History 135F
Department of History
University of California, Irvine

NOTE TO THE READER: I constructed this website to accompany "Plagues & People ", a course on the History of Infectious and Epidemic Disease that I was privileged to teach at UCI from 2001 until my retirement in 2008.  I developed the website to serve as a reference and resource for my students.  Their insightful comments, questions, and suggestions helped shape its content and structure over the years.  I hope the information and ideas you find on these pages will both satisfy and further stimulate the curiosity that led you here. Instructor:    Dr. Barbara J. Becker E-mail:   bjbecker@uci.edu Chapel Hill, April 2010

Humans, like all living things, are both home and food to countless microbes and parasites.  We co-exist peacefully with some, fight others to the death, and routinely share them all -- good germs and bad -- with everyone we meet.  Occasionally, the consequences of our intimate relationship with agents of infectious disease are brutal.  Epidemics tax available political, economic, and spiritual resources.  And, they pose serious challenges to prevailing paradigms of medical theory and practice.  How has society, in particular the segment charged with healing the sick, responded to these challenges? In Scotland, the fyrst Pestilens Begouth, off sa gret wyolens, That, it wes sayd, off lywand men The thryd part it dystroyid then, Efftyr that in till Scotland A yhere, or mare, it was wedand Before that tyme wes nevyr sene A pestilens in oure land sa kene: Bathe men, and barnys, and women, It sparyd noucht for to kille them. --Andrew of Wyntoun    Orygynale Cronykil (1420)

COURSE SCHEDULE
Week 1.  Crowds
1.   Costs of civilization   2.   Epidemic disease before 1300 CE	Reading:  Week 1 Readings Hays, ch. 1
Week 2.  Calamities
3.   The Black Death (1347):  antecedents   4.   The Black Death (1347):  aftermath	Reading:  Week 2 Readings Hays, chs. 2-3; Gottfried, chs. 1-5
Week 3.  Context
5.   Medical practice:  ancient legacy   6.   Medical practice:  early modern	Reading:  Week 3 Readings Gottfried, chs. 6-7 & epilogue
Week 4.  Colonies
7.   The New World   8.   The Old World	Reading:  Week 4 Readings Hays, ch. 4; Zinsser
Week 5.  Carnalities
9.   Syphilis 10.   Tuskegee	Reading:  Week 5 Readings Hays, ch. 5; Quetel
Week 6.  Contagion?
11.   Medical practice:  17th century 12.   The Great Plague:  London, 1665	Reading:  Week 6 Readings Hays, chs. 6-7; Defoe
Week 7.  Cure?
13.   Smallpox 14.   Yellow Fever	Reading:  Week 7 Readings Hays, chs. 8-9; Rosenberg
Week 8.  Contact?
15.   Cholera 16.   Tuberculosis	Reading:  Week 8 Readings Hays, chs. 10-22; Dubos
Week 9.  Cleanliness?
17.   Polio 18.   In-Flu-Enza	Reading:  Week 9 Readings Hays, ch. 12; Rogers
Week 10.  Contemporary plagues
19.   Hemorrhagic fevers 20.   HIV/AIDS	Reading:  Week 10 Readings Guillemin; Crichton

REQUIRED TEXTS: Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year Robert S. Gottfried, The Black Death:  Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe J. N. Hays, The Burdens of Disease:  Epidemics and Human Response in Western History RECOMMENDED TEXTS: René and Jean Dubos, The White Plague:  Tuberculosis, Man, and Society Jeanne Guillemin, Anthrax:  The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak Claude Quetel, The History of Syphilis Naomi Rogers, Dirt and Disease: Polio before FDR Charles E. Rosenberg, The Cholera Years