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Peter Ludwig Panum And The Danish School Of Epidemiology, Craig A. Melgaard, Amanda L. Golbeck

The Bridge

One of the major historical questions of public health has been, "What causes epidemic outbreaks of disease?" Epidemiology, the basic science of public health, has only relatively recently emerged from a period during which epidemic outbreaks were attributed to miasmas. Miasma theory, a common folk theory of disease ascribed to by many ancient writers, was codified by Lancisi in 1717 in De Noxiis Paludum Effiuviis. This text held that bad air quality, supposedly caused by decaying organic matter, made those who inhaled it ill. "Miasma" was believed to pass from cases to susceptibles in those diseases considered to be contagious …