Infection, contagion, and public health in late medieval and early modern German imperial towns

Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences

Volumn 61, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 369-389

  Kinzelbach, Annemarie ^a  

^a NONE   (Germany)

Author keywords

Contagion; Early modern society; Epidemic diseases; German imperial towns; Late medieval society; Medical theories; Plague; Popular perceptions; Public health; Purity; Syphilis

Indexed keywords

COMMUNICABLE DISEASE; DISEASE TRANSMISSION; GERMANY; HISTORY; HUMAN; PUBLIC HEALTH; REVIEW;

COMMUNICABLE DISEASES; DISEASE TRANSMISSION; GERMANY; HISTORY, 15TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 16TH CENTURY; HUMANS; PUBLIC HEALTH;

EID: 33745700087     PISSN: 00225045     EISSN: 14684373     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/jhmas/jrj046     Document Type: Review

References (146)

1. See for example Klaus Bergdolt, "Pest, Stadt, Wissenschaften - Wechselwirkungen in oberitalienischen Städten vom 14. bis 17. Jahrhundert," Berichte Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 1992, 15, 201-11;
2. Manfred Vasold, Pest, Not und schwere Plagen. Seuchen und Epidemien vom Mittelalter bis heute (München: C. H. Beck, 1991), 116-35;
3. Irma Naso, "Les hommes et les épidémies dans l'Italie de la fin du Moyen Age: Les réactions et les moyens de défense entre peur et méfiance," in Maladies et société (XII-XVIIe siècles), ed. Neithart Bulst and Robert Delort (Paris: Centre National, 1989), 307-26;
4. Jean Delumeau, Angst im Abendland. Die Geschichte kollektiver Ängste im Europa des 14, bis 18. Jahrhunderts, trans. Monika Hübner et al. (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1985), 155-87;
5. Jean-Noël Biraben, Les homines et la peste en France et dans les pays européens et mëditerranéens, 2. Les hommes face à la peste (Paris: Mouton, 1976), 26-27, 160-67, 182-85.
6. Walter G. Roedel, "Die Obrigkeiten und die Pest. Abwehrmaßnahmen in der Frühen Neuzeit - dargestellt an Beispielen aus dem süddeutschen und Schweizer Raum," in Maladies, ed. Bulst and Delort, 187-205;
7. Huldrych M. Koelbing and Vera Koelbing-Waldis, "Katastrophe und Herausforderung: Pest und Pestbekämpfung in Oberitalien und der Schweiz," Jahrbuch Instituts Geschickte Medizin Robert Bosch Stiftung, 1985, 4, 7-21;
8. Vera Waldis, "Obrigkeidiche Maßnahmen gegen die Pest in Stadt und Herrschaft Rheinfelden," Gesnerus, 1979, 36, 206-27.
9. A delayed development of plague control in Germany is discussed further by Martin Dinges, "Süd-Nord-Gefalle in der Pestbekämpfung. Italien, Deutschland und England im Vergleich," in Das europäische Gesundheitssystem: Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede in historischer Perspektive, ed. Wolfgang U. Eckart and Robert Jütte (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1994), 19-51;
10. Neithart Bulst, "Vier Jahrhunderte Pest in niedersächsischen Städten. Vom Schwarzen Tod (1349-1351) bis in die erste Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts," in Stadt im Wandel. Landesausstellung Niedersacksen, ed. Cord Meckseper (Stuttgart: Cantz, 1985), 251-70;
11. Carlo Cipolla, Public Health and the Medical Profession in the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 18.
12. For a completely different picture, see Alfons Fischer, Geschichte des deutschen Gesundheitswesens, 2 vols. (Berlin: Herbig, 1933), I, 236-46.
13. Concerning Italy and France, see Ann G. Carmichael, "Contagion Theory and Contagion Practice in Fifteenth-Century Milan," Renaissance Q., 1991, 44, 197-256;
14. Françoise Bériac, "Connaissances médicales sur la lèpre et protection contre cette maladie au moyen âge," in Maladies, ed. Bulst and Delort, 145-63;
15. John Henderson, "Epidemics in Renaissance Florence: Medical Theory and Government Response," in Maladies, ed. Bulst and Delort, 165-86.
