The Third Great Plague
Tags
Summary
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Students and researchers in medical history and public health history who need primary historical documents
- General readers interested in the social history of disease and plague narratives
- Readers who want to understand venereal disease prevention concepts before the antibiotic era
- Readers who collect electronic editions of public-domain old medical works
Not a good fit for
- Clinicians or patients seeking modern guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of syphilis
- Readers sensitive to old medical terminology and period prejudices, who may find it uncomfortable
- Readers expecting popular science storytelling or light reading
Reading tips
- Begin with the introduction or first chapter to clarify the author's era and what exactly the "third great plague" refers to, then proceed to the main text.
- Mark outdated medical terminology and ideas as you read, compare them with contemporary public health knowledge, and keep notes for historical comparison.
- Read alongside background materials on early twentieth-century public health history, and avoid treating the book's recommendations as current medical information.
- For course use, organize chapter points along three threads: disease understanding, social response, and moral discourse.
About the publisher
Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.
Contents
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FAQ
What does the "third great plague" in the title refer to?
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About the author
John Hinchman Stokes (1885–1961) was an American dermatologist and medical professor. Public information about his life is limited; what can be confirmed is his identity as a physician and teacher, and his name is chiefly associated with one work, The Third Great Plague. The book discusses epidemic disease and public health in the rigorous manner of a medical writer, and its title itself suggests the author's vigilance about the recurrent assaults of epidemics on human society. Stokes's writing does not pursue literary ornament but relies on clear, direct medical exposition, translating professional knowledge into language accessible to ordinary readers. Such works had their place in the public health movements of the early twentieth century and reflect the anxiety and sense of responsibility with which the medical community of the time faced infectious disease. Knowledge of him in the Chinese-speaking world comes mostly from this work; on the whole, he was an author whose writing centered on medical practice and public health issues.
