Pandemic in Potosí: Fear, Loathing, and Public Piety in a Colonial Mining Metropolis

by Kris Lane

In 1719, a deadly and highly contagious disease took hold of the Imperial Villa of Potos , a silver mining metropolis in what is now Bolivia. Within a year, the pathogen had killed some 22,000 people, just over a third of the city's residents. Victims collapsed with fever, body aches, and effusions of blood from the nose and mouth. Most died within days. The great Andean pandemic of 1717-22 was likely the most destructive disease to strike South...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0271091983
• ISBN13: 9780271091983
• Release Date: January 2022
• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Length: 152 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.4"