While working on this book, we began many conversations with the
warning: “We take the plague everywhere with us.” This never seemed to stop
inquiries; indeed, it drew us into many lively exchanges, clarified our ideas, and
sharpened our story telling. There is a certain time when authors must stop talk-
ing, finish writing, and simply thank those who have helped the process. Our
preface mentions individuals who played major supporting roles. Endnotes are a
guide to source materials and historical scholarship underlying our work. Here
we add our thanks to individuals who helped along the way—often with quite
different perspectives on plague.
In the United Kingdom, Justin Champion, Larry Conrad, Mary Dobson, De-
rek Keene, Vivian Nutton, Margaret Pelling, Paul Slack, and Graham Twigg en-
riched our study with suggestions and support. Among European specialists on
present and past plague and other diseases, we warmly thank Elisabeth Carniel
and Henri and Martine Mollaret of the Pasteur Institute as well as Neithard
Bulst and Thomas Rütten. In the United States, Gert Brieger placed the facili-
ties of the Johns Hopkins Institute for the History of Medicine at our disposal,
as did Elizabeth Fee at the National Library of Medicine and Mary Robertson at
the Henry Huntington Library. At the Institute for Advanced Study, Martin
Novak’s outstanding lecture series on theoretical biology and Robert, Lord May
helped with current biomedical knowledge.
Several persons read parts or all of our book at some stage of its development,
and each helped make it better: Mary Fissell, Maurice D. Lee, Salley May, Law-
rence Stone, Harriet Trueblood, Andrew Wear, Susan Whyman, and Roy Porter,
who read the entire manuscript shortly before his untimely death, giving us a very
welcome endorsement. We had lively discussions of our presentations at the Col-
chester Castle’s Social History Series, the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis,
the Davis Center of Princeton University, and New Jersey’s Peapack-Gladstone
Library. Archival and library staffs in London, Colchester, Chelmsford, Oxford,
East Sussex, and Hartford helped at various stages of our research. Our research
in England was aided by grants by the Wellcome Trust, U.K., the Burroughs-
Wellcome fund, U.S.A., and the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis.
[ 345 ]ACKNOWLEDGMENTS