Milwaukee’s unlikely public health advocate
Lea Dacy Rochester, MN, United States Upper left: The author’s mother, Rita Troiano, a year or so after the incident at the Sunflower Inn; Lower left: the author’s grandparents, Philip and Evelyn Troiano, ca. 1928, both from the author’s personal collection. Right: Helen Cromwell at the Sunflower Inn, Feral House Publishing, used with permission. […]
The men who defeated syphilis
German zoologist Fritz Schaudinn. Source Fritz Schaudinns, Verlag Leopold Voss, Hamburg und Leipzig 1911. Via Wikimedia. Beginnings The origins of syphilis have been subject to much debate. The disease has been claimed to be thousands of years old and originally to have evolved from yaws. Generally mistaken for leprosy and not recognized as a separate entity, […]
Sir Patrick Manson—“Father of Tropical Medicine”
Patrick Manson (1844–1922) was born in Aberdeenshire, qualified in medicine from the University of Aberdeen in 1866, and joined the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service as a medical officer with private practice allowed. He developed a successful and profitable general practice in Amoy and Taiwan, and was unusual in possessing a microscope. Keeping this near […]
The other Timothy Leary
Saty Satya-Murti Santa Maria, California, United States Figure-1: Timothy Leary at work, circa 1920. Credit: Digital Collections and Archives, Tufts University. Source Most people know the name of Timothy Leary as an American counterculture guru and psychologist who had a massive following in the mid-twentieth century. He invoked the names of Gandhi, Jesus, and […]
Origin of yellow fever
Enrique Chaves-Carballo Kansas City, Kansas, United States Henry R. Carter (1852-1925), Public Health Service Assistant Surgeon General and yellow fever epidemiologist. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) The origin of yellow fever has been a controversial subject since the disease appeared in the New World. William C. Gorgas, who was responsible […]
COVID-19: clinico-immunologic snapshot of a coronavirus
S.E.S. Medina Benbrook, Texas, United States Coronavirus: Protein Spike Corona. A colorized transmission electron micrograph of the Middle East respiratory syndrome-related Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) that emerged in 2012. November 19, 2012. Public domain image from National Institutes of Health. Source. A tiny mote of moisture, buoyed by silk-soft wind currents, is kicked and coaxed along a random path […]
A historical analysis of the military’s method of anti-malaria health education through print
Pavane L. Gorrepati Iowa City, Iowa, United States The fight against malaria has largely been successful because of modern scientific advances, but during World War II the fight was supplemented by propaganda posters warning soldiers about malaria just as they were warmed against venereal diseases. Everyone was expected to aid the war effort—women to […]
What does the zoonotic origin of COVID-19 teach us about preventing future pandemics?
James A. Marcum Waco, Texas, United States Computer generated representation of COVID-19 virions (SARS-CoV-2) under electron microscope. Image by Felipe Esquivel Reed. Via Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0 The history of medicine reveals that epidemics and pandemics have plagued humanity throughout the centuries.1 Examples include the Antonine plague (165-180 A.D.), the Justinian plague (541-542 A.D.), […]
Simon Flexner, infectious diseases pioneer
Simon Flexner. circa 1930s. Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center. Source, Infectious diseases shaped the life of Simon Flexner, who rose from humble beginnings to become one of the most successful and prominent scientists in American medicine. His contributions to the field of infectious diseases were legion. He became the first chairman of pathology at […]
Giovanni Boccaccio on pandemics past and present
Constance Markey Chicago, IL The plague of Florence, 1348; an episode in the Decameron by Boccaccio. Etching by L. Sabatelli the elder after G. Boccaccio. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)) Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) is universally celebrated for his masterpiece The Decameron, an appealing assemblage of one hundred loosely connected novellas, […]