Abstract
Education is a near universally recognised ‘good’ across histories of the modern world, with more and better quality schooling seen as a progressive social reform and a marker of a modern, civilised society. However, the introduction of mass schooling in Britain and America was the product of a social and political struggle which was not easily won.1 Few disagreed that education improved the minds of pupils, but many people argued that it was not always good for their bodies; indeed, schools became great centres of contagion. Epidemics of major childhood infections such as measles, diphtheria and chickenpox periodically affected institutions and in some cases led to school closures.2 Less recognised then, as now, was that schools were sites of exchange of endemic, social diseases, from serious, typically fatal infections, such as tuberculosis, through to endemic conditions, such as ringworm, which had mild symptoms but carried severe social stigma. The term ‘ringworm’ is very old and comes from the circular patches of peeled, inflamed skin that characterises the infection. In medicine at least, no one understood it to be associated with worms of any description.
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Notes
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There is an excellent history of ringworm in France, see: Tilles, G. and Tilles, G., Teignes et Teigneux: Histoire Médicale et Sociale, Paris, Springer, 2008.
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Homei, A., Worboys, M. (2013). Ringworm: A Disease of Schools and Mass Schooling. In: Fungal Disease in Britain and the United States 1850–2000. Science, Technology and Medicine in Modern History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137377029_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137377029_2
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