Epidemics and the Law from Plague to the Present

Epidemics and the Law from Plague to the Present, Volume 1, provides a comprehensive socio-legal history of infectious diseases from the medieval era to modern times. This law text examines how legal measures were deployed to combat epidemics, focusing on how historical actors viewed the law as a tool for responding to health crises. Through an interdisciplinary lens, the authors analyze the social and political frameworks that shaped these legal responses and the subsequent limitations they imposed on public health efforts.

The collection explores regulatory actions, including eighteenth-century quarantine laws and nineteenth-century Colonial Immigration Acts. It further investigates legal doctrines resulting from disease, such as labor regulation after the Black Death and property disputes involving fever hospitals. By combining doctrinal legal history with social and political analysis, Epidemics and the Law from Plague to the Present, Volume 1, details the evolution of legal frameworks in Great Britain.