, Biopolitics and the Total Society in Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World 59
- COVID-19 as Event: Mythology and Ritual in Agamben’s Pandemic Dispatches 91
- Biopolitics, Form-of-Life, A New Use of Bodies 111
- The Relationality and Representability of Biopolitical Crises 133
- State Control Versus Humanity: Biopolitics and Health in Juli Zeh’s The METHOD (Corpus Delicti, 2009) 155
- The Quantified Self: Surveillance, Biopolitics and Literary Resistance 183
- When “Total War” Joins “People’s War”: China’s Recent Surge of Biopolitics and Its Repercussions in Internet Poetry 205
- Inside in Immunity, Outside in Community? Discussing Esposito and Framing Pandemic Polemics in France 233
- Needful Facts, Big and Small: On Bodies, Equality, and Treatment 251
- About the Authors 265
- Index 271
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Introduction: Health and Biopolitics in COVID-19 Times – What Constitutes a Healthy Society? 1
- Preliminary Remarks for a Biopolitical History of Western Plague Narratives 25
- How to Manage Plague and COVID-19: Parallels and Differences Between Today and Premodern and Early-Modern Medical Theories 47
- “Civilization is Sterilization”: Utopia, Biopolitics and the Total Society in Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World 59
- COVID-19 as Event: Mythology and Ritual in Agamben’s Pandemic Dispatches 91
- Biopolitics, Form-of-Life, A New Use of Bodies 111
- The Relationality and Representability of Biopolitical Crises 133
- State Control Versus Humanity: Biopolitics and Health in Juli Zeh’s The METHOD (Corpus Delicti, 2009) 155
- The Quantified Self: Surveillance, Biopolitics and Literary Resistance 183
- When “Total War” Joins “People’s War”: China’s Recent Surge of Biopolitics and Its Repercussions in Internet Poetry 205
- Inside in Immunity, Outside in Community? Discussing Esposito and Framing Pandemic Polemics in France 233
- Needful Facts, Big and Small: On Bodies, Equality, and Treatment 251
- About the Authors 265
- Index 271
