Epidemics and Society by Frank M. Snowden
“Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in our history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.” __ Albert Camus, The Plague
In many ways, The Plague anticipates not just what’s taking place in the world today, but what has taken place over the course of centuries, ever since the Middle Ages.
As Frank Snowden shows in his textbook, Epidemics and Society, a pandemic, like Covid_19, is not a recent phenomenon. He starts by examining the Black Death that occurred in Europe in the fourteenth century and then he discusses a series of other epidemics including the bubonic plague, cholera, malaria, yellow fever, tuberculosis, poliomyelitis and the more recent outbreaks of HIV/AIDS, SARS and finally, Ebola.
What makes Epidemics and Society is so unique is that it provides a comprehensive view of the ways each epidemic impact societies. Snowden’s approach is multi-levered, he places each disease in its historical, cultural and social context and he examines the role of science, politics and faith, as well as the key figures that played a role in understanding and finding a cure for these diseases.
Each disease, writes Snowden, an emeritus professor of history at Yale, represents not only a health crisis but also asocial and economic crisis, and often a political one as well. Each epidemic has inevitably resulted to changes in society, often quite dramatically. These changes have been reflected in the literature and in the arts and in science and technology. He writes,
“Epidemics are not an esoteric subfield for the interested specialist but instead are a major part of the ‘big picture’ of historical change and development. [They are] as important to understanding societal development, as powerful forces in societal change as wars and revolutions.”
In the last chapter, titled “Dress Rehearsals for the Twenty-First Century,” Snowden discusses Ebola and the extent of global unpreparedness to face the challenge of an epidemic disease, as we all experienced in the past twelve months. One reason of this unpreparedness, he argues, “is the treatment of health as a commodity in the market rather that as human right.” Treating health as a commodity implies that decisions affecting the life and health of millions are placed in the hands of politicians whose power depends on generating development, trade and profits.
Snowden projections have certainly proved prescient. He writes,
"If we wish to avoid catastrophic epidemics, it will be therefore imperative to make economic decisions that give due consideration to the public health vulnerabilities that result and to hold the people who make these decisions accountable for the foreseeable health consequences that follow. In the ancient but pertinent wisdom, salus populi suprema lex esto – public health must be the highest law- and it must override the laws of the marketplace."