Tag: sweating
-
Scotland’s Anthrax Island
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “They make a desolation and call it peace.”— Agha Shahid Ali (1949–2001) During World War Two, the British government purchased from its owners the Gruinard Island, a one by two km island off the Scottish coast. The one inhabitant was evicted, and the island became the site of secret tests to weaponize…
-
John Caius, the polymath who described the sweating sickness
Philip LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States Imagine being a physician in a rural community in England in the mid-sixteenth century, always concerned with the reappearance of the Black Death. Late one summer you are faced with a new strange illness. It begins with cold shivers, headaches, and severe diffuse pains leading to exhaustion, and within a…