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The Myth of Panic (2021)
r is 1950. A dead body floats along the New Orleans waterfront.
If past centuries endured epidemics as acts of God, 19th-century elites decided to use ambulances and centralized hospitals, segregation camps, district and neighborhood quarantines, inspection teams, and inoculation campaigns to contain and curtail the threats posed by disease. Nothing the British did, one Pune newspaper complained, “interfered so largely and in such a systematic way with the domestic, social and religious habits of the people as the enforcement of the measures adopted for stamping out the plague.” Soon, Indians were assassinating public health commissioners, attacking hospitals, and mobbing doctors. The 19th-century riots were a strategic expression of their anger: rioters used violence to prevent the forced separation of the sick from their loved ones and the imposition of medical practices the population did not understand or trust, and to dissuade state officials from violating their privacy, property, or religious norms.
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