Changing concepts of contagion also impacted thinking about societal roles, both individually and nationally. As debates about the nature of contagion itself shifted across the century-in a general movement from miasma theory, which posited toxic air as the source of disease, and toward germ theory, which posited individual microbes as the source of disease-concomitant debates about how to control and manage disease, the role of the government in so doing, and ideas of risk, community, and shared spaces also changed. The result is that there is no overarching Victorian understanding of contagion, but rather, sets of disparate epidemiological concepts unique to different times, spaces, and social contexts, and even the predominant views at any given time were always actively debated. Contagion was not a static concept over the course of the 19th century, as scientific innovations rapidly shifted epidemiological understandings. The study of contagion in Victorian literature may seem like a niche area of study, but understanding this focused topic depends upon deep foundational knowledge of many other concepts.
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