Tag: Infectious Diseases
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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
Battle Creek Sanitarium before the fire of 1902. Willard Library Collection. Via Wikimedia. 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,…
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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…
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The ships’ surgeons’ toxic toolkit
Richard de Grijs Sydney, Australia Mercury ointment applied to a patient’s legs. Paracelsus, Wundartzeney die Frantzosen genannt, I; Frankfurt, 1562. Out of copyright. During the “Age of Sail,” months-long voyages gave rise to unique health concerns.1,2 Moreover, ships’ surgeons frequently encountered diseases brought upon uninhibited sailors through their own “adventurous” behavior. Following their arrival at…
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Lassa: The small town with the mark of death
Patrick Ashinze Irrua, Edo State, Nigeria Community education material for Lassa fever. US Centers for Disease Control. Via Wikimedia. Little has been written about Lassa, a small town plagued by terrorism in northeastern Nigeria. No one has published even a cursory description of its topography or demography, its markets, schools, infrastructure, or the people…
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Ancient remedies for modern times
Vicky Li Dallas, Texas, United States Artemisia absinthium. Found in Bērzi village near Bauska city, Latvia. Photo by AfroBrazilian, 2013, on Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0. “To a synthetic chemist, the complex molecules of nature are as beautiful as any of her other creations.” – Elias James Corey (Nobel Lecture, 1990)1 As the Vietnam…
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William Budd and typhoid fever
William Budd. From lithograph published by A.B. Black, 1862. Wellcome Collection. CC BY 4.0. In the year 1811 when William Budd was born, medicine was still in its dark ages. Physicians dressed in black and wore top hats, surgeons operated in street clothes without anesthesia, and infectious diseases such as typhoid and cholera were thought…
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Scrofula or the king’s evil
Left: Scrofula. Photo from the Atlas of Clinical Medicine. US National Library of Medicine. Right: Queen Mary I healing scrofula. Illustration by Levina Teerlinc in Queen Mary’s manual for blessing cramp rings and touching for Evil. Via Wikimedia. Scrofula, the old name for tuberculous lymphadenitis of neck, was once a common condition. The name was…
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Book review: Pandemic Obsession: How They Feature in our Popular Culture
Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, UK Cover of Pandemic Obsession: How They Feature in Our Popular Culture by Stephen Basdeo. Following the worldwide COVID pandemic, there has been a plethora of books published on the theme of epidemics and pandemics. Readers may be forgiven if they feel they are now suffering from literary pandemic fatigue.…