Tag: Tuberculosis
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Catching Your Death: Infectious rain in the works of Jane Austen
Eve Elliot Dublin, Ireland Willoughby Carries Marianne Home. Image: Carried Her Down the Hill, 1908. By C.E Brock. Wikimedia Commons. Fans of the Netflix romp Bridgerton or any of the Jane Austen film adaptations will likely be familiar with the important social etiquette of inquiring after someone’s health. Unlike the modern throwaway how are…
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Review: The History of the World in 100 Pandemics, Plagues and Epidemics
Arpan Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom Cover: The History of the World in 100 pandemics, plagues and epidemics. 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…
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The man who hated hospital
Emeka Chibuikem V.Enugu State, Nigeria An emergency patient was in critical condition. The staff nurse on duty moved swiftly to attend to him. Then she went to the waiting hall to meet with the patient’s family and asked them why they had waited so long before bringing him to the hospital. They stared at her,…
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The significant contributors to the history and development of Vietnam’s medicine sector
Tran Nguyen Ngoc NhuHo Chi Minh City, Vietnam Physicians have long held a high position in Vietnamese society. Among many who have improved the health of their local communities, five physicians have notably contributed to science and medicine in Vietnam and beyond. Master Tue Tinh (1330 – ?) Master Tue Tinh’s real name was Nguyen…
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Franz Kafka, A Country Doctor, (and Bob Dylan)
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Elk Viewing Sleigh Ride – Thunder Bay Resort, Hillman MI. Photo by Joe Ross. Via Flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0 “Certainly doctors are stupid, or rather, they’re not more stupid than other people but their pretensions are ridiculous; [but] you have to reckon with the fact that they become more and…
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Selman Waksman, “father of antibiotics” and conquest of tuberculosis
Selman Abraham Waksman came to the United States in 1910 and worked for a few years on a farm in New Jersey. Born in a rural town in Ukraine in 1888, he had become familiar as a child with that country’s rich black soil and developed an interest that later influenced the direction of his…
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Book review: John Keats’ Medical Notebook
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom February 23, 2021 marked the bicentenary of the death of the great Romantic poet John Keats. Born in 1795, Keats lived a tragically short life, dying at the age of only twenty-five. It is perhaps little known that he first qualified as an apothecary doctor before giving up medicine for…
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The finality in their voices: Death, disease, and palliation in opera
Lea C. DacyEelco F. M. WijdicksRochester, Minnesota, United States I know she had tuberculosis! She was coughing her brains out . . . but still she kept right on singing.* Operatic death is often glorious, melodious, and heartbreaking. Naturally, composers and librettists can claim pristine ignorance when it comes to the process of dying. Leaving…