Product Description
In this first English-language study of popular and scientific responses to tuberculosis in nineteenth-century France, David Barnes provides a much-needed historical perspective on a disease that is making an alarming comeback in the United States and Europe. Barnes argues that French perceptions of the diseaseranging from the early romantic image of a consumptive woman to the later view of a scourge spread by the poorowed more to the power structures of nineteenth-century society than to medical science. By 1900, the war against tuberculosis had become a war against the dirty habits of the working class.Lucid and original, Barnes's study broadens our understanding of how and why societies assign moral meanings to deadly diseases. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A very impressive historical treatment
This book is well-written, persuasive, and very impressive.Highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
Known as "The Great Killer" and "The White Plague," few diseases influenced American life as much as tuberculosis. Sufferers migrated to mountain or desert climates believed to ameliorate symptoms. Architects designed homes with sleeping porches and verandas so sufferers could spend time in the open air. The disease even developed its own consumer culture complete with invalid beds, spittoons, sputum collection devices, and disinfectants. The "preventorium," an institution designed to protect children from the ravages of the disease, emerged in this era of Progressive ideals in public health.

In this book, Cynthia A. Connolly provides a provocative analysis of public health and family welfare through the lens of the tuberculosis preventorium. This unique facility was intended to prevent TB in indigent children from families labeled irresponsible or at risk for developing the disease. Yet, it also held deeply rooted assumptions about class, race, and ethnicity.Connolly goes further to explain how the child-saving themes embedded in the preventorium movement continue to shape children's health care delivery and family policy in the United States. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

I was a child of the Preventorium System in 1962 Magee Mississippi
I "met" Dr. Connolly on the phone a few years ago after I started a Yahoo Chat Room ([...] ).Through that medium I found Dr. Connolly. She was researching for this book at that time and interviewed me. I think my input was only a couple of pages, but that isn't the point. The point is that this book brought closure to my time at the Preventorium like nothing else has.My journey began many years ago in therapy where I learned an awful lot about me and why I am who I am. All that money and time, however, never revealed bits and pieces of me like this book does.

Just be warned that most of us DON'T REMEMBER until we are forced to remember and there is a very good reason for that. It took a lot of therapy before I was able to let myself remember. I discovered a world that most children thankfully never know, albeit a world that, in my case, if I had not known I likely would not be here to talk about it. I am not saying don't dig, I am only saying to be as prepared as you can be to learn what you will. Even though the child was you, you WILL feel an unbelievable compassion for that child. You may, like me, find out that you are who you are because of that child.

Most of the people who lived the preventorium life are gone. There are only a few of us left in this world. I invite you, NO, I encourage you to read Dr. Connolly's book. I also encourage you to come to my Yahoo Chat Room and meet those of us I have managed to find. It started out as only for the children of the Magee Mississippi Preventorium, but I have found others as well as far away as Yoder Health Camp in California.

Trust me, this book is something you cannot afford to miss.

Good luck, Cindy Hale ... Read more

Product Description

Through a historical and comparative analysis of modern Japan's epidemic of tuberculosis, William Johnston illuminates a major but relatively unexamined facet of Japanese social and cultural history. He utilizes a broad range of sources, including medical journals and monographs, archaeological evidence, literary works, ethnographic data, and legal and government documents to reveal how this and similar epidemics have been the result of social changes that accompanied the process of modernization. Johnston also shows the ways in which modern states, private organizations, and individual citizens have responded to epidemics, and in the process reexamines the concept of the epidemic itself, showing that epidemics must be thought of not only in medical and biological terms but in political, social and cultural terms as well.

Product Description
The victims of tuberculosis (TB; usually known as consumption) included not only Keats, the Brontes, Chopin & Chekhov but members of almost every family. It was a killer on a huge scale. This highly praised book provides a history of tuberculosis as a whole. Thomas Dormandy's account of the search for a cure is complemented by a description of the disease's complex natural history; & by portraits of individual sufferers, including writers, artists & musicians, whose lives & work were shaped (& often tragically curtailed) by TB. But tuberculosis is not just a disease of the past. In many parts of the world it is still a bigger killer than AIDS, while in America & Europe drug-resistant strains threaten its resurgence. Illustrations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

no title
This is a rad history if you have any interest in the subject, highly recommended. It is devoid of soft abstraction, fashionable theoretic apparatus, and similar wastage. It's repletely informed and documented, and usually fascinating. The style is distinctive but subdued and effortless.

The only (probable) error I could notice was the passing assertion that Domagk's own daughter was the first human to receive Prontosil. I have seen this claim elsewhere, but more detailed accounts of the development of Prontosil state that her treatment was in fact subsequent to the first several human trials.

Index
This book is loaded with information but it could have been much better indexed.I also wonder why no mention is made anyplace about Seaview Hospital in Staten Island, NY, which was the largest municipal TB hospital in the U.S. in the first half of the 20th century, and contributed much in the fight against TB.Then again, maybe I missed it and Seaview is mentioned, but it's not indexed.

