The legal history of epidemics - selected secondary sources

(Primary sources here)

Video of the online colloquium on the legal history of epidemics, 25 May 2020, here.

Updated 19 January 2022

Before 1800

Mario Ascheri, Rimedi contro le epidemie: I consigli di diritto europeo dei giuristi (secoli xiv-xvi) (Aracne, 2020).

Mario Ascheri, "Between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age, The Italian Contribution to European Reflection on Epidemics: Did Jurists Advise Governments?" Italian Review of Legal History, vol. 7 (2021): 31-45.

Besozzi, Leonida, Le magistrature cittadine milanesi e la peste del 1576-1577 (Cappelli, 1988).

Biblioteca Civica di Cormano, Fame di giustizia: Manzoni e la Storia della Colonna infame (Cormano, 2009).

Kristy Wilson Bowers, "Balancing Individual and Communal Needs: Plague and Public Health in Early Modern Seville." Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 81 no. 2 (2007): 335-358.

Ann G. Carmichael, "Plague Legislation in Italian Renaissance." Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 57 (1983): 508-525.

Patrick E. Carroll, "Medical police and the history of public health." Medical History, vol. 46 (2002): 461-494.

 Alex Chase-Levenson, The Yellow Flag: Quarantine and the British Mediterranean World, 1780–1860 (Cambridge UP, 2020).

Carlo M. Cipolla, Fighting the Plague in Seventeenth-century Italy (U. Wisconsin Press, 1981).

Carlo M. Cipolla, Public Health and the Medical Profession in the Renaissance (Cambridge UP, 1976).

Lorenzo Coccoli, "Book Review: Mario Ascheri, Rimedi contro le epidemie. I consigli di diritto europeo dei giuristi (secoli XIV-XVI)." Journal of Interdisciplinary History of Ideas, vol. 9(18) (2020): 8:4-8:11.

Samuel Cohn, "After the Black Death: labour legislation and attitudes towards labour in late‐medieval western Europe." Economic History Review, vol. 60 (2007): 457-485. 

Alexandra Parma Cook & Noble David Cook, The Plague Files: Crisis Management in Sixteenth-Century Seville (LSU Press, 2009).

William J. Curran, "Legal history of emergency medicine from medieval common law to the AIDS epidemic." American Journal of Emergency Medicine, vol. 15, no. 7 (1997): 658-670.

John J. Curry, "Scholars, Sufis, and Disease: Can Muslim Religious Works Offer Us Novel Insights on Plagues and Epidemics Among the Medieval and Early Modern Ottomans?" In Plague and Contagion in the Islamic Mediterranean: New Histories of Disease in Ottoman Society (Nükhet Varlık ed., ARC Humanities Press, 2017), 27-55.

Clare Cushman, "Epidemics and the Supreme Court." The Supreme Court Historical Society website.

Ben Darlow, "The Law of Pandemics." English Legal History blog, 26 March 2020.

Maria Gigliola Di Renzo Villata, "Il processo agli untori di manzoniana memoria e la testimonianza (ovvero... due volti dell'umana giustizia)." Acta Histriae, vol. 19, no. 3 (2011): 419-452.

Paola Frati, "Quaratine, Trade and Health Policies in Ragusa-Dubrovinik until the Age of George Armenius-Baglivi." Medicina nei Secoli-Arte e Scienza, vol. 12, no. 1 (2000): 103-127.

Nan D. Hunter, The Law of Emergencies (Elsevier, 2nd ed., 2017) (Chapter 13: "Public Health Law I: Complications of Federalism", pp. 223-244).

Vivienne Larminie, "Isolation, Containment and Financial Assistance: Parliament’s response to epidemics in the 1640s." History of Parliament blog, 7 April 2020.

Charles Littleton, "‘Where the disease is desperate, the remedy must be so too’: debating the 1721 Quarantine Act." History of Parliament blog, 9 April 2020.

Tamara Morsel-Eisenberg, "Is It Permitted to Flee the City?" Tablet, 20 April 2020.

Kira L. S. Newman, "Shutt Up: Bubonic Plague and Quarantine in Early Modern England." Journal of Social History, vo. 45, no. 3 (2012): 809–834.

Robert Palmer, English Law in the Age of the Black Death, 1348-1381 (UNC Press, 1993).

