By the dawn of the nineteenth century, bubonic plague was no longer the most dangerous epidemic disease in Ireland, though there were plague scares even as late as 1900. Rather the biggest killers were now typhus… See more

If treatment of epidemic disease remained primitive, there was, however, some progress in what is now termed the ‘non-pharmaceutical intervention’ in epidemics. The first of these was vigilance, Dr Patrick Rowan writ… See more

The later decades of the 19thcentury also saw massive progress made in vaccinations that eventually eliminated smallpox. In the 1850s smallpox was killing about 1,500 people in Ireland every year, but by 186… See more

There is not space here to deal with the 1918 flu epidemicin depth. Readers are referred to Ida Milne’s recent ‘Stacking the Coffins’ and Catriona Foley’s ‘The Last Irish Plague’ for its impact on Ireland. Suffice to say that th… See more

Furthermore, the second half of the twentieth century is actually a story of great progress in the field of public health. Polio, a virus that can cause paralysis and death, was known in infants for many centuries, but only be… See more