16. Concerning Germany, see Annemarie Kinzelbach, Krankheit, Gesundheit und frühneuzeitliche Gesellschaft in städtischem Umfeld. Die Reichsstädte Überlingen und Ulm (Phil, diss., Heidelberg, 1994), 132-277;
17. Robert Jütte, "Syphilis and Confinement: Early Modern German Hospitals for Syphilitics," in Institutions of Confinement, ed. Norbert Finzsch and Robert Jütte (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 97-116.
18. Superiority of empirical experience and popular notions has been discussed by sociologists as well as historians. See for example Claudine Herzlich and Janine Pierret, Kranke gestern, Kranke heute. Die Gesellschaft und das Leiden (München: C. H. Beck, 1991), 132;
19. Ann G. Carmichael, Plague and the Poor in Renaissance Florence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 1-17, 78-126;
20. Carlo Cipolla, Fighting the Plague in Seventeenth-century Italy (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981), 2-17.
21. For the diffusion in the antique tradition, see Karl-Heinz Leven, "Miasma und Metadosis - antike Vorstellungen von Ansteckung," Medizin Gesellschaft Geschichte, 1992, 11, 43-72.
22. On the medical literature of the Middle Ages, see Vivian Nutton, "The Seeds of Disease: An Explanation of Contagion and Infection from the Greeks to the Renaissance," Med. Hist., 1983, 27, 1-34.
23. The existence of both concepts in medical thought from antiquity to the present has been discussed in a more general analysis of epidemic diseases by Charles Rosenberg, Explaining Epidemics and Other Studies in the History of Medicine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 294-99.
24. An edited example of an early tract on epidemic diseases that was written for authorities and burghers in a German town is one from Breslau in 1371-72: "propter putredinem cadaverum aerem inficentem et hoc multotiens contingit.. corumpitur aer rec [enter] ex fetido id est ex anhelitu fetido," reprinted in Karl Sudhoff, "Pestschriften aus den ersten 150 Jahren nach der Epidemie des 'Schwarzen Todes' 1348," Archiv Geschichte Medizin, 1910, 4, 211.
25. For a bibliography of printed tracts on plague and for summaries of them, see Biraben, Hommes, 7-54, 196-410;
26. John Henderson gives a detailed analysis of medieval Italian tracts in "The Black Death in Florence: Medical and Communal Responses," in Death in Tawns. Urban Responses to the Dying and the Dead, ed. Stephan Bassett (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1992), 136-50.
27. For evidence in edited sources on pestilence, see for example Karl Sudhoff, "Pestschriften aus den ersten 150 Jahren nach der Epidemie des 'Schwarzen Todes' 1348," Archiv Geschichte Medizin, 1915, 8, 246-48;
28. Karl Sudhoff, Archiv Geschichte Medizin, 1923, 14, 91-93;
29. Karl Sudhoff, Archiv Geschichte Medizin, 1924, 16, 6, 21-26, 36-37, 61-62.
30. The comments of medical doctors in Nürnberg, 1496, show that the same is also true concerning the "French disease": "egritudine.. quam vocant malam franzosam.. serpsit de domo ad alteram et de loco ad locum.. sub genere epidimie racionabiliter collocandus est. Quamobrem et homines et vestes propter contagiosum vaporem vitandi surit, praecipue in locis strictis," quoted in Karl Sudhoff, Aus der Frühgeschichte der Syphilis (Leipzig: J. A. Barth, 1912), 22;
31. see also for example C. H. Fuchs, Die ältesten Schriftsteller über die Lustseuche in Deutschland von 1495; bis 1510 (Göttingen: Dietrich, 1843), 50, 75, 347
32. and Vivian Nutton on the tradition of these perceptions (Nutton, "Seeds," 19-28).
33. 3 K; Deputatio [..] (1571, 1582, 1595, 1596, 1597, 1600, 1607, 1626, 1627); Doctores [..] (1535); Verzeichnis [..] Anschläge (1593, 1625); Wundärzte [..] (1571); Preisprotokolle 1544, 18, 2, fo.#8o, 86; 1548, 22, fp.#69-70. Nördlingen, Stadtarchiv, Medizinalakten Stadtphysici, Dr. Siderius 1571; Überlingen, Stadtarchiv, 2,20,1016 (1569, 1628, 1629); 2,20,1017 (1666); 7,23,2515, fo.#90; Missiva 1611, fo.#69v-70; 1612, fo.#141; Ratsprotokolle 1574, fo.#73v; 1584, fo.#397. Ulm, Stadtarchiv, A 3530, 16, fo.#59v; 38, fo.#388v; 55, fo.#775; 61, fo.#19v; 81, fo.#10; A [3121]; A [3183/1]; A [4404] (1547-1611); H. Furtteribach 2, 8; U 6020. For printed sources see Collect-Gebett (Ulm 1713); Joseph Furttenbach, "Architectura civilis," in Architectures universalis.. (Ulm, 1635), 61;