Euan C. Roger, "‘To Be Shut Up’: New Evidence for the Development of Quarantine Regulations in Early-Tudor England." Social History of Medicine, hkz031 (2019).

Paul Slack, "Responses to Plague in Early Modern Europe: The Implications of Public Health." Social Research, vol. 55 (1988): 433-453.

Paul Slack, "The Response to Plague in Early Modern England: Public Policies and Their Consequences." In Famine, Disease and the Social Order in Early Modern Society (John Walter & Roger Schofield eds., Cambridge UP, 1991), 167-188.

Salvatore Speziale, “Epidemics and Quarantine in Mediterranean Africa from the Eighteenth to the Mid-Nineteenth Century.” Journal of Mediterranean Studies, vol. 16, no. 1 (2006): 249–58.

Justin Stearns, "Contagion in Theology and Law: Ethical Considerations in the Writings of Two 14th Century Scholars of Nasrid Granada." Islamic Law and Society, vol. 14 (2007): 109-129.

Elizabeth C. Tandy, "Local Quarantine and Inoculation for Smallpox in the American Colonies." American Journal of Public Health, vol. 13, no. 3 (1923): 203-207.

M.A. Van Andel, "Plague Regulations in the Netherlands." Janus, vol. 21 (1916): 410-444.

Alberto Vespaziani,"'Una forza da alcuna ragion colorata': diritto, giuristi e potere costituente nel 'Decameron'." Anamorphosis, Rivista Internacional de Direito e Literatura, vol.3, no.2 (2017): 307-332;

also published as "'Force Disguised as Reason': Law, Jurists, and Constituent Power in Boccaccio's Decameron." German Law Journal, vol. 19 (2018): 879-900;

"«Une contrainte déguisée sous les habits de la raison»: Droit, juristes et pouvoir constituant dans le Décaméron." Revue interdisciplinaire d'études juridiques, vol. 81, no. 2 (2018): 35-58.

Alan D. Watson, “Combating Contagion: Smallpox and the Protection of Public Health in North Carolina, 1750 to 1825.” North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 90, no. 1 (2013): 26–48.

Vid Žepič, "'Pandemic Criminal Law' in Continental European Legal History." Journal on European History of Law, vol. 13, no. 2 (2022): 50–63.

Zhang Jinfan & Wang Bintong, "National Wisdom Revealed in Ancient Anti-epidemic Measures."  Guangming Daily, 8 April 2020.

Nineteenth Century

Layla J. Aksakal, "The Sick Man and his Medicine: Public Health Reform in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt." Harvard Law School student paper (2003).

Peter Baldwin, Contagion and the State in Europe, 1830-1930 (Cambridge UP, 1999).

Alison Bashford, Imperial Hygiene: A Critical History of Colonialism, Nationalism and Public Health (Springer, 2004).

Felice J. Batlan, "Law in the Time of Cholera: Disease, State Power, and Quarantine Past and Future." Temple Law Review, vol. 80 (2007): 53-122.

Patrick E. Carroll, "Medical police and the history of public health." Medical History, vol. 46 (2002): 461-494.

 Alex Chase-Levenson, The Yellow Flag: Quarantine and the British Mediterranean World, 1780–1860 (Cambridge UP, 2020).

William J. Curran, "Legal history of emergency medicine from medieval common law to the AIDS epidemic." American Journal of Emergency Medicine, vol. 15, no. 7 (1997): 658-670.

John J. Curry, "Scholars, Sufis, and Disease: Can Muslim Religious Works Offer Us Novel Insights on Plagues and Epidemics Among the Medieval and Early Modern Ottomans?" In Plague and Contagion in the Islamic Mediterranean: New Histories of Disease in Ottoman Society (Nükhet Varlık ed., ARC Humanities Press, 2017), 27-55.

Clare Cushman, "Epidemics and the Supreme Court." The Supreme Court Historical Society website.

Richard J. Evans, "Epidemics And Refuseniks: The Birth Of State Responsibility", Sense about Science Lecture Royal Society of Medicine, 9 May 2011.

Mark Harrison, "Disease, diplomacy and international commerce: the origins of international sanitary regulation in the nineteenth century." Journal of Global History, vol. 1 (2006): 197-217.

Mark Harrison, Public Health in British India: Anglo-Indian Preventive Medicine 1859–1914 (Cambridge UP, 1994).