The White Death is a force to be reckoned with!
From Antiquity, tuberculosis has been a killer on a huge scale, ever-present yet lurking rather than epidemic; its explosion in the 1800s went hand-in-hand with industrialization, abetted by bad housing, endless work hours & poverty.

For the Victorians, who elevated illness to art forms, the victims of TB were the ultimate in pale & interesting; the roll call of tuberculous genius reads like who's who of artists & writers: Keats, Chopin, the Brontes; Robert Louis Stevenson, Chekhov, Orwell, to name only a few.

Thomas Dormandy has written an engrossing account of the amazingly complex social, artistic & natural history of this ubiquitous disease as well as a telling chronicle of the medical profession at its worst & best.

This is one vitally informative, compelling & erudite volume on an affliction that has been with us since we began burying our dead, drawing on walls & writing. Make no mistake, TB is with us still! It is now mutating upon the new vectors of HIV, prisons, orphanages & multidrug resistancy.

The White Death is an impressive & eminently readable history! Do check out my eInterview with this respected author - I think you will be as amazed as I!

The Best Work on the Subject
There have been some reasonably satisfying works written on the cultural aspects of tuberculosis, and others on the scientific struggle to understand and control the disease.What makes this work unusually rewarding is that Dormandy (a consultant pathologist and medical writer) possesses the ability and education to bring together TB's medical and cultural aspects.He is equally comfortable discussing the influence of TB on the German Lied tradition and the interaction between the disease organism and the immune system.

The White Death is particularly strong on TB's influence on European high and Bohemian culture and on the stories of individual scientists and doctors involved in research and treatment.Dormandy has a bit less patience for the bureaucratic history of public health and the political intrigues of academia, a feeling I share.I particularly enjoyed the opinionated and informative footnotes.

A Consuming disease
When the whole world seemed to be suffering with flu last winter I read andthoroughly enjoyed "Flu" by Gina Kolata. I caught the sickness bug (bad pun) and read several more social-history books about deadly diseases and living conditions in the past, and Dormandy's "TheWhite Death" was by far the best. We readers are all familiar with theidea of the limp, frail tubercular Victorian who is tragically going towaste away before his magnus opus is finished, but do we realise that untilfairly recently, tuberculosis was so common - in fact expected in certaincircles - that the wasted tubercular look was actually fashionable amongstthe artistic and indolent (early heroine-chic?)? This very readable bookcharts the long and difficult fight between the medical establishment andtuberculosis - a disease that wasn't fussy who it struck or where itstruck. Of course, the poor slum-dwellers didn't stand a chance, buthistory does not record their names.What is striking is how many wellknown figures it hastened to an early grave - some of the finest artists,writers and minds of Europe, including the Brontës, Keats, Modigliani,Chekhov, D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield and George Orwell. It alsorampaged through several royal households at various times. What made it socruel was its slowness and the way it toyed with its victims. Availed withall that quackery could offer, the patient could have several seeming"recoveries" before eventually fading. Dormandy describes some ofthe practises of doctors in their battle against tuberculosis - you willhave to read them for yourself! Gradually inroads were made by thescientific community but only after generations of sickness. Incredibly itwas a long time before the idea of quarantine caught on (in Italy)! Aninteresting and readable medical and social history that becomes morecompelling when you know that tuberculosis is again on the rise.Drug-resistant strains have been found, and it seems that whilst battlesmay have been won, the war may still be lost. ... Read more

Product Description
This work places Emily Dickinson's poetry in a new setting, examining the many ways in which Dickinson's literary style was affected by her experiences with tuberculosis and her growing fear of contracting the disease. The author gives an in-depth discussion on 73 of Dickinson's poems, providing readers with a fresh perspective on issues that have long plagued Dickinson biographers, including her notoriously shut-in lifestyle, her complicated relationship with the tuberculosis-stricken Benjamin Franklin Newton, and the possible real-life inspirations for her "terror since September." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

From a lay person's viewpoint.
So Has A Daisy Vanished: Emily Dickinson and Tuberculosis by George Mamunes

Reading the title of this book, one would expect that it contains a treatise defending the unproven assumption that Emily Dickinson did suffer from the prevailing mortal disease of her time, tuberculosis.Instead, Mr. Mamunes assumes that this is a fact from the start and then proceeds to illustrate just how this disease and the social attitudes of the times are clearly seen in the changing forms and themes of Emily Dickinson's poetry and writings.
For the sake of complete disclosure, I would like to state that I have absolutely no credentials to review this book as a scholar or as a critic.Although I have enjoyed reading some forms of poetry, individual poems and an occasional poet at different periods of my life, I had neither read any of Emily Dickinson's poetry nor studied anything about her before opening this book.So please take all my comments with a grain of salt.
With some trepidation I began reading and, to my surprise, I found the author's style eminently readable, comprehensible and wonder of wonders, informative and entertaining.Mr. Mamunes separates the poet's life into phases that correlate with her age, living conditions and the stages of progression of her disease. Each section is prefaced by a short excerpt from a novel published during the time period being discussed.The dramatic scenes depicted in each excerpt parallel the circumstances in Ms. Dickinson's life and help to illustrate the prevailing attitudes and perceptions of Ms. Dickinson's contemporaries.Poems written at each phase of Ms. Dickinson's life are presented and the device mentioned above allows the reader to understand her poetry in the light of her state of mind considering the progression of her disease/tuberculosis, social circumstances and environmental influences.
Mr. Mamunes addresses several disputed "facts" about Ms. Dickinson's life including the identity of the man that she loved but never physically bonded with and her unconventional use of dashes that served as unspoken thoughts in the lines of her poetry. Again, I am not a Dickinson devotee or a scholar but I found all of Mr. Mamunes arguments very convincing.
I heartily recommend this volume.It is well written, well researched and engaging.I am certain that it is a significant addition to the previously published biographical and critical works about the poet, stimulating more discussions about the controversies that seemingly have been stirring for many years.

