An Epidemiological Odyssey

This book attempts to set communicable diseases and the efforts to control them in a social and historical context. The primary focus is on England with its particular history, culture and traditions. The timescale covered is extensive and ambitious, and the many strands that came together in the nineteenth century to form the English public health service are clearly highlighted. However the main emphasis of the narrative is on developments from the Second World War onwards, in some of which the author has had a degree of personal involvement as a schoolchild, medical student, hospital doctor, Army doctor and public health physician. The work as a whole reveals the persisting nature of communicable diseases throughout history and strongly argues that, although the relevant importance of individual infections may vary over time, man’s struggle against the microbiological world can never be relaxed. How England has been affected is described in detail and evidence is put forward to suggest that complacency (or at least misjudgement) concerning the ever-present risks of emerging and re-emerging infections, led unwisely to the dismantling in 1974 of its established arrangements for their control, along with the subsequent need, frequently repeated, to create new structures for this purpose. This book will appeal strongly to all students and practitioners of public health along with those interested in English social history.

This book attempts to set communicable diseases and the efforts to control them in a social and historical context. The primary focus is on England with its particular history, culture and traditions. The timescale covered is extensive and ambitious, and the many strands that came together in the nineteenth century to form the English public health service are clearly highlighted. However the main emphasis of the narrative is on developments from the Second World War onwards, in some of which the author has had a degree of personal involvement as a schoolchild, medical student, hospital doctor, Army doctor and public health physician. The work as a whole reveals the persisting nature of communicable diseases throughout history and strongly argues that, although the relevant importance of individual infections may vary over time, man’s struggle against the microbiological world can never be relaxed. How England has been affected is described in detail and evidence is put forward to suggest that complacency (or at least misjudgement) concerning the ever-present risks of emerging and re-emerging infections, led unwisely to the dismantling in 1974 of its established arrangements for their control, along with the subsequent need, frequently repeated, to create new structures for this purpose. This book will appeal strongly to all students and practitioners of public health along with those interested in English social history.

At its core, epidemiology is concerned with changes in health and disease. The discipline requires counts and measures: of births, health disorders, and deaths, and in order to make sense of these counts it requires a population base defined by place and time. Epidemiology relies on closely defined concepts of cause - experimental or observational - of the physical or social environment, or in the laboratory. Epidemiologists are guided by these concepts, and have often contributed to their development. Because the disciplinary focus is on health and disease in populations, epidemiology has always been an integral driver of public health, the vehicle that societies have evolved to combat and contain the scourges of mass diseases. In this book, the authors trace the evolution of epidemiological ideas from earliest times to the present. Beginning with the early concepts of magic and the humors of Hippocrates, it moves forward through the dawn of observational methods, the systematic counts of deaths initiated in 16th-century London by John Graunt and William Petty, the late 18th-century Enlightenment and the French Revolution, which established the philosophical argument for health as a human right, the national public health system begun in 19th-century Britain, up to the development of eco-epidemiology, which attempts to re-integrate the fragmented fields as they currently exist. By examining the evolution of epidemiology as it follows the evolution of human societies, this book provides insight into our shared intellectual history and shows a way forward for future study.

Public health is once again in the spotlight after several decades of being eclipsed by high tech, individually-oriented medical science. The reasons for this are not hard to find - the ever escalating costs of medical care, growing disillusionment with the return on investment, particularly for the poorer sections of the community, and a growing recognition of the importance of health promotion and preventative strategies which focus on the environmental and behavioural determinants of health and disease. At the heart of the public health perspective is an emphasis on understanding whole populations through the application of epidemiological analysis. This reader addresses the need to make available some of the classics of epidemiology to the new generations of students who are now trained in public-health, and to share with them the excitement of the epidemiological method. There is a wealth of experience in our collective public-health past and as we shape the new public health there is a danger of ignoring lessons from the old. By drawing on the choices of leading contemporary epidemiologists in selecting published papers both old and new, this volume aims to make the classics accessible to teachers and students alike.

A deadly rash strikes scores of infants in France; children in a Connecticut town develop arthritis at an alarming rate; heart attack rates climb steadily over two decades and then drop. Mysteries like these are the challenges of epidemiologists, the scientists who isolate the causes of disease, track their modes of transmission, and measure the success of treatments. The authors of this text trace the history of epidemiology, describing the detective methods used to control the spread of contagious diseases and to investigate complex non-contagious diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and occupational illnesses.

"Theory. Traced to its Greek roots, "theory" means to see inwards; to theorize is to use our mind's eye systematically, following articulated principles, to discern meaningful patterns among observations and ideas (Oxford English Dictionary [OED] 2022). The implication is that without theory, observation is blind and explanation is impossible"--

This book is an up-to-date and comprehensive reference on lipidology. It will serve as a stimulus to the reader to continue to learn about the ever changing and fascinating field of therapeutic lipidology. It will also empower readers to improve and extend the lives of the patients they so conscientiously serve.

Touching on a range of disease, from leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) to COVID-19, Preventing the Next Pandemic has always been a timely goal, but it will be even more important in a COVID and post-COVID world.