Fearing Meningitis: Disease, Emotions and the Spotted Fever Epidemics of 1904-1907.

Abstract

The meningitis (or spotted fever) outbreaks (c.1904-1907) caused worldwide alarm but remain largely forgotten. This article uses these outbreaks as an invaluable case study for understanding early twentieth-century responses (individual and collective) to a mysterious, potentially deadly infection. More specifically, it focuses on the social production of fear until physicians and medical scientists devised new ways of making meningitis more manageable, with reference to a range of actors who shaped public responses and feelings. Ultimately, the article argues that initial attempts to warn and educate about meningitis usually promoted fear and avoidance, but as meningitis became more manageable, emotional responses to its outbreaks altered significantly. Emotions were constructed and experienced in the context of a new medical modernity optimistic about public health and clinical interventions. Exploring the physical and emotional in tandem takes us to the heart of societal and personal experience of disease outbreaks.