The Germ of an Idea : Contagionism, Religion, and Society in Britain, 1660-1730 / by Margaret DeLacy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

DeLacy, Margaret, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Great Britain--History.

Great Britain.

Science--History.

Science.

Medicine--History.

Medicine.

History of Britain and Ireland.

History of Science.

History of Medicine.

Local Subjects:

History of Britain and Ireland.

History of Science.

History of Medicine.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (318 p.)

Edition:

1st ed. 2016.

Place of Publication:

New York : Palgrave Macmillan US : Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Germ of an Idea shows how a belief in contagion began to spread among a group of medical reformers who had been forced by nationality and religious nonconformity to follow alternative pathways to medical education and professional status in early eighteenth century Britain. It explains how contagionism shaped their ideas about the nature and behavior of diseases such as smallpox, plague, syphilis, and consumption and how it interacted with the belief that diseases were not imbalances, but specific entities.

Contents:

Introduction: medical theory in early modern Europe

Restoration medicine and the dissenters

Populist writing on diseases in the late seventeenth century

The search for middle ground: disease theory as natural history

Animalcules and animals

English contagionism and Hans Sloane's circle

An English treatise on living contagion: Benjamin Marten's new theory of consumptions, 1720

Smallpox inoculation and the Royal Society, 1700-1723

Contagion and plague in the eighteenth century.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781137575296

1137575298