This article explores the initial set of epidemiological investigations in Victorian Britain that linked typhoid fever to milk from dairy cattle. Because Victorian epidemiologists first recognized the milk-borne route in outbreaks of typhoid fever, these investigations served as a model for later studies of milk-borne scarlet fever, diphtheria, and perhaps tuberculosis. By focusing on epidemiological practices conducted by Medical Inspectors at the Medical Department of the Local Government Board and Medical Officers of Health, I show that Victorian epidemiology was committed to field-based, observational methods that defined the professional nature of the discipline and its theories and practices. Epidemiological investigations of milk-borne typhoid heated up several important public health debates in the second half of the nineteenth century, and demonstrate how Victorian epidemiology was not solely wedded to examining population studies using statistical methods, as historians have typically argued, but also relied on observational case-tracing in individuals, animals, and even environments.

Objective The main objective of this commentary is to provide historical insight into the term endemicity, and to demonstrate why framing COVID-19 as endemic in early 2022 is a misguided approach. Study design I surveyed the history of epidemiology as well as current data on COVID-19 as provided by the CDC, The WHO, and the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Resource Center. Methods I analyzed records of the Epidemiological Society of London for the period 1850-1900 and identified several key publications on how infectious diseases were considered endemic. Results The term endemicity has a long and twisting history, changing from its meaning in the mid nineteenth century until our use of it today. The concept has long been tied to historical patterns of colonialism. Conclusion Framing COVID-19 as an endemic disease in early 2022 is a misguided attempt, and a result of cultural and political forces.

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Jacob Steere-Williams* Summary. This article is about the performance-referring to the projection and reception-of state medicine in late Victorian Britain. Moving away from the lens of the ideas and policies historians have previously explored, I focus on epidemiological and bacteriological investigations of typhoid fever as they were conducted through the Medical Department of the Local Government Board, during the period historian Roy MacLeod characterised as a 'frustrating' one in the history of state medicine. The article focuses on two late Victorian epidemiological investigations, Richard Thorne Thorne's 1879 study of an outbreak of typhoid fever at Caterham, and H. Timbrell Bulstrode's 1896 study of an outbreak of typhoid fever at Chichester, to demonstrate the complex ways that epidemiology was constructed and defended vis-à-vis the emergence of laboratory science during the so-called Bacteriological Revolution.

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