Library Guides: Anthro 3560W: Plagues and Peoples: Plagues in History

Mara's Book Nook

Mara's favorite plague-related reads.

Pox Americana by Elizabeth A. Fenn
Call Number: RC183.49.F46 2001
ISBN: 9780809078202
Publication Date: 2001-10-20
The astonishing, hitherto unknown truths about a disease that transformed the United States at its birth . A horrifying epidemic of smallpox was sweeping across the Americas when the War of Independence began, and yet we know almost nothing about it.
Typhoid Mary by Judith W. Leavitt
Call Number: RA644.T8 L43 1996
ISBN: 9780807021026
Publication Date: 1996-07-01
Mary Mallon was the first healthy carrier of typhoid to be carefully traced in North America, but there were other healthy carriers - over 400 in New York City alone by the 1930s - whose treatment was much less harsh. Why did Mallon's case turn out as it did?
The Great Influenza by John M. Barry
Call Number: MU Online
ISBN: 9781101200971
Publication Date: 2005-10-04
At the height of World War I, history's most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide.
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
Call Number: MED WC 355 .B873y 2002
ISBN: 9780142001431
Publication Date: 2002-04-30
Historical Fiction
When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition.

Databases for Primary Historical Sources

HeinOnline Past Pandemics Collection
An excellent full-text database for discovering how various U.S. jurisdictions and levels of government have dealt with past disease outbreaks.

Human Relations Area File
Ethnographic accounts and histories of peoples throughout the world. May contain information on how different peoples deal with particular diseases, and more, how they understand and cope with disease in general.
Date Coverage: 1940-date
Maximum Users: Unlimited
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Help: https://hraf-yale-edu.proxy.mul.missouri.edu/help/
American Periodicals
A full-text collection resources that chronicle the development of America across 150 years that include digitized images of the pages of magazines and journals.
Date Coverage: 1741 - 1900

Maximum Users: Unlimited

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JSTOR
Contains full text of a set of scholarly journals going back to their first issues, often in the 19th century. Good place to search for disease-related articles in a few medical and a few more general-science or general-knowledge scholarly journals. Does NOT contain most recent years of journals.
Free account can be created for personalization.
Date Coverage: Varies by title
Maximum Users: Unlimited
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Search Guide: https://support.jstor.org/hc/en-us/articles/115004701828-Search-Help-Resources-Overview
ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Searchable full-image of the Chicago Defender (1909-2010), Chicago Tribune (1849-1999), Los Angeles Times (1881-2000), St. Louis Post-Dispatch (1874-2003), New York Times (1851-2020), Wall Street Journal (1889-2012) and the Washington Post (1877-2007).
Early American Imprints Series I Evans (1639-1800)
Contains searchable PDF's of materials published in Colonial America and the early U.S. such as books, pamphlets, and broadsides. The collection may be browsed by topic (e.g., Genre: Songs, Economics: Liquor Traffic, History: Louisiana Purchase,etc.)
Date Coverage: 1639-1800

Maximum Users: Unlimited

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More History Databases

History: Primary Sources
by Rachel Brekhus Last Updated Jul 15, 2024 1446 views this year

Epidemics: Early Works

The entire works of Dr. Thomas Sydenham, newly made English from the originals: wherein the history of acute and chronic diseases, and the safest and most effectual methods of treating them, are faithfully, clearly, and accurately delivered.
Sydendham lived from 1624-1689. Much of the work he would have written or had access to would have been in Latin, hence the need for an English translation of an English physician's works.
Description of the jail distemper, as it appeared amongst the Spanish prisoners at Winchester, in the year 1780 : with an account of the means employed for curing that fever, and for destroying the contagion, which gave rise to it
An account of the epidemic fever which prevailed in the city of New York, during part of the summer and fall of 1795
A brief history of epidemic and pestilential diseases : with the principal phenomena of the physical world, which precede and accompany them, and observations deduced from the facts stated : in two volumes (Noah Webster, 1799)
Not really "brief" at 700+ pages, but covers a great many diseases. Full text available online through HathiTrust.