Contagionism Catches On

Margaret DeLacy is the author of The Germ of an Idea: Contagionism, Religion and Society in Britain, 1660-1730 (Palgrave MacMillan, 2016), Prison Reform in Lancashire, 1700-1850: A Study in County Administration (Stanford University Press, 1986), and articles on medical history. She is an independent scholar in Portland Oregon.

• 1. Introduction.- 2. Fever Theory and British Contagionism in the Mid-Eighteenth Century.- 3. Contagionism after 1750: John Pringle and James Lind.- 4. Animate Disease after 1750: The “Exanthemata Viva”.- 5. Counting and Classifying Disease: Contagion, Enumeration and Cullen’s Nosology.- 6. John Haygarth and the Campaign for Contagion.- 7. Contagionism, Politics and the Public in Manchester.- 8. Institutionalizing Contagionism: The Manchester House of Recovery.

“The book consists of nine densely packed and detailed chapters, including the introduction and conclusion. … Each chapter covers new areas in the jagged road leading to contagionism and its competitors. … DeLacys sources are international, with material in English, Latin, Italian and French. A very careful historian, she notes bibliographical mistakes that scholars have made … . The source notes contain much of interest and should not be skipped. Margaret DeLacy passed the stimulus test with flying colors.” (Shelby Shapiro, The Independent Scholar, Vol. 8, December, 2021)“This book is a study of a revolution in pathology that occurred in Britain in the second half of the eighteenth century. … Margaret DeLacy’s studyis a valuable contribution to the existing literature.” (Laurence Brockliss, Isis, Vol. 109 (4), December, 2018)​