Pandemic in Potos

In 1719, a deadly and highly contagious disease took hold of the Imperial Villa of Potos, a silver mining metropolis in what is now Bolivia. Within a year, the pathogen had killed some 22,000 people, just over a third of the citys residents. Victims collapsed with fever, body aches, and effusions of blood from the nose and mouth. Most died within days. The great Andean pandemic of 171722 was likely the most destructive disease to strike South America since the days of the Spanish conquest. Pandemic in Potos features the single longest narrative of this nearly forgotten period, penned by local historian Bartolom Arzns de Orsa y Vela, along with shorter treatments of the diseases ravages in Cuzco, Arequipa, and the outskirts of Lima. The Gran Peste, as it was called, was a pivotal event about which Arzns wrote at length because he lived through it, but also because it was believed to have cosmic significance. Kris Lane translates and contextualizes Arznss account, which is rich in local detail that sheds light on a range of topicsfrom therapeutics, devotional life, class relations, gender, and race to conceptions of illness, sin, and human will and responsibility during a major public health crisis. Original narratives of the pandemic, translated here for the first time, help readers see commonalities and differences between past and present disease encounters. Designed for use in courses on Latin American history, this concise work will also interest scholars and students of the history of religion, history of medicine, urban studies, and epidemiology.