Author Topic: Epidemics, Miasma and The Great Stink  (Read 2775 times)

Offline lonetrooper

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Epidemics, Miasma and The Great Stink
« on: Tuesday 03 June 14 00:07 BST (UK) »
I’m not too sure where to put this but I found the following, article about belief in Miasma at the time of ‘The great stink’ in London and before the general public really understood what was causing the Cholera and typhoid outbreaks among others.

http://richardjohnbr.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/disease-in-victorian-city-extended.html

We have quite a few ancestors in more than one line that were lost to these and smallpox, both in London and Wales and would like to understand more about how the dread of these diseases affected people, their beliefs, habits and attitudes to death in the face of so much of it.

I am hoping there is something that is not so much academic but more a historical novel, about London. Something like the Philip Roth book, ‘Nemesis’ where he describes the reality of how the dread of Polio affected a small town in the USA, something he actually experienced and remembered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_(Philip_Roth_novel)

Are there any books on this that are London and or Welsh based, that anyone can recommend that are a genuinely good read, historically accurate and yet not too heavy going or morbid?
CANTY - Ireland - London
LANCHBURY - Oxfordshire - London
LUCKHARDT - Germany - London