E.P. Hennock, "Vaccination Policy Against Smallpox, 1835–1914: A Comparison of England with Prussia and Imperial Germany." Social History of Medicine, vol. 11 (1998): 49-71.

Bärbel-Jutta Hess, "Seuchengesetzgebung in den deutschen Staaten und im Kaiserreich vom ausgehenden 18. Jh. bis zum Reichsseuchengesetz 1900" (Diss. iur. Heidelberg, 2009).

Nan D. Hunter, The Law of Emergencies (Elsevier, 2nd ed., 2017) (Chapter 13: "Public Health Law I: Complications of Federalism", pp. 223-244).

Krista Maglen, "‘The First Line of Defence’: British Quarantine and the Port Sanitary Authorities in the Nineteenth Century." Social History of Medicine, vol. 15, no. 3, (2002): 413–428.

J.C. McDonald, "The History of Quarantine in Britain During the 19th Century." Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 25, no. 1 (1951): 22-44.

R. McWhirter, ‘Lymph or Liberty’: Responses to Smallpox Vaccination in the Eastern Australian Colonies. PhD thesis, University of Tasmania, 2008.

William J. Novak, The People’s Welfare: Law and Regulation in Nineteenth-Century America (UNC Press, 1996) (Chapter 6: Public Health: Quarantine, Noxious Trades, and Medical Police).

Polly J. Price, "Epidemics, Outsiders, and Local Protection: Federalism Theater in the Era of the Shotgun Quarantine", University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, vol. 19 (2016): 369-429.

João Rangel de Almeida, "3 Epidemic Opportunities: Panic, Quarantines, and the 1851 International Sanitary Conference." In Empires of Panic: Epidemics and Colonial Anxieties (Robert Peckham ed., Hong Kong U. Press, 2015), 57-86.

Edward Reichman, "From Cholera to Coronavirus: Recurring Pandemics, Recurring Rabbinic Responses." Traditiononline, 2 April 2020.

Charles E. Rosenberg, The cholera years: the United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866 (U. Chicago Press, 1987).

Alfred J. Sciarrino, "The Grapes of Wrath & the Speckled Monster (Epidemics, Biological Terrorism and the Early Legal History of Two Major Defenses - Quarantine and Vaccination)." Journal of Medicine and Law, vol. 7 (2003): 117-176.

Mitra Sharafi, "Pandemic or poison? How epidemics shaped Southasia's legal history", Himal Southasian, 20 April 2020.

Salvatore Speziale, “Epidemics and Quarantine in Mediterranean Africa from the Eighteenth to the Mid-Nineteenth Century.” Journal of Mediterranean Studies, vol. 16, no. 1 (2006): 249–58.

Tarangini Sriraman, "Assault and Assuage: Identification Documents, Colonial Rationalities and Epidemic Control in British India." In Critical Studies in Politics: Exploring Sites, Selves, Power (Nivedita Menon, Aditya Nigam & Sanjay Palshikar eds., Orient Blackswan, 2013), 271- 318.

Tarangini Sriraman, "Plague passport to detention — Epidemic Act was a medical surveillance tool in British India." The Print, 22 March 2020.

Alan D. Watson, “Combating Contagion: Smallpox and the Protection of Public Health in North Carolina, 1750 to 1825.” North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 90, no. 1 (2013): 26–48.

John Fabian Witt, American Contagions: Epidemics and the Law from Smallpox to COVID-19 (Yale University Press, 2021).

John Fabian Witt, "Salus Populi: Contagious Disease and the Law in American History." Online lecture for Yale University, April 2020.

Robert M. Wolfe & Lisa K. Sharp, "Anti-vaccinationists past and present." British Medical Journal. 24 August 2002, 430-432.

Post-1900

Layla J. Aksakal, "The Sick Man and his Medicine: Public Health Reform in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt." Harvard Law School student paper (2003).

Peter Baldwin, Contagion and the State in Europe, 1830-1930 (Cambridge UP, 1999).

Alison Bashford, Imperial Hygiene: A Critical History of Colonialism, Nationalism and Public Health (Springer, 2004).

Iris Borowy, Coming to Terms with World Health: The League of Nations Health Organisation 1921-1946 (Peter Lang, 2009).

Patrick E. Carroll, "Medical police and the history of public health." Medical History, vol. 46 (2002): 461-494.

