Epidemics, old and new, real and imagined II
Science in the Hulk: Entomological Advances Re-opening Historical Debate on Hulk Cleaning
Practises in the Bermuda Convict Establishment
In the nineteenth century the Bermuda Convict Establishment (1824-1863) saw four visitations
of the deadly yellow fever virus: 1837, 1843, 1853 and 1856. Understood at the time to be the
result of a miasmic poison, rather than an arbovirus, surgeons blamed the unhealthy living
conditions within the prison hulks for the origin of the outbreaks of disease, and attested to this
fact in the 1854 and 1857 Parliamentary Inquiries into the origin of the yellow fever epidemics in
Bermuda. Some historians have concluded that the surgeons were merely antitransportationists, and have dismissed their claims that the prison accommodation in Bermuda
was badly maintained, as being unduly biased and just plain wrong. With modern
understandings of yellow fever causation being that of a mosquito and not a miasma, this would
seem reasonable enough. Government records attest that the hulks were kept as clean as
possible. Indeed many quarterly reports penned by the Governor of Bermuda to
Superintendent of Convicts, John Capper, described the interior of the hulks as being ‘sweet and
clean’. This paper will show how recent research made by Entomologists from the North
Carolina State University into ovi-positioning habits of the aëdes aegypti mosquito can re-open
this debate and shed some light on disease causation within the hulks, and raise questions into
the hulk cleaning practices in Bermuda. Furthermore, recent research into the case fatality
rates and general space allocations within the hulks will support questions originally raised by
surgeons into the suitability of the hulks for use as human accommodation in a tropical climate.
The findings will show that by linking modern-day science to history, the surgeons of the
Bermuda convict establishment had good reason for labelling the hulks as a ‘centre for
infection’.
Angeline Brasier, School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne, Australia.
Angeline Brasier is a PhD candidate and tutor at the School of Historical Studies, University of
Melbourne. Her PhD thesis topic is an empirical analysis of hospital records from the Bermuda
convict establishment.
A tale of one city – a history of HIV/AIDS policy-making in Edinburgh – 1983-1994
Two broad strands of interpretation regarding the relationship between AIDS policy and the
state stand out. The first argues that the state’s response to AIDS in the 1980s is best described
as part of a ‘New Right reaction’ that reflected ‘moral panic’(Jeffrey Weeks) while the second
interpretation claims that the government response to AIDS was determined by the liberal
values of the traditional biomedical élite and reflects the ‘power of professionalism’(Day and
Klein). However, others have shown that this relationship was by no means straightforward. For
example, Virginia Berridge has argued for a more nuanced approach to the history of AIDS
policy-making in the UK with added insights into the many complex layers of the policy-making
process. While her model incorporates elements of the two broad strands, it sheds light on the
pattern of government response and the unprecedented role of pressure groups such as gay
groups and new medical specialties.
Studies on the history of local policy responses to AIDS in the UK have remained scarce,
especially in the Scottish context. This paper aims to address this gap in the historiography by
using Edinburgh as a case study. Initially depicted as ‘The AIDS Capital of Europe’ due to the
discovery of a high incidence of HIV infection amongst drug misusers, Edinburgh figured
prominently in British debates about the epidemiology and treatment of AIDS. Archive material
is rich and vast in Edinburgh and this has enabled me to examine the policy response to AIDS in
detail, uncovering a further layer of complexity within the policy-making process which
highlights diversity in the response to AIDS within the UK. This is particularly so with respect to
the timing of the response and the shifting balance of the role played by voluntary and statutory
groups involved in the policy-making process.
Dr Helen Coyle, University of Edinburgh,
Tutor in Social History
School of History, Classics and Archaeology
The 1908 Plague Epidemic in Colonial Accra, Gold Coast (Ghana): Local Responses in Global
Perspective.
Part of the third pandemic, plague struck the Accra, Gold Coast (Ghana) in January 1908. Like
other outbreaks occurring in 1908, the epidemic was linked to major shipping and trading lines;
and, in consequence, caused major economic and political disruptions when it struck. Nearby
colonies, mainly, Sierra Leone, enacted quarantine measures based on their own interpretation
of laws and regulations, and without seeking agreement from Whitehall, neighbouring colonies,
or commercial firms operating in the area. This resulted in significant tensions between the
imperial and colonial state, between colonies, and with the shipping firm Elder Dempster & Co.,
bringing into question concepts of modernity and health as they revolved around international
quarantine laws and regulations.
In response to the epidemic, the British government also sent William J.R. Simpson to Accra.
Prior to Accra, Simpson had been instrumental in fighting plague in India and South Africa; and,
in addition to supplying his ‘expertise’, Simpson brought a substantial amount of plague fighting
equipment, including: 5,000 doses of Haffkine prophylactic, 2 disinfecting machines, two tons of
sulphur, and numerous drums of the disinfectant cyllin. After Simpson’s arrival, the outbreak
was eradicated in Accra and surrounding areas. However, the evidence suggests that plague was
only successfully stamped out through the support of local rulers: without their assistance,
there would not have been sufficient labour and co-operation to carry out various plague
measures.
This paper investigates the outbreak in Accra by discussing the debates revolving around
international quarantine regulations, the importance placed in medical commodities experts,
and the local factors that ultimately determined the successful eradication of plague. It argues
that by doing so, we can better understand how local contexts and contingencies help give
shape to and determine universal trends and standards in health and healthcare.
Dr Ryan Johnson
University of Strathclyde
Lecturer in History
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Fluid Borders and ‘Exotic’ Disease: Quarantine, Immigration and the Creation of an ‘English’
Sanitary Zone in Late Nineteenth Century British Ports
This paper will explore how the control of imported ‘epidemic’ disease in British ports exposed
the ambiguous nature of Britain’s maritime border in the late nineteenth century. Through an
examination of the changing perception of “exotic” disease and “exotic” bodies this paper will
explore the tensions between domestic public health and international efforts to control
disease. Pressure exerted at the International Sanitary Conferences, reflecting European
concerns about the spread of disease, particularly cholera, on British imperial vessels and later,
anxieties about disease among Eastern European migrants, brought significant consequences for
the practice of British public health at the ports. As the ‘first line of defence,’ port disease
control apparatuses were central to the control of imported epidemics. However, the policing
and closing of the maritime border, even in order to prevent the arrival of epidemic diseases,
were policies that caused great discomfort to the Victorian axiom of laissez faire. Instead, the
ports came to represent an in-between space in which the national ‘geo-body’ was not fixed and
rigid but rather became fluid borders through which more flexible classifications of ‘exotic’
disease and the ‘foreign diseased’ could move.
Krista Maglen
Assistant Professor of History
Indiana University