34. Josua Maaler, Die Teütsch spraach. Dictionarium Gernianicohtinum novum (Zürich, 1561).
35. Editions: Karl Ehrle, Dr. Hainrich Stainhöwels Regimen Pestilentiae (Leipzig, 1880);
36. Karl Sudhoff, "Pestschriften aus den ersten 150 Jahren nach der Epidemie des 'Schwarzen Todes' 1348," Archiv Geschichte Medizin, 1911, 4, 413-14;
37. Karl Sudhoff, Archiv Geschichte Medizin, 1915, 8, 178-79, 187, 196, 198, 200;
38. Karl Sudhoff, Archiv Geschichte Medizin, 1923, 14, 102, 105;
39. Karl Sudhoff, Archiv Geschichte Medizin, 1924, 16, 11, 15, 32-33;
40. Fuchs, Schriftsteller, 34, 47, 843.
41. The phrases contained the noun "gift" (poison), the verb "vergiften" (to poison), the participle "vergiftet" (poisoned), and the adjective "giftig" (poisonous). The medieval root of "gift" derived from giving retains that meaning in English. Latin-German dictionaries list the term "vergiften" as an appropriate translation for "inficere," referring to the meaning to stain with color, to fill with poison, etc., thus indicating a parallel to the meanings of "miasma." On this parallel, see also Leven, "Miasma," 50, 58.
42. In modern German-English dictionaries, "Ansteckung" is translated as contagion. Literal translation would add further meanings to those already mentioned: "to stick on," as well as "to pass on," or "to set fire to." The medieval root of "anstecken" is "stechend befestigen," to fasten stinging. Modern German-German or etymological dictionaries explain the word "Infektion" with "Ansteckung."
43. To give some examples in chronological order: About 1450-persons show "zaichen.. der gifftikait" (signs of the poisonousness), Sudhoff, "Pestschriften," 1915, 8, 196;
44. before 1477 - a medicine for all "poß gifft" (bad poison) is recommended; bloodletting is said to "zucht das gifft von dannen" (take the poison away), Sudhoff, "Pestschriften," 1924, 16, 32;
45. before 1535-"das gifft der pestilentz" (the poison of pestilence) is moved, Fuchs, Schriftsteller, 843;
46. 1571-"geschwinden gefahrlichen infectionen" (quick dangerous infections), Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Collegium Medicum, Deputatio [..];
47. 1585-a person is "mit der Infection nit behafft" (not afflicted with the infection), Ulm, Stadtarchiv, A 3530, 38, Bl. 388v;
48. 1599-there is "verborgen frantzösisch gift" (concealed French poison), Stadtarchiv, A, ibid., A [4403];
49. 1625-somewhere is "die Infection eingerissen" (the Infection spread), Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Collegium Medicum, Acta [..] Contagioriis;
50. 1630-persons have "ein Innerliche Infection" (an internal infection), Ulm, Stadtarchiv, A [3121];
51. 1635-somebody fears "die Infection oder boese Kranckheit der Pestilentz" (the infection or bad sickness of pestilence), Furttenbach, Architectura, 61.
52. The use of infection as a noun is not restricted to the German language or early modern texts; see the Latin "Consilium magistri bernhardi de Franckfort contra pestem" in 1381-"et infectionem viceversa incurrens," Sudhoff, "Pestschriften," 1915, 8, 246.
53. To cite only a few examples: In 1544-to visit all "vergifften personen" (poisoned persons); Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, 16, 2, fo.#80;
54. in 1571-medical treatment for "Irificierte Personen" (infected persons), Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Collegium Medicum, Wundärzte.
