In Sickness and in Health: Disease, Death, and the Living in Ireland

Catalog description

This class provides a bioanthropological perspective on health in Ireland from prehistory to today. We begin by introducing key concepts in medical anthropology. We then discuss epidemics, followed by an examination of infectious and metabolic diseases associated with urbanization and industrialization, the Great Famine, and health of marginalized people in nineteenth century to present-day Ireland. We next use paleopathology, the study of ancient disease, to look at specific cases of morbidity from Irish prehistory, including so-called “bog people.”