English

The Epidemics of the Middle Ages

LibriVox recording of The Epidemics of the Middle Ages by Justus Hecker; John Caius. (Translated by Benjamin G. Babington.) Read by Kazbek Justus Friedrich Carl Hecker (1795-1850) was a German physician and medical writer, whose research focused on the history of epidemics, in a broad sense of the term that included pandemics like the Black Death as well as the group of social phenomena known as dancing mania. The Epidemics of the Middle Ages comprises three of his works -- The Black Death, The Dancing Mania, and The Sweating Sickness -- translated by the English epidemiologist Benjamin Guy Babington. Despite what the name of the book may suggest, the events it describes are not limited to the Middle Ages. The Black Death recounts the history of the bubonic plague in Europe, with particular attention to its cultural ramifications, such as the Flagellant movement and persecution of the Jews. The Dancing Mania describes mysterious social phenomena that occurred mainly in Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries, in which groups of people engaged in apparently uncontrollable dancing. The nature of the dancing mania continues to be a subject of debate, and Hecker's book remains one o

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