Category: Infectious Disease
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The history of scarlet fever
Scarlet fever is a highly contagious infectious disease that probably has existed for thousands of years. Ancient texts from China and other parts of the world have described symptoms resembling those of scarlet fever. In the 5th century BC, Hippocrates documented a patient with a reddened skin and fever. Centuries later, in 1553, the Sicilian…
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The problem with drinking (water) on airplanes
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Water, water everywhere/Nor any drop to drink.”– The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) In the year 2020, 4.5 billion people flew on commercial aircraft. The previous year saw US airlines carry over 900 million passengers, and only 13% of Americans had never flown on a plane.1 Water is…
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Dr. Gerhard Hansen – A great discoverer
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.”– Isaac Newton Leprosy, from the Greek lepis, meaning scaly, has been known since antiquity. The disease was widespread in continental Europe and in Scandinavia, reaching its peak prevalence in the twelfth century.1 Leprosy was well established in Ireland in the tenth century.…
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Quinine and global health
Diego AndradeStalin Santiago CeliQuito, Ecuador Quinine is considered to be one of the most important medical discoveries historically, as it marked the first successful use of a chemical compound to treat malaria. Malaria is an acute febrile disease caused by Plasmodium parasites, which are transmitted through the bites of female Anopheles mosquitoes.1 Without treatment, the…
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Fossilized tick-borne diseases
José de la FuenteCiudad Real, Spain Ticks and tick-borne diseases such as Lyme disease and alpha-gal syndrome are a growing burden for human health worldwide.1-3 Alpha-gal syndrome is an emerging allergy associated with tick bites and mammalian meat consumption. It is a potentially life-threatening immunoglobulin E (IgE)-mediated reaction to galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose (alpha-gal), which is present in…
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BCG: The vaccine that took thirteen years to develop
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Early French advertisement for BCG (“BCG Protects Against Tuberculosis”). Retouched crop of photo by Rathfelder on Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. “Perseverance, secret of all triumphs.” – Victor Hugo Tuberculosis of the lungs (“consumption”) was one of the two main causes of death (along with pneumonia) at the start of…
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Noma: The disfiguring, devouring disease
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden “Maladie dévoreuse de beauté et de vie”1 (“An illness devouring both beauty and life”) – Edmond Kaiser, founder of the humanitarian organization Fondation Sentinelle Noma (gangrenous stomatitis). Illustration by Robert Froriep, 1836. © Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Charité, Barbara Herrenkind. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. Noma (also called necrotizing ulcerative stomatitis,…
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Sanitariums as cure for consumption
The institutions variously called sanitariums (from sanare, “to cure”) or sanitariums (from sanitas, meaning “health”) became all the rage around 1850. They were especially popular with the upper classes, as exemplified in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain by the young Hans Castorp, who decides to spend a few days with a friend at a Swiss…
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Book review: Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines and the Health of Nations
Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom Cover of Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines and the Health of Nations by Simon Schama Simon Schama, the eminent historian and broadcaster, has turned his attention to medical history. His new book, gestated and born during the COVID pandemic, is a chronicle of three pandemic diseases that have afflicted…
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John Haygarth, pioneer epidemiologist
John Haygarth. 1827. US National Library of Medicine. In one of his Table Talk essays, William Hazlitt wrote that “posterity is by no means as disinterested as they might be supposed to be, and that they give the gratitude and admiration in return for benefits received.” In this spirit we remember both the physician John…