Reviewed by: Modern Epidemics: From the Spanish Flu to COVID-19 by Salvador Macip Ann Westmore (bio) Salvador Macip, Modern Epidemics: From the Spanish Flu to COVID-19, translated from Catalan by Julie Wark (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2021). ISBN: 978-1-5095-4657-2 (PB). ix + 293 pp. A few years back when medical scientist and science writer, Salvador Macip, approached his publishers with the first draft of what became Modern Epidemics, they thought it was alarmist. He had confidently predicted that there would be a new pandemic before long, and described scenarios where millions of people died, established treatments were ineffective, and social and political turmoil flared. Fast forward to 2022 and Macip’s predictions look conservative. The COVID-19 pandemic has killed an estimated 6.5 million people, infected 600 million, and successive major variants have raised questions about the medium-term effectiveness of bespoke vaccines. Meanwhile vaccine-hesitant and mandate-opposed protesters in many countries have disrupted the social order and governments have gone deep into debt to keep workers and businesses afloat, provide and support health care staff in hospitals and nursing homes, and buy and distribute much sought-after face masks, test kits, vaccines, and anti-viral therapies. In Modern Epidemics Macip builds on the contemporary urge to focus on one or several types of microbial threat and distill the lessons to be learned from them. He devotes nearly forty pages to coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2, responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, a ‘big enough threat to be taken seriously ... that is going to be a major problem for quite some time’ (p. 2). With judicious candour, he notes that a more contagious and lethal version of the causative microbe could easily shade the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic experienced to date. Macip devotes a hefty portion of the book to scientifically-detailed perspectives on pandemic influenza, AIDS, tuberculosis, [End Page 201] and malaria. To varying degrees the massive and continuing impacts of these diseases rely on the trend towards a globalised, frontier-less existence, a seemingly inevitable feature of modern life. In addition, he provides concise overviews of other infectious diseases. Some of them, including anthrax, smallpox, and Ebola, have characteristics that make them candidates for bioterrorism, which inevitably introduces the notion of human agency into Macip’s preferred territory, the power of pathogens. Modern Epidemics is written for a general audience and does not claim historical credentials. So, readers should not expect the sorts of political and sociocultural revelations and hypotheses to be found in books such as War Against Smallpox (2020) or Pasteur’s Empire (2020). Nonetheless the wealth of anecdotes and explanations that Macip provides venture into times past, which has the virtue of enlivening the text and providing much-needed context. He has produced a book with a high degree of readability. This is very evident in the early chapters as Macip embarks on an exploratory journey around the human body, especially our guts, mouths, and skin. He points out that microbes are our constant companions and, in many cases, serve us well. Our individual microbiota represents some four hundred to a thousand different species of microorganism and for each person weighs about a kilogram. Those species we carry in, or on, us are the result of our environment, personal habits, and genetic make-up and they contribute to our well-being at a local and industrial level. Notwithstanding these beneficial aspects of microbes, he suggests that ‘few fields arouse as much fear and incomprehension as microbiology’ (p. 7). He may be right, which is one reason why understanding what makes particular pathogenic microbes tick, will never be enough on its own to bring a pandemic under control. Any effective response will inevitably ‘count on the cooperation and support of the whole population, since everyone has a part to play if we are going to be able to stop, or at least slow, the initial outbreak’ (p. 153). In Macip’s ideal world, the global population would employ good hygiene to prevent disease outbreaks, early detection and sharing of data to enable quick and effective responses, and excellent management and collaboration to monitor outbreaks. Designated agencies would...

This article investigates new and experimental medical treatments used to cure ‘maternal insanity’ in women committed to Victorian psychiatric institutions between 1920 and 1936. Close examination of the women's clinical files reveals the use of numerous treatments, vaccines, and tests that produced a wide range of patient outcomes. Patients received the ‘medically safe’ typhoid vaccine and Wassermann test, while the more controversial insulin coma therapy, ultraviolet ‘rays’, sterilisation, and abortion posed serious health risks. Gender influenced doctors 'therapeutic rationale in most cases, while in other instances treatments strengthened the patient—doctor relationship by offering patients hope for recovery. The treatments prescribed to insane mothers remind us of the stark realities of experimental physical treatments in Australia's past.

During the nineteenth century some doctors claimed that crime and epilepsy were linked. This paper explores whether this influenced how people with epilepsy were treated in the Australian criminal justice system. Overall, there is no evidence that it adversely affected sentencing decisions or the treatment of prisoners. Doctors occasionally pursued the insanity defence for cases involving epilepsy and homicide, ostensibly to avoid the death penalty. In South Australian prisons, care was rudimentary for people with epilepsy, but improved in tandem with legal reform. The close association between gaol and lunatic asylum also provided prisoners with access to better treatment. I argue that despite stigmatising language, the needs of people with epilepsy were recognised in prisons and their treatment was humane.

After discovering the Utopian ideals of the Soviet Union in 1937, prominent Australian psychiatrist Reginald Ellery published several articles in the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) fervently promoting their approach to psychiatry. This article looks at the support given by then MJA editor, Mervyn Archdall for Ellery's espousal of communism through the lens of Ellery's well-known radical views and Archdall's uncommon leanings toward social medicine.