Before infectious diseases were explained by sciencedid people gather in church to pray in times of epidemic?

Accomac

What effect would gathering closely in one place likely have on those praying in such times?



Pinehurst

The original "scientific" explanations were bad air and bad blood. This discouraged gatherings and encouraged leeching.



Gadsden

People knew that back then, diseases were spread from person to person because they shunned the lepers and other people with contagious diseases, but when they were in church, they thought that God would protect them. Priests told them that God would protect them from catching illnesses in church in order to get more church patrons to give them money during times of epidemic.



Offutt AFB

No. Even though people did not understand germs, they clearly observed that if you were with someone who was very ill you had a greater chance of getting sick. So they stayed home. Look at how people treated lepers in biblical times. They had to stay away, and call out "unclean" if they were passing through a town. Also, there were few resources outside of the home. If you had a family member who was sick, you had to stay home and care for them yourself. You couldn't go running off to church. People often prayed for relief, but they did that privately not en masse.



Cedar Point

For those who are missing it, he's saying that praying in a church b/c you're afraid of the plague would help the plague spread faster RIGHT THERE IN THE CHURCH. And he's right. Of course, from what I hear about the sanitation and living conditions back then, it probably wouldn't have made much difference anyway. Of course, anyone who believes in God would just say that God magically kept the church free of disease so they would be instantly cured. Eh.



Yadkinville

People gather in churches to pray all the time. It also does wonders for the spread of disease."Bless you brother, would you like some of my smallpox"?



Tavernier

More than likely that is what they did yes. It would give encouragement and hope to those who did so.



Pitkin

Allowed the disease to spread more quickly.



Sutherland

They touched their selves.



Carnesville

black plaque - ppl normally didn't stay around ppl that they knew had it



Amity Gardens

People still pray for healing



Bangor

They still do. Sad, but true.



Hingham

Yes, and a great many died there.



San Bernardino

They all died faster.



Ochlocknee

just look at the Black Plague

Are there any medical schools with a solid infectious disease program?

McKenney

A variety of different medical schools have really good programs. The University of Virginia - Charlottseville is a great school for Cancer research. The University of Utah - SLC has a great pathology program (infectious diseases)The University of Wisconsin (Madison) is a major research facility which would have a great deal of research opportunities and learning opportunities for infectious diseases. I would recommend any of those above.



Jonesville

All medical schools teach the same material for the first two years. I would be more concerned with doing well in whatever medical school you think would give you the greatest clout when applying to residencies. Spanking the boards would be helpful as well. An exception to the above would be if you were interested in an md/phd. Then picking a top research school in infectious disease would be very important. Could someone at the CDC help out. I know that schools with high at risk patients might be good, like USC in California.



Kelso

They all have solid infectious disease programs. See the above advice about residencies. The University of Pennsylvania has experts in travel medicine and its veterinary school does great work in parasitology. Of course, if you really want to have fun you can go to school in a country where infectious diseases are rampant!



Latrobe

In my opinion, infectious disease is a dying discipline. The greater growth is in chronic disease (cancer, diabetes, gerontology) because we simply don't get a lot of really fascinating infectious diseases in the industrialized world. If you want to study ID in the US, I highly recommend Tulane because they have their School of Tropical Medicine. Very cool. However, after Hurricane Katrina, they decimated their faculty, so it may be hard to get what you need till they rebuild their infrastructure. You may also want to consider schools in Puerto Rico, the Caribbean and Mexico if you want to study ID -- these regions have a lot of infectious disease burden, so you will see interesting cases firsthand, and have lots of experience training on and treating them.