Abstract
In this chapter, the text pivots, dropping its focus on the biology of pathogens, as well as events that affected history and politics in any elite sense. Instead, this chapter examines the way infectious disease relates to the common idea of the subaltern. How are those with infectious disease treated? How has cleanliness, and fear of infection, been used to maintain distinctions between social classes? These sorts of questions form the backbone for an investigation of infectious disease that is different from the more top-down style used earlier in the book but may be no less critical to understanding infectious disease's impact on human society.