Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence (review)

This Facts on File text lists outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics as a “compendium of geo-historical information . . . concerned with cause and effect primarily. . . .” (p. vii). Entries are mostly listed alphabetically by place, with a limited listing by specific disease or “plague” in chronological order for a given place. “Plague” is used both for Yersina pestis and for any epidemic; in the latter sense, mostly for the older “plagues” of various causes.

Each entry has one or two references to an excellent selected bibliography of secondary sources. The careful use of internal cross-references and an exhaustive index make it possible to trace specific diseases. There is a useful timetable—listing date, disease, and locality—from the eleventh century b.c.e. to 1994. An appendix lists all the geographical place names by region, with the various pestilences in each region and place named as they are in the text.

There is no attempt to define the difference between a small or limited outbreak, an epidemic, and a worldwide pandemic. Pathophysiological and epidemiological specificity and selectivity are specifically excluded by the author. Cultural and social contexts are absent. I searched for errors by looking at a few familiar diseases, and found no egregious mistakes. Small quibbles (it is Yersina pestis, not Pastemella; Walter Reed did not work with Gorgas, and Reed headed a board, not a commission) do not detract from the utility of the volume.

The Facts on File volumes are directed primarily at undergraduates, journalists, and others who need a reliable, brief, handy source to answer very specific questions against a deadline. Since these users usually will be place oriented, diseases and etiological agents are thus not headings; the index and appendices must be consulted for this information. This volume most admirably fulfills the requirements of those users. Historians will prefer compendia such as the Cambridge World History of Human Disease (1993).

On the other hand, I wager you did not know that there were at least twenty-one named “plagues” of various kinds, in various places, at various times; or that London had eight bubonic plague, four smallpox, and seven louse-borne typhus epidemics. You could look it up.