Contours of Death and Disease in Early Modern England

This 1997 book provides a geographical, demographic and epidemiological study of disease and mortality in early modern England. Using a wide range of sources, the author examines the dramatic variations in death rates and disease patterns across the English countryside, and in so doing gives the first detailed account of the history of malaria in England.

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This 1997 book provides a penetrating account of death and disease in England during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Using a wide range of sources for the south-east of England, the author highlights the tremendous variation in levels of mortality across geographical contours and across two centuries. She explores the epidemiological causes and consequences of these mortality variations, and offers the reader a fascinating insight into the way patients and practitioners perceived, understood and reacted to the multitude of fevers, poxes and plagues in past times. She examines, in particular, the significance of malaria in English demographic history, and provides a detailed account of the history of this once endemic disease. This broad-ranging and stimulating study will be of interest to historical demographers, medical historians, geographers and epidemiologists.