Tag: Infectious Diseases
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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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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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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 AshinzeIrrua, Edo State, Nigeria 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 who come from it. It is now known only as the site of origin of…
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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
Scrofula, the old name for tuberculous lymphadenitis of neck, was once a common condition. The name was derived from the ancient Latin scrofa for sow, possibly because the affected nodes were shaped like the swollen neck of a sow or because pigs were particularly prone to the disease. The disease was also called struma, reflecting…