Month: April 2021
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The history of quarantine and contact tracing as surveillance strategies
Mariella ScerriVictor GrechMalta Quarantine, from the Italian quaranta, meaning forty, is a centuries-old public health measure instituted to control the spread of infectious diseases by mandating isolation, sanitary cordons, and other mitigation measures.1 Though essential in preventing the spread of disease, such measures have often been controversial, as they raised “political, ethical, and socioeconomic issues…
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The germ of laziness
Enrique Chaves-CarballoOverland Park, Kansas, United States Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation was chartered on June 1909 “to promote the well-being and to advance the civilization of the peoples of the United States and its territories and possessions and of foreign lands in the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge, in the prevention and relief of suffering,…
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Oswaldo Cruz and the eradication of infectious diseases in Brazil
Robert PerlmanChicago, Illinois, United States In 1899, an epidemic of bubonic plague caused a crisis in the Brazilian port city of Santos. Ship captains were angry that their boats had to remain in quarantine and so denied that the disease was plague. They and others argued that this new disease was not as deadly as…
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Covid battleground
Elena WilsonRockville, Maryland, United States Up and down, up and down they riseForgetting so easily all of the criesCries for help, cries for changeCries for more, cries for days Down and up, and down they fallSeeking hope, finding wallsWalls of iron, walls of steelWalls of words, walls of kneels Change is brewing, slowly soonA coming…
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Mary Josephine Hannan: Portrait of a pioneer
Katie KingAtlanta, Georgia, United States Mary Josephine Hannan was an Irish medical pioneer, an outspoken woman with a strong sense of morality, a fervid supporter of women’s rights, and a champion of children and public health. She spent her life fighting for these causes, making many enemies and friends along the way. With a passion…
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How Britain rescued scientists from Nazi tyranny
JMS PearceHull, England In March 1933 while visiting Vienna, William Beveridge, Director of the London School of Economics, learned that Hitler had just decreed it illegal for “non-Aryan,” mostly Jewish people to hold posts in the Civil Service. Many lawyers, doctors, and academics were deemed “undesirable” and dismissed instantly. Nazi concentration camps, mass desecration, medical…