Preface

Senior Research Fellow When I was a child, travelling to school on buses and trams, I used to stare up at the ‘No spitting’ notices in some bewilderment. They spoke of a mysterious and rather troubling other life of which I had no knowledge. Why were they there? I had never seen anyone spit on a bus. Did people used to go around spitting, and why? And was it just men who spat, or did women indulge in this forbidden practice? Over time, these notices disappeared, and I ceased to ponder on the issue. It was not until I embarked on this research that these memories flooded back to me, and I realized the direct connection between my childhood bus journeys and the anti-spitting campaigns which started around 1900, in an attempt to halt the spread of tuberculosis. During the Covid-19 pandemic, ‘no spitting’ once again became a pressing issue, as anxieties about public health, and the transmission of the virus, seized the popular imagination. The past came vividly, and alarmingly, alive.