Ethnographic Plague

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Focusing on the intersection of ethnography and bacteriology, the book explores the impact of pneumonic plague epidemics on the Chinese-Russian frontier at the turn of the nineteenth century. It highlights how local Mongols and Buryats were perceived to possess traditional knowledge about the disease. By examining this perspective, the author critiques the medical community's fascination with cultural explanations, emphasizing the limitations of using culture as an explanatory framework for infectious disease outbreaks, including recent ones like SARS and Ebola.