Plagues, Pandemics and Public Health in History

This course has been replaced by HIST3112 from 2025 onwards. For more information, please visit https://cass.anu.edu.au/recent-changes-cass-programs As individuals, we experience sickness and wellness in personal terms, but these conditions have always had wider dimensions. What factors have led to changing experiences of health and illness in history, and why have some groups fared better or worse than others? More than the history of bodies and medicine, this course provides cultural, economic, environmental, legal, political and social perspectives on various forms of sickness – from smallpox, plague and cholera to venereal disease, alcoholism and AIDS. Students will also learn how health policies and practices have produced distinct outcomes in different regions and periods. Science and medicine have conquered many diseases over recent centuries. But trade, exploration, colonisation, mass migration, environmental exploitation, industrialisation, war, urbanisation, political ideologies and international relations have exerted greater influence, and these factors continue to shape patterns of sickness and wellness. Power and authority sit at the heart of the relationship between illness and wellbeing. This course considers that theme by asking: how have different forms of illness and evolving health measures exposed, created and levelled inequalities? Additional questions include: What strategies have been authorized to combat illness in the pursuit of public health? Under what circumstances did health come to be considered a right?