Contagion

The study of contagion in Victorian literature may seem like a niche area of study, but understanding this focused topic depends upon deep foundational knowledge of many other concepts. Contagion was not a static concept over the course of the 19th century, as scientific innovations rapidly shifted epidemiological understandings. The result is that there is no overarching Victorian understanding of contagion, but rather, sets of disparate epidemiological concepts unique to different times, spaces, and social contexts, and even the predominant views at any given time were always actively debated. As debates about the nature of contagion itself shifted across the century—in a general movement from miasma theory, which posited toxic air as the source of disease, and toward germ theory, which posited individual microbes as the source of disease—concomitant debates about how to control and manage disease, the role of the government in so doing, and ideas of risk, community, and shared spaces also changed. Changing concepts of contagion also impacted thinking about societal roles, both individually and nationally. The role of the doctor in preserving health, and especially the doctor’s increasing professionalization and certification, was one of these considerations, as was Britain’s perceived role in colonial “improvement” projects abroad. Because of the role public health played in efforts to control or limit contagion, many scholarly considerations of Victorian contagion focus on surveillance and control of human bodies enacted by public health projects. Here, the debt to Michel Foucault will be obvious. Further, because protection and prevention against infectious disease necessitated locating the disease via surveillance and observational practices, many studies of Victorian disease focus on sight, seeing, optical technologies, and representation of sight in fiction and scientific texts. Finally, understanding contagion in this period also necessitates understanding the physical pathogens of most concern to Victorians because of their sheer prevalence. These include cholera, tuberculosis, syphilis, and, to a lesser extent, typhoid fever.