Description
Book SynopsisDebunking the myth of medieval cities as apathetic in the face of filth and disease, Janna Coomans builds a new understanding of how preventative health practices shaped urban communities, with responsibilities negotiated among different groups, across areas ranging from water, food and sanitation to pigs, prostitutes and plague.
Trade Review'It is thoughtfully and inventively theorized, with an original interpretation solidly grounded in primary sources … Coomans provides a useful demonstration of how public health initiatives and principles could be implemented in places with different sociopolitical realities. The book is a regional case study rooted in a range of primary source genres but should be valuable to urban historians of other regions and periods as well. Coomans explicitly avoids facile comparisons with the failures and successes of contemporary public health strategies. She engages thoughtfully, however, with the conspicuously relevant questions of how multifaceted and decentralized public health strategies can be effective and the implications of conceptualizing public health as a common good.' Lucy C. Barnhouse, H-Sci-Med-Tech
Table of ContentsIntroduction; 1. Galenic Health and the Biopolitics of Flow; 2. The Purged Urban Heart: Municipal Sanitation; 3. Food, Health and the Marketplace; 4. Good Neighbours: Nuisance and Harmony in Living Environments; 5. Plague in Urban Healthscapes; 6. Building Community, Balancing Public Health and Order; Conclusion: Urban Health Expeditions.