55. In 1562-It is "der lufft [..] noch nit vergift" (the air not yet poisoned), Ulm, Stadtarchiv, U 6020;
56. in 1607-It is "der lufft nit inficirt" (the air not infected), Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Collegium Medicum Deputatio [..]. About 1500-cvired from "den vergifften geschwer der pestilentz" (the poisoned ulcer of pestilence), Sudhoff, "Pestschriften," 1923, 14, 105;
57. in 1535-"mit dem Prechen vergifft" (poisoned by the infirmity), Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Collegium Medicum Doctores [..]; in 1569-"mit [..] der krannckhait der Franzosen Inficyrt worden"(been infected by the disease of the French), Überlingen, Stadtarchiv, 2,20,1016; in ion-persons "so peste inficiert" (which are infected by plague), Ulm, Stadtarchiv, A 3530, 61, Bl. 19v.
58. In 1571-A disease called "die gifftige, oder Pestilermtzische Fleckhen" (the poisonous, or pestilential spots), Nördlingen, Stadtarchiv, Medizinalakten, Dr. Siderivis; in 1647-afflicted "mit inficirenden petechien" (with infectious petechials). Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Collegium Medicum, Acta [..] Physicos; in 1659-"nachlaß der vorigen gifftigen Kranckheit" (ceasing of the former poisonous disease), ibid., CM 3 K.
59. In 1611-"Aines von dem Andern inficirt und vergifftet worden," Überlingen, Stadtarchiv, 7,23,2515, fo.#116v-117, or, as an earlier example, 1535-"Wan aber solche Kranckhait befleckhlich ist, dadurch ein mensch von dem andern leichtlich vergifft werden mag," Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Collegium Medicum, Doctores [..] "Anschlag." This perception is not specific to the early modern period but can be found in late medieval Latin and German consilia too: "quia potest esse, quod aliquis eorum est infectus ex quo alterius possetis infici." Sudhoff, "Pestschriften," 1924, 16, 62;
60. "wan sich die menschen derselben mit irem atem vnd complexion vermischen, damit aim daz ander vergifftet," Pestschriften, ibid., 1923, 14, 130.
61. 1582-"mit [..] einem Würmlin [..] Inficirt, unnd vergifft," Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Collegium Medicum, Deputatio [..] i.
62. Meister Jakob von Ulm, ca. 1400-"in einem gemeinen lauf.. alle gift kumpt von dem luft, so der vergift ist.. so der gift luft einget in daz mensch, zehant lauft das giftig plut zu dem herzen," Sudhoff, "Pestschriften, " 1911, 4, 413-14. Stainhöwel, Ulm, 1473-"gifftig tämpff usz den gröbem," Ehrle, Stainhöwels.
63. On "miasmata" during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, see Alain Corbin, Pesthauch und Blütenduft. Eine Geschichte des Geruchs, trans. Grete Osterwald (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1990).
64. These concepts were also discussed by Renaissance doctors in Italy; see Nutton, "Seeds," 22-26.
65. Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Collegium Medicum, Doctores [..] (1535); Ratsprotokolle 1548, 22, fo.#69-70. For similar apprehension in Italian cities, see Carlo Cipolla, Miasmas and Disease: Public Health and the Environment in the Pre-Industriat Age (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992).
66. Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, 16, fo.#129; 22, fo.#69v-70,#114; Collegium Medicum Acta [..] Contagion; Deputatio [..] 1 (24-25), 2; Pfuscher [..]; Verzeichnis [..] Anschläge; Wundärzte [..]; Ulm, Stadtarchiv, A 3530, 72, Bl. 194V. Printed sources: Gustav Veesenmeyer, Sebastian Fischers Chronik, besonders von Ulmischen Sachen, Ulm und Oberschwaben, 5-8, 1896, 18;
67. Joseph Furttenbach, "Architectura privata..," in Architectura civilis.. (Augsburg, 1641; reprinted Hildesheim: OLMS, 1971), "Inhalt";
68. Alfons Semler, Die Tagebücher des Dr. Johann Heinrich von Pflummem 1633-1643 (Karlsruhe: ZGO Beihefte 98, 1950), 138;
69. Hermann Baier, "Johann Georg Schinbains Beschreibung der Reichsstadt Überlingen vom Jahre 1597," Zeitschnft Geschichte Oberrheins, 1922, N.F. 37, 471.
70. Nördlingen, Stadtarchiv, Medizinalakten, Stadtphysici, Dr. Siderius.
71. 3" K; Überlingeu, Stadtarchiv, 7,23,2515; Ulm, Stadtarchiv, A 3530, 7, fo.#45v; 16, fo.#207v; 42, fo.#476v; A 3531, 6, fo.#315, 369, 382, 495, 509-510, 976; A [3183]; A [4403]; H Furttenbach, 1, 20, 22, 59, 305; Sudhoff, "Festschriften," 1911, 4, 413-14.
