Just Finished Reading: Pandemics – A Very Short Introduction by Christian W McMillen (FP: 2016)

Following the trajectory of my previous VSI blitz books we arrive at Pandemics. Rather inevitably it is pretty much THE topic at the moment so it’s been difficult avoiding mention of both the science of pandemics (and infectious disease in general) and their historical impact on humanity. Although not a history book per se this slim volume can’t help but present various pandemics in their historical context starting with Plague – the Black Death is always a good place to start with this sort of thing – before moving onto the big names of Smallpox, Malaria, Cholera, TB, Influenza and HIV/AIDS. This, of course, nicely built upon the topics covered in the previous VSI book on Infectious Disease (not planned that way but a very happy coincidence).

As with the previous books I learnt a great deal about how countries coped (or not) with various pandemics over the centuries and tried various methods to control or at least mitigate the effects of diseases they often did not understand in the least. Without either an adequate understanding of the mechanics of disease or any effective way of combating it even if they did states where forced to use other methods such as quarantine (from quarantena, meaning "forty days", used in 14th–15th-century Venetian and designating the period that all ships were required to be isolated before passengers and crew could go ashore during the Black Death), setting up additional hospitals and local medical boards to decide on any actions proposed to control disease spread such as disposal of refuse, burial of the dead in mass graves and the feeding of those isolated and (potentially at least) infected. Indeed some have proposed that the very existence of secular government structures and intervention of the public into the private sphere might be based on the states interventions required by pandemic control.

As a mere 121 pages this is an ideal little book to place the present pandemic into historical context (interestingly many of the fake news stories surrounding Covid-19 where also in circulation during the much more deadly 1918-19 Spanish Flu pandemic) and show how some of the very same measures (and slogans!) in place today have been used throughout our long and deadly history with pandemic disease. Highly recommended.