This book takes a historical and anthropological approach to understanding how non-human hosts and vectors of diseases are understood, at a time when emerging infectious diseases are one of the central concerns of global health. The volume critically examines the ways in which animals have come to be framed as ‘epidemic villains’ since the turn of the nineteenth century. Providing epistemological and social histories of non-human epidemic blame, as well as ethnographic perspectives on its recent manifestations, the essays explore this cornerstone of modern epidemiology and public health alongside its continuing importance in today’s world. Covering diverse regions, the book argues that framing animals as spreaders and reservoirs of infectious diseases – from plague to rabies to Ebola – is an integral aspect not only to scientific breakthroughs but also to the ideological and biopolitical apparatus of modern medicine. As the first book to consider the impact of the image of non-human disease hosts and vectors on medicine and public health, it offers a major contribution to our understanding of human-animal interaction under the shadow of global epidemic threat.
Author(s): Christos Lynteris
Series: Medicine And Biomedical Sciences In Modern History
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 260
Tags: World History, Global And Transnational History, Animals: Epidemic: Disease Vectors
Front Matter ....Pages i-xviii
Introduction: Infectious Animals and Epidemic Blame (Christos Lynteris)....Pages 1-25
Vermin Landscapes: Suffolk, England, Shaped by Plague, Rat and Flea (1906–1920) (Karen Sayer)....Pages 27-64
Tarbagan’s Winter Lair: Framing Drivers of Plague Persistence in Inner Asia (Christos Lynteris)....Pages 65-90
To Kill or Not to Kill? Negotiating Life, Death, and One Health in the Context of Dog-Mediated Rabies Control in Colonial and Independent India (Deborah Nadal)....Pages 91-117
Tiger Mosquitoes from Ross to Gates (Maurits Bastiaan Meerwijk)....Pages 119-146
A Vector in the (Re)Making: A History of Aedes aegypti as Mosquitoes that Transmit Diseases in Brazil (Gabriel Lopes, Luísa Reis-Castro)....Pages 147-175
Contesting the (Super)Natural Origins of Ebola in Macenta, Guinea: Biomedical and Popular Approaches (Séverine Thys)....Pages 177-210
Zika Outbreak in Brazil: In Times of Political and Scientific Uncertainties Mosquitoes Can Be Stronger Than a Country (Gustavo Corrêa Matta, Carolina de Oliveira Nogueira, Elaine Teixeira Rabello, Lenir da Nascimento Silva)....Pages 211-227
Postscript: Epidemic Villains and the Ecologies of Nuisance (Frédéric Keck)....Pages 229-236
Back Matter ....Pages 237-247
