Baruch Blumberg who discovered the hepatitis B virus
A NASA portrait of Dr. Baruch Blumberg in 1999. Image credit: NASA/Tom Trower Baruch Samuel Blumberg, like Barack Obama, was called Barry by his friends. In 1976 he received the Nobel Prize for saving millions of lives by discovering the cause of hepatitis B, a plague that had afflicted mankind since time immemorial. Born in […]
The global journey of variolation
Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States A human hand with smallpox pustules. Colored etching by W.T. Strutt. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Humanity has eliminated only one infectious disease—smallpox. Smallpox is a very old disease and efforts to prevent it are almost as old. They included a technique called variolation, also […]
COVID-19 and the Black Death
Colleen Donnelly Denver, Colorado, United States A street during the plague in London with a death cart and mourners. Colour wood engraving by E. Evans. Wellcome Library no. 6918i. Source During the fourteenth century waves of the bubonic plague washed across Europe. Doomsday books of the age described an apocalypse that wiped out one-quarter […]
Darling of Panama
Enrique Chaves-Carballo Kansas City, Kansas, United States Samuel Taylor Darling at age 51, portrait by Underwwod & Underwood, 1923. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Samuel Taylor Darling, widely considered as the foremost American tropical parasitologist and pathologist of his time, was born in Harrison, New Jersey on April 6, 1872. […]
The scourge, the scientist, and the swindle
Anne Jacobson Oak Park, Illinois, United States Alice Augusta Ball, 1915. (Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain) “The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as […]
Maxwell Finland: expert in infectious diseases
Martin Duke Mystic, Connecticut, United States Maxwell Finland in the senior yearbook from the Harvard Class Album 1922. (Credit: HUD 322.04 page 181. Harvard University Archives.) Maxwell Finland (1902-1987) was a remarkable physician, teacher, and researcher in infectious diseases. His life began during the turmoil of the pogroms in Tsarist Russia and ended in […]
Use of masks to control the spread of infection: more than a century of confusion
Jayant Radhakrishnan Darien, Illinois, United States The above photograph is from the archives of the Cook County Hospital when it closed. It was taken in the surgical amphitheater in the main building. The year is not known. The photograph demonstrates an operation being carried out by masked and gowned surgeons and the scrub nurse […]
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and smallpox
JMS Pearce Hull, England Fig 1. A painting of Mary Wortley Montagu by Jonathan Richardson the Younger. Via Wikimedia. There are few examples of people with no medical training who independently make significant advances in medical practice. One such person was the elegant, aristocratic Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762)—daughter of Evelyn Pierrepont, 1st Duke […]
Rheumatic fever: evolution of causal concepts and management
Amogh BJ Trivandrum, Kerala, India Nanditha Venkatesan Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India For centuries rheumatic fever (RF) and its sequelae scourged the lives of millions of people. Despite a substantial decline in deaths from the disease, rheumatic heart disease remains a problem, especially in areas of poverty. Over the past few centuries, a growing understanding of […]
Navigating the waters of post-COVID survivorship
Denise Bockwoldt Chicago, Illinois, United States Photo by Josh Sorenson on Unsplash. On the TV news, COVID survivors are being rolled out of the hospital in wheelchairs, applauded and cheered on by a crowd of hospital staff. “They’ve recovered!” the reporter announces happily. It is a hopeful sign for everyone who fears this virus, […]