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Plague Legends:
From the Miasmas of Hippocrates to the Microbes of Pasteur 

Socrates Litsios

Science & Humanities Press 
ISBN 1-888725-33-8
250 pages; 36 illustrations
 

Contents: 

Prologue 
Introduction 

PART I - PRE 18th CENTURY HISTORY

I - Ancient Roots of 18th Century Medicine 

  • The Hippocratic Legacy 
  • The Galenic Legacy 
  • Ancient Medicine Shaped by Christianity 
II - Decline of Galenism and the Rise of New Schools of Medicine 
  • The Revolt of Paracelsus 
  • Galen's Anatomy Revisited by Vesalius 
  • Harvey's Explorations of the Heart and Blood 
  • Paracelsians and the Iatrochemical School of Medicine 
  • Boyle's Corpuscles and the Iatrophysical School of Medicine 
  • Return to the Hippocratic Bedside 
III - On the Origin of Epidemics 
  • Neo-Platonic, Religious and other 'Occult' Influences 
  • Germs of Contagion - the Path Least Taken 
  • On the Epidemic Constitution of the Atmosphere 
PART II - DISEASE PROFILES 

IV - Disease Profiles 

  • Plague 
  • Smallpox 
  • Tuberculosis 
  • Diphtheria 
  • Scarlet Fever 
  • Malaria 
  • Influenza 
  • Typhus 
  • Yellow Fever 
  • Typhoid Epidemic 
  • Puerperal Fever 
PART III - 18th AND 19th CENTURY HISTORY 

V - 18th Century - A Kind of Status Quo Reigns 

  • Plague in Marseilles: 1720-22 
  • England Awaits the Plague 
  • Tuberculosis - The Ignored Ideas of Benjamin Marten 
  • Cotton Mather Battles Smallpox 
  • Diphtheria in the American Colonies: 1736-40 
  • Malaria in the Roman Campagna 
  • Typhus in England Influenza - The Views of Arbuthnot and Webster 
  • Yellow Fever in Philadelphia: 1793
  • Rush's Doctrine of the Unity of Fevers 
  • Webster's Views on the Origin of Yellow Fever 
VI - 19th Century - Recognition of Disease Specificity Opens the Door to Specific Disease Causation 
  • Broussais Uses Pathological Anatomy to Show All Fevers to Be the Same 
  • Distinguishing Typhus from Typhoid Fever 
  • Bretonneau Establishes the Specificity of Diphtheria 
  • Yellow Fever in Europe- To Quarantine or Not? 
  • Cholera Reaches the New World 
  • Specific Modes of Transmission for Cholera and Yellow Fever Lost in the 'Sanitary Idea' and Conflicting Causation Theories 
  • Apparent Water, Soil and Air Sources of the Malarial Fever 
  • Epidemic Puerperal Fever - Hand or Air-Borne Disease? 
  • Pasteur Takes on Spontaneous Generation 
  • The Disease Causation Postulates of Koch 
  • Microbial Approach to Public Health 
Epilogue 

Acknowledgements 

Further Reading 

Index 

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