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I1. Epidemiological Knowledge and Historical Thought from the Middle Ages to Modernity
Sunday May 4, 2025 10:30am - 12:00pm EDT
Fairfax
I1. Epidemiological Knowledge and Historical Thought from the Middle Ages to Modernity   
Chair: Kristen Ehrenberger, University of Pittsburgh  
 
  1. William Aidan McGrath, New York University: Beyond the Black Death: Plague in Tibet  
  2. Jim Downs, Gettysburg College: Paving the Way for Germ Theory: Yellow Fever, Syphilis, and The London Epidemiological Society in the Caribbean  
  3. Ori Ben-Shalom, Harvard University: Plague in the Archives: Medicine and Historical Thought during The Plague of Messina (1743)  

Since ancient times, outbreaks of epidemics have been experienced as unparalleled historical events that incited a particular historical awareness in those living through them. Medical knowledge about epidemic diseases drew and continues to draw on histories of diseases in order to study and confront them. This panel discusses the relationship between historical thinking and epidemiological knowledge by examining the inherent connection between the individual and social experience of epidemics, their historicization, and their theorization. The presentations in the panel inquire into different historical contexts, from Medieval Tibet and early modern Sicily to the Caribbean in the nineteenth century. All papers, however, deal with the impact epidemics, both recent and historical, had on those responding to them. They ask how physicians and public health experts across time formed medical knowledge in reaction to historical events, and they scrutinize what meaning the practice of history assumed within their work. By so doing, this panel provides a necessary comparative approach to the study of epidemics, showing that certain scientific practices were as common as the epidemics that stimulated them. In addition, by joining pre-modern and modern case studies, it also contributes to broadening the understanding of the relationship between modern epidemiology and its antecedents.
Moderators
avatar for Kristen Ann Ehrenberger

Kristen Ann Ehrenberger

Assistant Professor of Medicine & of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh
I am a body scholar and Germanist who works on nutrition and science popularization in the modern period, and I practice medicine for adults (especially those with intellectual and developmental disabilities), but I will probably be interested in whatever it is that you do, so please... Read More →
Speakers
WM

William McGrath

New York University
JD

James Downs

Gettysburg College
avatar for Ori Ben-Shalom

Ori Ben-Shalom

PhD candidate in History of Science, Harvard University
I1 Abstracts docx
Sunday May 4, 2025 10:30am - 12:00pm EDT
Fairfax Sheraton, Level 3
  Concurrent Session, Traditional Papers

Attendees (32)


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