The Never-Ending Poxes of Syphilis, AIDS, and Measles

Abstract

In this article, I address some infectious diseases that never really "ended," even though their morbidity, their social impact, and their public visibility have faded away: AIDS, syphilis, and measles. I will use data from different projects I have conducted on each of those epidemics: HIV/AIDS at the doctoral training level in the 1990s, with a geographical focus on Brazil and the United States; syphilis in the context of a 2010 project on the social history of health in Lisbon in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; and measles as part of my current project on labor migration in the 19th century, with a focus on epidemic outbreaks in migrant ships from Madeira to Hawaii.

Information, Expertise, and Authority: The Many Ends of Epidemics

“…Accordingly, bioarchaeologists Clark Spencer Larsen and Fabian Crespo incorporate long-term social circumstances-such as nutrition, sanitation, and community organization-into their analysis of the end of plague and leprosy in medieval Berridge (2022); see also Chigudu (2020). Bastos (2022). Mbali (2020, quote on p. 82).…”