Tag: plague
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Lessons in infection prevention from Ugandan culture
José de la FuenteCiudad Real, Spain The study of ancient cultures may provide insights for modern biomedical advances.1,2 Uganda, known as the “Pearl of Africa,” is a diverse country with many ethnic groups, including the Baganda or Ganda, Acholi, Iteso, Ankole, and Bugisu. The Uganda Museum, established in 1908 in the capital Kampala, is the…
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Book review: Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines and the Health of Nations
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom 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 humans for centuries: smallpox, cholera, and plague. He opens the book with a quote from Pliny…
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Philip the Handsome and the plague
Nicolas Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain Philip of Habsburg was born in Bruges in 1478. He was the son of Maximilian I, the Holy Roman Emperor, and Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold, in a marriage that would ultimately extend control of the House of Austria over the Burgundian Netherlands. Philip was not yet four…
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The Great War and the other war
Maryline AlhajjBeirut, Lebanon The reverberations of October 29, 1914 would carry throughout the lands of the Ottoman Empire and serve as an ominous premonition of disastrous years to come. On that day, following a surprise attack on Russia’s Black Sea coast,1 the Empire entered World War I. It was the beginning of the end, as…
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Review: The History of the World in 100 Pandemics, Plagues and Epidemics
Arpan BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom The publication of this book could not have been better timed. The book sets out to show how pandemics, epidemics, and infectious diseases have shaped human history over the last 5,000 years. Its contents help us place the current COVID-19 epidemic in its rightful historical context. Famine, war, and pestilence have…
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COVID-19 and 1665: Learning from Daniel Defoe
Brian BirchSouthampton, Hampshire, UK Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year is an account of the 1665 Great Plague of London. Based on eyewitness experience, the undersigned initials “H. F.” suggest the author’s uncle, Henry Foe, as its primary source. Published in 1722, it stands as the most reliable and comprehensive account of the…
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Leonhard Thurneysser: scholar, alchemist, and miracle doctor
A highly controversial figure even in his time, Leonhard Thurneysser remains to this very day for some a revered scientist and for others a resolute quack. Born 1531 in Basel, he was the son of a goldsmith and followed in his father’s profession. He also studied with a physician and alchemist but never attended any…
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Ancient Greek plague and coronavirus
Patrick BellBelfast, Northern Ireland Introduction Homer’s Iliad, Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, and Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War have been termed “the three earliest, and arguably most influential, representations of the plague in Western narrative.”1 This essay uses these historical sources to examine attitudes toward plague in ancient Greece and parallels in the modern response…
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Atrocities in Asia: Japan’s infamous Unit 731
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden In 1931 the Japanese army occupied the province of Manchuria in north-east China and continued to invade and occupy more of China as well as Southeast Asia and the western Pacific islands. The Japanese war machine needed the natural resources of these conquered territories in order to continue to expand its sphere…
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Anatomical descriptions in the Iliad
Maria ChiccoAylesbury, UK The descriptions of battles and duels in the Iliad confer an epic character to its narration. However, beyond dramatic effect, the detailed descriptions of wounds and injuries have attracted the attention and curiosity of generations of readers, especially those with a medical background. Some of the anatomical descriptions appear surprisingly elaborate and…