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  • Article

Epidemic threats and racist legacies

Epidemiology is the systematic, data-driven study of health and disease in populations. But as historian Jacob Steere-Williams suggests, this most scientific of fields emerged in the 19th century imbued with a doctrine of Western imperialism – a legacy that continues to influence how we talk about disease.

  • Article

The stranger who started an epidemic

New Orleans, 1853. James McGuigan arrives in the port city and succumbs to yellow fever.

  • In pictures

We are the survivors of slow-motion epidemics

Pioneering epidemiologist Dr Alice Stewart realised how things in our daily lives could be as deadly as any infectious disease.

  • In pictures

Dark Matter responds to ‘Epidemic threats and racist legacies’

Animated-collage artist Dark Matter brings his unique combination of live footage and archive imagery to respond to a text suggesting that the field of epidemiology emerged in the 19th century imbued with the doctrine of Western imperialism.

All stories (28)

Images

  • Chinese woodcut: Talisman against epidemic diseases
  • On continuous molecular changes, more particularly in their relation to epidemic diseases : being the oration delivered at the 80th anniversary of the Medical Society of London / by John Snow.
  • Observations on the air and epidemic diseases from the year 1728 to 1737 inclusive / made by Doctor Huxham, at Plymouth: together with a short dissertation on the Devonshire colic. Translated from the Latin original. And now published with the doctor's approbation.
  • Observations on the air and epidemic diseases from the year 1728 to 1737 inclusive / made by Doctor Huxham, at Plymouth: together with a short dissertation on the Devonshire colic. Translated from the Latin original. And now published with the doctor's approbation.
  • Bhandardara, India: a cart bearing the belongings of the deceased victim of an infectious disease, placed in a remote spot: a custom aimed at preventing a disease epidemic. Photograph by J.B. Greaves, 1936.
  • Australian public health information poster on the tiger mosquito and the grey 'night-biting' mosquito as carriers of disease (dengue, yellow fever and filaria), advising citizens to clean up water-holding rubbish, produced by Brisbane City Council Department of Health after the 1926/1927 dengue epidemic. Colour lithograph, ca. 1928.
  • Hippocrates upon Air, water, and situation; upon Epidemical diseases; and upon Prognosticks, in acute cases especially. To this is added (by way of comparison) Thucydidesʼs Account of the plague of Athens / The whole translated, methodisʼd, and illustrated with useful and explanatory notes by Francis Clifton. [With life of Hippocrates from Soranus].
  • Hippocrates upon Air, water, and situation; upon Epidemical diseases; and upon Prognosticks, in acute cases especially. To this is added (by way of comparison) Thucydidesʼs Account of the plague of Athens / The whole translated, methodisʼd, and illustrated with useful and explanatory notes by Francis Clifton. [With life of Hippocrates from Soranus].
  • Portrait of George Cleghorn
  • An account of the rise, progress, and decline of the fever lately epidemical in Ireland, together with communications from physicians in the provinces, and various official documents / By F. Barker ... and by J. Cheyne.
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