72. For this interchange exists a literal example in Latin: "Epidimia seu pestilencia, quod idem est, est morbus quidem contagiosus id est infectiuus" (1481), Sudhoff, "Pestschriften," 1924, 16, 36.
73. Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Almosenamt, Blatterhaus (1581);
74. Collegium Medicum Acta (1563);
75. Acta [..] Contagionis (1625);
76. Acta [..] Physicos (1647);
77. Deputatio [..] (1607, 1627);
78. Doctores (1535)1 Lazareth (1628, 1632);
79. Pfuscher (1562);
80. Verzeichnis [..] Anschläge (1628);
81. Ratsprotokolle 1543, 17, fo.#9;
82. 1547, 21, fo.#19; St. Martinsstiftung, Blatterhaus, VI, no. 47-50. Nördlingen, Stadtarchiv, Medizinalakten Stadtphysici, Dr. Siderius 1571;
83. Ratsprotokolle 1508, fo.#178v. Überlingen, Stadtarchiv, 2,20,1016 (1569);
84. 7,23,2515, fo.#51v, 135; Missiva 1612, fo.#141;
85. Ratsprotokolle 1498, fo.#41v; 1574, fo.#90-91;
86. 1594, fo.#287v; 1611, fo.#394;
87. Reutlinger, 16, 2, fo.#261. Ulm, Stadtarchiv, A 3530 21, fo.#289;
88. 28, fo.#594v; A [3183/1]; A [4399];
89. A [4403], no. 51-94; A [4404];
90. H Furttenbach 2, 23; K 3670, 3, fo.#318r; U 5119; U 6020.
91. Sometimes also "verunreinigt" (polluted).
92. In medieval texts further: "beklebt" and "anklaibig" (being glued, stuck); see Sudhoff, "Pestschriften," 1915, 8, 184;
93. Sudhoff, Pestschriften, 1924, 16, 18.
94. Also: "angegriffen" and "angestoßen" (touched, affected, attacked).
95. In a German-Latin dictionary of the sixteenth century, the fact that some diseases were considered to be "erblich" (literally, inheritable) was explained with "durch arischauung eines anderen, contagio aspectus" (by looking on another person); see Maaler, Teütsch.
96. Convictions that diseases could be caught by sight of the sick are reported also from Italian cities; see Henderson, "Epidemics," 171, whereas in medical tracts it was the eye of the sick as well that caused disease and death;
97. see Biraben, Hommes, 22.
98. Semler, "Tagebücher," 138-39 (8 March 1634).
99. Ulm, Stadtarchiv, H. Furttenbach 1, 305, 311; 2, 8, 11, 24, this was only one year later, in 1635.
100. Traditionally, the diverging ideas of academic and popular medicine are stressed, as for example in Doreen Evenden Nagy, Popular Medicine in Seventeenth-Century England (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Press, 1988).
101. Authors of more recent studies emphasize parallels between them; see for example Andrew Wear, "The Popularization of Medicine in Early Modern England," in The Popularisation of Medicine, 1650-1850, ed. Roy Porter (London: Routledge, 1992), 17-41;
102. Martha R. Baldwin, "Toads and Plague: Amulet Therapy in Seventeenth-Century," Bull. Hist. Med., 1993, 67, 227-47.
103. On Augsburg, see Bernd Roeck, Eine Stadt in Krieg und Frieden (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1989), 301-8;
104. on Ulm and Überlingen: Annemarie Kinzelbach, Gesundbleiben, Krankwerden, Armsein in der frühneuzeitlichen Gesellschaft (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1995);
105. on Nördlingen, see Christopher S. Friedrichs, Urban Society in an Age of War: Nördlingen 1580-1720 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979), 301-8.
106. Kinzelbach, Gesundbleiben, 24-29, 225-53.
107. The definition of "consilia" in this context is not limited to "description of cases" (see Danniell Jacquart, "Theory, Everyday Practice, and Three Fifteenth-Century Physicians," Osiris, 1990, 2nd series 6, 140-60, esp. 149), but refers to a more general meaning, that is, counsel.
