Black Death

[Mary Storm]

Dominik Wujastyk wrote:
>
> On Wed, 3 Jun 1998, Mary Storm wrote:
>
> > Can anyone recommend a good medical history of India, focusing not on
> > modern issues, but more ca. A.D. 500-1500 ?
>
> There isn't one, I'm afraid.
>
> You could try looking at
>
> C. G. Uragoda, A history of medicine in Sri Lanka (Colombo, Sri Lanka
> Medical Association, 1987).  A good book.
>
> Asoke K. Bachi, Medicine in medieval India 11th to 18th centuries (Delhi:
> Konark Publishers, 1997).  Very poor on pre-Mughal stuff.
>
> P. V. Sharma, Indian medicine in the classical age (Varanasi: Chowkhamba
> Sanskrit Series Office, 1972).  Combs classical literature for medical
> info, but very far from being a social history of medicine.
>
> Journals like the Indian Journal of History of Medicine, Indian Journal of
> History of Science, Bulletin of the Indian Institute of History of
> Medicine, Studies in History of Medicine and Science, etc., are of uneven
> quality, but contain some articles on the social history of medicine from
> time to time.
>
> In the light of your Black Death question, I assume you have read
> McNeill's classic Plages and Peoples, which has quite a lot about India,
> plague, etc.  (including an interesting hypothesis linking disease ecology
> with the rise of the caste system).   Christopher Wills' _Plagues: their
> origin, history, and future_ (London: Flamingo, 1997) has a chapter on the
> 1994 plague outbreak in India, and much other interesting stuff.  Wills'
> chapter on choler in India is very interesting, but he is nearly two
> hundred years late on the date of the first outbreaks (mo.dasii again).
>
> All the best,
> Dominik
>
> --
> Dr Dominik Wujastyk,                FAX:        +44 171 611 8545
> Wellcome Institute for              URL:        http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/
>   the History of Medicine,          Email:      d.wujastyk at ucl.ac.uk
> Wellcome Trust, 183 Euston Road,    Trust URL:  http://www.wellcome.ac.uk
> London NW1 2BE, England.
>
> First Rule of History:
>   History doesn't repeat itself -- historians merely repeat each other.


WoW!!
Many thanks for all this information. This is incredibly helpful! I am
most grateful for your thoughts and suggestions.
Best Regards,
Mary Storm