Tag: pulmonary tuberculosis
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Dr. AJ Cronin: Still persona non grata?
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “I have written all I feel about the medical profession, its injustices, its hide-bound unscientific stubbornness . . . The horrors and inequities detailed in the story I have personally witnessed. This is not an attack against individuals but against a system.”1—AJ Cronin Archibald Joseph Cronin (1896–1981) was born in Scotland to…
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Novalis: The white plague and the blue flower
Nicolas Roberto Robles Badajoz, Spain Novalis was the pseudonym and pen name of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr1 von Hardenberg, a poet, author, mystic, and philosopher of early German Romanticism. Young Hardenberg adopted the pen name “Novalis” from his twelfth-century ancestors who named themselves “de Novali” after their settlement Grossenrode, or Magna Novalis (Latin translation for Neubruchland…
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René Théophile Hyacinthe Laënnec and the stethoscope
Philip R. LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States What constitutes a high-tech instrument? Obviously, in the field of medicine, one that has been developed to improve evaluation of a given condition and lead to a more specific diagnosis. In the early 19th century, there was little that could be considered high-tech in medicine in regard to instrumentation.…
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Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain: About a whistling pneumothorax and pulmonary tuberculosis
Peter KorstenGöttingen, Germany Originally intended as a novella, Thomas Mann’s (1875–1955) multilayered novel The Magic Mountain documents in fine detail the methods used to treat lung diseases and especially pulmonary tuberculosis at the beginning of the twentieth century. Mann’s protagonist, Hans Castorp, who intended to spend only three weeks in the sanatorium in the Swiss mountains…