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52
Like Panum, Manicus also described his sojourn in the
Faroes, and even though his report, which could be read in
Ugeskrift for Læger, was not as comprehensive as Panum’s,
he viewed the connection between medical complications
and social living conditions with a sharper eye. He writes:
Bøigden Sumbø was one of the sites where the epidemic
claimed the most victims. The poverty of its inhabitants,
the poor housing conditions, and the fact that all at once
measles gripped the larger part of the inadequately
nourished population, who were moreover apt to follow any
sort of advice, explains this.
Manicus further added that the disease spared nearly all of
the Danish families and was markedly milder among the
well-to-do natives.
In a footnote to her doctoral thesis Kunnskap og makt,
which was published in 2006, Beinta í Jákupsstovu writes:
The mid-1800s was a period characterized by strong
ideological currents; Manicus might have sympathized with
political ideas surrounding the promotion of social equality
or with Faroese nationalism.
She admits, however, that no extant sources support this
idea.