I föreliggande artikel undersöks munskydd, ansiktsmasker och skyddskläder ur ett kultur- och idéhistoriskt perspektiv. Artikeln för fram idén att munskyddet inte kan reduceras till sin materialitet eller till en medicinsk produkt som enbart syftar till att bilda en fysisk barriär mot smittsamma ämnen. Som artefakter har munskydd och skyddskläder varit sammanflätade med sin tid och speglar därmed hur sociala normer och idéer om samhällsordningen har förhandlats genom århundradena. Studien visar att munskyddet utgjorde en måttstock för den moderna statens auktoritet och en symbolisk referens till människors förhoppning att kunna kontrollera smittsamma sjukdomar. De exemplen som studeras är pestvågorna i Europa under 1600-talet, lungpesten i Manchuriet år 1910, spanska sjukan i Nordamerika och Japan, samt polio- och HIV-epidemierna under 1900-talet. Undersökningen baseras på en litteraturstudie av tryckta, historiska källor och nyare publikationer inom epidemiologi, medicinsk vetenskap, kultur- och idéhistoria.

This article deals with narratives from northern Sweden about the Spanish flu pandemic (1918– 1920). There are about 50 narratives collected between ca. 1950 and 1980. All of them were elicited in interviews: some were told in interaction with two or more informants, some are told by one informant in interaction with the interviewer, and some are monologues. There are different interviewers. The interviews have not been planned or conducted in a systematic and consistent way, or with a purpose to investigate the informants’ experiences of the Spanish flu. Rather, the main purpose seems to have been to elicit stories about “the old days”. Drawing on linguistic choices from the material as a whole, this article discusses the informants’ notion of the pandemic and their conceptions of etiology. The article concludes that the most conspicuous feature is what is not mentioned by any informant, namely the word influenza. Further, the Spanish flu clearly belongs to a past era that has no resemblance to modern society. It was an era characterized by suffering, poor sanitary conditions and starvation. As well, the article briefly discusses the critique of medical humanities and the study of illness narratives for the lack of systematic analyses and syntheses of how these are constructed in general.

The article examines how the causes of Black death were conceived and discussed in two distinct contexts; learned sources from late medieval England and oral Swedish legends that were collected and recorded many centuries aftr the outbreak. While focused on discussions of a particular disease - plague or what is known as the bacterium yersinia pestis - the geographical, chronological and material range enables a greater perspective upon the continuities and transitions of how theories of causality are framed.