In the pre-modern view of disease, the role of character was confined to one’s behavior after its onset. Like any extreme situation, dreaded illnesses bring out both people’s worst and best. The standard accounts of epidemics, however, are mainly of the devastating effect of disease upon character. The weaker the chronicler’s preconception of disease as a punishment for wickedness, the more likely that the account will stress the moral corruption made manifest by the disease’s spread.
