CHAPTER 23: Human Responses to Pandemics in History and Medico-anthropological Correlates

Very few phenomena throughout human history have shaped our societies and cultures the way outbreaks of infectious diseases have; yet, remarkably little attention has been given to these phenomena in behavioral social science and in branches of medicine that are, at least in part, founded in social studies (e.g. psychiatry). However, in the era of modern humanities, fairly little attention has been given to ways plagues have affected the individual and group psychology of afflicted societies. This includes the unexamined ways pandemic outbreaks might have shaped the specialty of psychiatry; indeed, psychoanalysis was gaining recognition as an established treatment within medical community at the time the last great pandemic (before the current coronavirus disease 2019) was making the global rounds a century ago.