Disease and the Other

Epidemic diseases have been existing in human civilizations for thousands years. They raged through human society, spread among different communities, and had a great impact on humankind. Because of these social attributes of epidemics, people often thought diseases come from human themselves. People blamed diseases on “others” who come from different classes, religions, races, ethnicities or nations. As if they can avoid those horrible and sometimes disgraceful diseases by doing that.

People from lower class had been repeatedly accused for causing diseases in different epidemic events. Because of pride, people in higher class considered that poor people were unclean and sinful, so obviously the “unclean” diseases were from the “unclean” people. From the lecture Disease and the Industrial Revolution, we know that some people in 1842 argued that “the main causes of disease” is “poverty itself.”

Religious blamed immoral people and pagans on the diseases by claiming that they anger the god. In History of the American Indians, James Adair wrote that “the old magi and religious physicians” claimed the smallpox was sent because of “adulterous intercourses of their young married people.” In Pestis Redux: The Initial Years of the Third Bubonic Plague Pandemic, 1894-1901, it is said that during the plague epidemic in Cape Town, Cape press expressed its “anti-Semitic sentiments” and “throughout the epidemic fingers were pointed  at … the  ‘dirty  Jews.’”

Races and ethnicities are another factor in causing the stereotypes in epidemics. Those with different appearances or speaking a “strange” language were often considered as strangers that do not belong to local community. People were not kind to these strangers and had many stereotypes on them. When epidemics break out, people often blame the diseases on other ethnicities. In The Smallpox Epidemic on the Upper Missouri, the Warrior, Four Bear, blamed smallpox on whites, who were seen as invaders in Indian’s eyes. In John Parascandola’s book Sex, Sin, and Science: A History of Syphilis in America, it said “African Americans were viewed by many whites as being a ‘syphilis-soaked’ race.” And Marilyn Chase also wrote in her book The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco that “the Chinese were blamed for the crowding and dilapidation of China town” and “for … spreading disease”

As some sexual diseases like syphilis, women were often blamed for spreading the diseases, though men can spread them too. In the lecture Syphilis; or The Great Pox, a 19th century picture showed that women were often seen as the source of syphilis. In the book Sex, Sin, and Science: A History of Syphilis in America, it wrote that “women were traditionally singled out as being primarily responsible for the transmission of syphilis.”

People from other nations have also been frequently accused for spreading epidemic diseases. From the lecture Disease and the Industrial Revolution, we know that British blamed the cholera on Indians when cholera arrived in Britain in 1831. In the book Sex, Sin, and Science: A History of Syphilis in America, it said “Italians called syphilis the French disease, while the French called it the Neapolitan disease. The Japanese blamed the Chinese, the Russians the Poles and the Persians the Turks for spread the pox.” Due to lack of information, people tend to blame other countries for their diseases. One example is from the lecture History’s Deadliest Pandemic: Influenza, 1918-1920. The influenza that began in 1918 was dubbed the “Spanish flu”, because Spanish is the only country that allowed media to report the pandemic.

These stereotypes and prejudices towards “other” people often resulted in discriminations and maltreatment when taking measure against epidemic diseases. From the lecture Syphilis; or The Great Pox we know that “the controversial British Contagious Diseases Acts of the 1860s” allowed for “the arrest, inspection, and forcible treatment of ‘suspected prostitutes’ found within 15 miles of a military or naval base” and “police often arrest ‘innocent women’”. Another example is from The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco that “discrimination hindered Chinese from living elsewhere in town.” From the lecture Plague: The Third Pandemic, we know that the searches of Hong Kong police were invasive. “The soldiers sprayed disinfectants through houses, removed much of the furniture and bedding to be burned, along with tons of rubbish. They also destroyed more than 35 houses and displaced over 7,000 people”. We also know that “the profiling of Asians was common in Europe and America” during the 20th century plague.

These discriminations and hostility towards “other” people caused misunderstandings of diseases and obstructed the combat with epidemics, which may lead the situation to worsen. It may also cause conflicts between different communities and exacerbated already unstable situations. We know from the lecture Plague: The Third Pandemic that “the Chinese community began to flee in droves, due to fears of Western policies and fear of death”, which to some extent increases the spread of the plague. Also, it may increase the mistrust towards official medical measure among those communities. Meanwhile, some wrong misunderstandings in diseases may mislead medical treatments against diseases.

Scapegoating is mainly because of the lack of medical knowledge. But even in present days, when medical science has made clear of etiologies of most epidemic diseases, blaming and discriminations still sometimes occur because of the suppress of information and the fear of unknown diseases. When SARS first broke out in 2003, Chinese government did not allow media to report it. Common people began to blame this new disease to Cantonese and foreigners. In The Personal Predicament of Public Health, Jane S. Smith wrote “when the doctors and nurses start dying, the public demands information, and the authorities begin to act by cracking down on the poor, the powerless, and the convenient. Stray dogs are killed. Students are quarantined and foreigners detained.”

As The French writer Voltaire said, “History never repeats itself, but mankind always does.” People kept repeatedly blaming epidemic diseases on “other” people throughout history, and even today. It is a result of stereotypes and prejudices deep inside our humanity. With the development of public health, spread of scientific knowledge, and the transparency in public medical information, we hope those stereotypes and prejudices towards “other” people will reduce in the future, but on the other hand, they will never disappear.