108. In Germany, Karl Sudhoff gathered a large quantity of texts in Latin and German as well as information on authors and origin under the heading "Pestschriften aus den ersten 150 Jahren nach der Epidemie des 'Schwarzen Todes' 1348" in his periodical Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin; on the southern part of German-speaking areas, see 1911, 4; 1915, 8; 1923, 14/15; and 1924, 16. Especially in the context of plague, the question of text-tradition has occupied many historians; a survey of the (medical) literature is in H. Kupferschmidt, Die Pest in der medizinischen Fachliteratur 1879-1985. Eine Bibliographie ausgezogen aus dem Index Medicus (Zürich: Medizinhistor. Inst. d. Univ., 1987).
109. Fora example of text-analyses, see Gerhard Eis, Medizinische Fachprosa des späten Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1982).
110. In Germany, only few studies give information on a socially differentiated perception of medical knowledge during the medieval period; see for example Ortrun Riha, "Der Aderlaß in der mittelalterlichen Medizin," Medizin Gesellschaft Geschichte, 1989, 8, 93-118.
111. Kinzelbach, Gesundbleiben, 134-268; further evidence from: Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Almosenamt, Blatterhaus [..]; Collegium Medicum, Acta; Acta Contagionis [..]; CM 3 1; Deputatio, 1 and 2; Doctores; Ordnungen; Verzeichnis [..] Anschläge; Ratsprotokolle 1521, 15, fo.#10-14; 1547. 21,. fo.#19, 2, fo.#26-28, 39v; 1563, 33, fo.#28, 60v, 61v, 63, 91v-93; 1564, 34, fo.#4v, 23, 79; 1572, 38, fo.#55v. Nördlingen, Stadtarchiv, Medizinalakten, Physici. 35. Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Collegium Medicum Deputatio 1 (1585), 2 (1626); Wundärzte (1592); St. Martinsstiftung, Blatterhaus, VI, no. 47-50 (1549, 1586). Überlingen, Stadtarchiv, 1, 80,855 (1514); 7123, 2515, fo.#51V, 135; Ulm, Stadtarchiv, A [3121]; A [4403].
112. The same maintenance of ancient vocabulary might be observed in other texts displaying a tendency toward formula as prayers or sermons. Nömu;rdlingen, Stadtarchiv, Gelegenheitsgedichte, 320, 8, 55; Predigten, Regner; Ulm, Stadtbibliothek, "Danksagungs Gebett / [..]1636"; "Collect-Gebett /[..] 1713."
113. Nördlingen, Stadtarchiv, Medizinalakten Stadtphysici, Dr. Siderius, 1571.
114. Überlingen, Leopold-Sophien-Bibliothek, MS 98, fo.#1002, 201, 206, 212-214; Ulm, Stadtarchiv, G 1, 1676, 1, fo.#28v-32;
115. see also Wilhelm Abel, Massenarniut und Himgerkrisen im vorindustriellen Deutschland, 2nd ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1977), 40-45.
116. The role of the poor during epidemic diseases has been discussed by Brian Pullan, "Plague and Perceptions of the Poor in Early Modern Italy," in Epidemics and Ideas: Essays on the Historical Perception of Pestilence, ed. Terence Ranger and Paul Slack (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 101-23;
117. on German towns, see also Kinzelbach, Gesundbleiben, 193-203.
118. The two medical doctors explained: though some physicians used expressions like "pestiferam luem," "pestilentialem febrem," "pestem ipsam," or in Italy, "petechi," these different names did riot indicate different diseases. Instead, in their opinion, the only intention of doctors speaking about "febris pestilentialis" instead of "pestis" was to soothe the "gemeinen man" (literally, common man). Nördlingen, Stadtarchiv, Medizinalakten Stadtphysici, Dr. Siderius, 30 December 1571.
119. The reference to two "classes of contagious diseases" and the classification in diseases, which were more or less contagious, seemed to be commonplace in the last decades of the sixteenth century, as the publications of Francisco Valles suggest; see Nutton, "Seeds," 32.
120. The most important sign in southern Germany was the opening of the plague-hospital outside the town. See Kinzelbach, Gesundbleiben, 250, 378-86.
121. This insistence on cleanliness and the separation of the sick can be compared to ritual behavior and the separation laws for lepers in the Bible. See Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge, 1966);
122. The Bible, Leviticus 13:1-59.
123. Nutton suggests that physicians provided theoretical justification for the authorities (Nutton, "Seeds," 29). The advice of the physicians in Nördlingen is an example of how medical doctors contributed to the stabilization of the early modern society in a rather pragmatic way.
