Trafika Europe 1 - Northern Idyll

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.

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