George W. Conk, "Reactions and Overreactions: Smallpox Vaccinations, Complications, and Compensation." Fordham International Law Journal, vol. 14 (2003): 439-498.

William J. Curran, "Legal history of emergency medicine from medieval common law to the AIDS epidemic." American Journal of Emergency Medicine, vol. 15, no. 7 (1997): 658-670.

Clare Cushman, "Epidemics and the Supreme Court." The Supreme Court Historical Society website.

Richard J. Evans, "Epidemics And Refuseniks: The Birth Of State Responsibility", Sense about Science Lecture Royal Society of Medicine, 9 May 2011.

David P. Fidler, "The globalization of public health: the first 100 years of international health diplomacy." Bulletin of the World Health Organization, vol. 79 (2001): 842-848.

Maria Gigliola Di Renzo Villata, "Il processo agli untori di manzoniana memoria e la testimonianza (ovvero... due volti dell'umana giustizia)." Acta Histriae, vol. 19, no. 3 (2011): 419-452.

Mark Harrison, Public Health in British India: Anglo-Indian Preventive Medicine 1859–1914 (Cambridge UP, 1994).

E.P. Hennock, "Vaccination Policy Against Smallpox, 1835–1914: A Comparison of England with Prussia and Imperial Germany." Social History of Medicine, vol. 11 (1998): 49-71.

Nan D. Hunter, The Law of Emergencies (Elsevier, 2nd ed., 2017) (Chapter 13: "Public Health Law I: Complications of Federalism", pp. 223-244).

Institute of Medicine Forum on Microbial Threats, Ethical and Legal Considerations in Mitigating Pandemic Disease: Workshop Summary. (National Academies Press, 2007) (Chapter 1: Learning from Pandemics Past).

Awanish Kumar, "Caste and public health." Frontline, 22 May 2020.

Andra le Roux-Kemp, "International and Operational Responses to Disease Control: Beyond Ebola and Epistemological Confines." Indiana Health Law Review, vol. 15 (2018): 247-293.

R. McWhirter, ‘Lymph or Liberty’: Responses to Smallpox Vaccination in the Eastern Australian Colonies. PhD thesis, University of Tasmania, 2008.

Alan Olmstead and Paul Rhode, "The ‘Tuberculous Cattle Trust’: Disease Contagion in an Era of Regulatory Uncertainty".  Journal of Economic History, vol. 64 (2004): 929–963.

Dorothy Porter, "'Enemies of the Race': Biologism, Environmentalism, and Public Health in Edwardian England." Victorian Studies, vol. 34, no. 2 (1991): 159-178.

Polly J. Price, "Epidemics, Outsiders, and Local Protection: Federalism Theater in the Era of the Shotgun Quarantine", University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, vol. 19 (2016): 369-429.

Polly J. Price, "Federalization of the Mosquito: Structural Innovation in the New Deal Administrative State." Emory Law Journal, vol. 60 (2010): 325-376.

Edward Reichman, "From Cholera to Coronavirus: Recurring Pandemics, Recurring Rabbinic Responses." Traditiononline, 2 April 2020.

Alfred J. Sciarrino, "The Grapes of Wrath & the Speckled Monster (Epidemics, Biological Terrorism and the Early Legal History of Two Major Defenses - Quarantine and Vaccination)." Journal of Medicine and Law, vol. 7 (2003): 117-176.

Anne Sealey, "Globalizing the 1926 International Sanitary Convention." Journal of Global History, vol. 6 (2011): 431-455.

Mitra Sharafi, "Pandemic or poison? How epidemics shaped Southasia's legal history", Himal Southasian, 20 April 2020.

Maynard W. Swanson, "The Sanitation Syndrome: Bubonic Plague and Urban Native Policy in the Cape Colony, 1900-1909". Journal of African History, vol. 18 (1977): 387-410.

John M. Willis, "Governing the Living and the Dead: Mecca and the Emergence of the Saudi Biopolitical State." American Historical Review, vol. 122, no. 2 (2017): 346–370.

Michael Willrich, Pox: An American History (Penguin, 2011).

John Fabian Witt, "Salus Populi: Contagious Disease and the Law in American History." Online lecture for Yale University, April 2020.

Robert M. Wolfe & Lisa K. Sharp, "Anti-vaccinationists past and present." British Medical Journal. 24 August 2002, 430-432.