124. See also Paul Slack, "Introduction," in Epidemics, ed. Ranger and Slack, 1-20.
125. The following passages could also refer to reactions concerning the French Disease, which traditionally is identified as syphilis. See Annemarie Kinzelbach, '"Böse Blattern' oder 'Franzosenkrankheit': Syphiliskonzept, Kranke und Genese des Krankenhauses in oberdeutschen Reichsstädten der frühen Neuzeit," in Neue Wege der Seuchengeschichte, ed. Martin Dinges and Thomas Schlich (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1995), 43-69.
126. This is well known from northern Italian cities. See for example Henderson, "Black Death"; Carmichael, "Contagion"; Cipolla, Fighting;
127. William M. Bowsky, "The Impact of the Black Death upon Sienese Government and Society," Speculum, 1964, 39, 1-34;
128. Ernst Rodenwaldt, Pest in Venedig 1575-1577 (Heidelberg: Springer, 1953).
129. I could list twenty-three points; see Kinzelbach, Gesundbleiben, 228-36;
130. if not stated otherwise, evidence for the following passages comes from idem, 225-67. Parts of these measures are listed for other German towns too; see Neithard Bulst, "Krankheit und Gesellschaft in der Vormoderne. Das Beispiel der Pest," in Maladies, ed. Bulst and Delort, 30-47;
131. Rodel, "Obrigkeiten."
132. Apart from the regulations called "Pestordmmgen," which contain only fragments of administrative plague control arid survive only haphazardly from the fifteenth or early sixteenth century, most information on plague practices was recorded accidentally. Überlingen, Stadtarchiv, Ratsprotokolle 1498, fo.#41v; 1553, fo.#42v; 1566, fo.#499; Reutlinger, 5 (198, 201); Ulm, Stadtarchiv, A 3530, 6, fo.#372; 16, fo.#44v, 59v; 19, fo.#240; A [4152]; A [4399]; K 3670 (3, 2483). References will be restricted almost exclusively to the sixteenth century because, on the one hand, there is generally only scarce evidence for practices during the centuries before 1500. On the other hand, there is not much alteration during the seventeenth century.
133. On the role of symbolic action, see also Giulia Calvi, "The Florentine Plague of 1630-33: Social Behaviour and Symbolic Action," in Maladies, ed. Bulst and Deloit, 327-36.
134. To illustrate the immediacy of reactions: in Augsburg, the information of 16 October 1617 that in Amsterdam the previous week 430 persons had died from "pesta" led immediately to restrictions on persons as well as on goods coming from Amsterdam, and, three days later, to a general interdiction of the pedlar-market. Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Collegium Medicum, Deputatio, 2.
135. Those procedures are comparable to those of late medieval and early modern Italian cities; see Pullan, "Plague";
136. Henderson, "Epidemics," 175;
137. and the "edicts" of different cities in Sauljarcho, ed., Italian Broadsides Concerning Public Health: Documents from Bologna and Brescia in the Mortimer and Anna Neinken Collection (New York: Futura Publishing Company, 1986).
138. The construction of the buildings themselves served both purposes: to minimize contacts between sick and healthy persons, and to ventilate the rooms without causing the danger of corrupt air for the town; as examples in Ulm and Überlingen indicate, medical help for the sick was another important concern; see Kinzelbach, Cesundbleiben, 378-86.
139. Augsburg, Stadtarchiv, Collegium Medicum, Deputatio, 2; on the number of households in tax lists and of those supported in 1628-1629, see Roeck, Stadt, 304, 643.
140. See for example Giulia Calvi, "Plague";
141. Carlo Cipolla, Fighting;
142. Kinzelbach, Gesundbleiben, 191-267.
143. Those problems existed independently from confessions. In the "Catholic" Uberlingen as well as in the "Lutheran" Ulm, for example, there was a conflict between the City Council and authorities of the church concerning the isolation of the sick and the reduction of services during an epidemic; see Kinzelbach, Gesundbleiben, 261-62.
144. For a warning about mixing our perceptions of diseases with those found in historical texts, see John Arrizabalaga, John Henderson, and Roger French, The Great Pox: The French Disease in Renaissance Europe (New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 1997), esp. 3-19.
145. See Douglas, Purity; Leviticus 13:1-59.
146. See Kinzelbach, Gesundbleiben, Tab. A4, 413-14.