Deep coal mining and meningococcal meningitis in England and Wales, 1931-38: Ecological study, with implications for deep shaft mining activities worldwide.

The hypothesized role of deep coal mining in the development of community-based outbreaks of meningococcal meningitis has gone largely unexplored. Taking the coalfields of Britain as a historical testbed, techniques of linear and binomial logistic regression were used to assess the association between meningococcal meningitis rates and male occupation rates for coal mining in England and Wales during the national epidemic of 1931-32 and in its aftermath. Adjusting for the epidemiological effects of age, residential density, recent changes in the number of families, housing stock and low social class, the analysis yielded evidence of a significant and positive association between coal mining occupation rates and notified levels of meningitis activity in the epidemic period.

Variola minor in coalfield areas of England and Wales, 1921-34: Geographical determinants of a national smallpox epidemic that spread out of effective control.

This paper uses techniques of binary logistic regression to identify the spatial determinants of the last national epidemic of smallpox to spread in England and Wales, the variola minor epidemic of 1921-34. Adjusting for age and county-level variations in vaccination coverage in infancy, the analysis identifies a dose-response gradient with increasing odds of elevated smallpox rates in local government areas with (i) medium (odds ratio [OR] = 5.32, 95% Confidence Interval [95% CI] 1.

Controlling the geographical spread of infectious disease: plague in Italy, 1347-1851.

After the establishment of the first quarantine station in the Republic of Ragusa (modern-day Dubrovnik) in 1377, the states and principalities of Italy developed a sophisticated system of defensive quarantine in an attempt to protect themselves from the ravages of plague. Using largely unknown and unseen historical maps, this paper reconstructs the extent and operation of the system used. It is shown that a cordon sanitaire existed around the coast of Italy for several centuries, consisting of three elements: (i) an outer defensive ring of armed sailing boats in the Mediterranean and the Adriatic, (ii) a middle coastal ring of forts and observation towers, and (iii) an inner defensive ring of land-based cavalry.

An exploratory method for estimating the changing speed of epidemic waves from historical data.

Background: Historical data are necessary to establish long-term trends in disease incidence but pose analytical problems since their accuracy and reliability may be poorly specified.

Methods: A robust measure of the spatial velocity, R(0A), of epidemic waves from space-time series is proposed using binary data. The method was applied to the historical records of influenza morbidity for the island of Iceland over a 61-year period of influenza seasons from 1915-16 to 1975-76.

A swash-backwash model of the single epidemic wave.

While there is a large literature on the form of epidemic waves in the time domain, models of their structure and shape in the spatial domain remain poorly developed. This paper concentrates on the changing spatial distribution of an epidemic wave over time and presents a simple method for identifying the leading and trailing edges of the spatial advance and retreat of such waves. Analysis of edge characteristics is used to (a) disaggregate waves into 'swash' and 'backwash' stages, (b) measure the phase transitions of areas from susceptible, S, through infective, I, to recovered, R, status (S --> I --> R) as dimensionless integrals and (c) estimate a spatial version of the basic reproduction number, R(0).

The Spatial Dynamics of Poliomyelitis in the United States: From Epidemic Emergence to Vaccine-Induced Retreat, 1910-1971.

This article seeks to advance an understanding of the spatial dynamics of one of the great emergent viral diseases of the twentieth century-poliomyelitis. From an apparently rare clinical condition occurring only sporadically or in small outbreaks before the late nineteenth century, poliomyelitis had, by the early 1950s, developed into a globally distributed epidemic disease. But, from 1955, continued growth was suddenly and dramatically reversed by the mass administration of inactivated (killed) and live (attenuated) poliovirus vaccines.

The spatial structure of epidemic emergence: geographical aspects of poliomyelitis in north-eastern USA, July-October 1916.

The great epidemic of poliomyelitis which swept New York City and surrounding territory in the summer of 1916 eclipsed all previous global experience of the disease. We draw on epidemiological information that is included in the seminal US Public Health Bulletin 91, 'Epidemiologic studies of poliomyelitis in New York City and the northeastern United States during the year 1916' (Washington DC, 1918), to re-examine the spatial structure of the epidemic. For the main phase of transmission of the epidemic, July-October 1916, it is shown that the maximum concentration of activity of poliomyelitis occurred within a 128-km radius of New York City.

Impact of infectious diseases on war.

Wartime epidemics of infectious diseases have decimated the fighting strength of armies, caused the suspension and cancellation of military operations, and brought havoc to the civil populations of belligerent and nonbelligerent states. This article summarizes the principal factors that have contributed to the spread of infectious diseases in past wars and reviews the associated demographic losses in military and civil populations. Drawing on the detailed epidemiologic records for the United States Army, case studies of the spread of infectious diseases in relation to military mobilization are presented for the American Civil War, Spanish-American War,and World War I.