Larry Mendelsberg
... Read more

Product Description
Part biography, part medical history, and part study of Jewish life in turn-of-the-century America, Jeanne Abrams's book tells the story of Dr. Charles David Spivak --a Jewish immigrant from Russia who became one of the leaders of the American Tuberculosis Movement.

Born in Russia in 1861, Spivak immigrated to the United States in 1882 and received his medical degree from Philadelphia's Jefferson Medical College by 1890. In 1896, his wife's poor health brought them to Colorado. Determined to find a cure, Spivak became one of the most charismatic and well-known leaders in the American Tuberculosis Movement. His role as director of Denver's Jewish Consumptives' Relief Society sanatorium allowed his personal philosophies to strongly influence policies. His unique blend of Yiddishkeit, socialism, and secularism--along with his belief in treating the "whole" patient--became a model for integrating medical, social, and rehabilitation services that was copied across the country.

Not only a national leader in the crusade against tuberculosis but also a luminary in the American Jewish community, Dr. Charles Spivak was a physician, humanitarian, writer, linguist, journalist, administrator, social worker, ethnic broker, and medical, public health, and social crusader. Abrams's biography will be a welcome addition to anyone interested in the history of medicine, Jewish life in America, or Colorado history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

In the front line against "the white plague"
Dr. Charles Spivak is a medical pioneer whose place in the history of American medicine has, until now, been undocumented.This carefully researched and clearly written biography records the life of the longtime director of the Jewish Consumptive Relief Society outside Denver, the largest charitable TB Sanitarium in the west. A dedicated physician and visionary in the field of public health, Spivak was at the forefront of the battle against "the white plague" in the decades before the tuberculosis was "conquered" (if only temporarily, as it now appears) by the first generation of antibiotics.Spivak's life is set in the context of the history of the sanitarium he directed (large enough to count as a town: Spivak, Colorado), and more generally as part of the larger chronicle, newly relevant today, of the country's attempt to eradicate a pandemic infectious disease.Dr. Abrams, director of the JCRS archive, is Spivak's ideal biographer.As someone working in the same field--and no less important--as the son of a TB patient who recovered under Dr. Spivak's care, I found this book both invaluable professionally, and, personally, deeply moving. Ernest B. Gilman, Professor of English, New York University ... Read more

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Tuberculosis was the most common cause of death in the United States during the nineteenth century. The lingering illness devastated the lives of patients and families, and by the turn of the century, fears of infectiousness compounded their anguish. Historians have usually focused on the changing medical knowledge of tuberculosis or on the social campaigns to combat it. In Bargaining for Life, Barbara Bates documents the human story by chronicling how men and women attempted to cope with the illness, get treatment, earn their living, and maintain social relationships.

Customer Reviews (1)

Definitely NOT Social History
As a lover of medical history, specifically, the effect of pandemic disease on history and society, I believed the reviews and subtitle of this book thinking it was, indeed, a social history, in other words, a history of the human experience.However, after wading through all 370 some pages (not counting the voluminous notes) of this book, I determined that it is actually a history of hospitalization and medical care as provided to an extremely small segment of the population afflicted with Tuberculosis in turn of the 20th Century Pennsylvania.If you are interested in what it was like to to be one of the millions who lived and died with TB in a world before antibiotics, DO NOT waste your money on this book.If you are interested in reading about a small group of doctors and how they attempted to treat/restrict/institutionalize their TB patients, this one is for you.And, as a bonus, you will get lots on information on exactly how much their medical care cost and how many eggs they were expected to eat each day.Sound interesting?Not particularly.There are many more interesting books on PEOPLE with TB out there.Buy one of those. ... Read more

Product Description
Peter Davies, the editor of the major reference work Clinical Tuberculosis and his co-author Peter Ormerod have compiled this series of 100 cases to cover virtually every aspect of tuberculosis that a physician will encounter, including cases from around the world. Whether you are looking for straightforward introductory cases, those which are easy to manage but hard to diagnose or cases with the management problems associated with poor compliance, emergent drug resistance or the development of concomitant disease, relevant examples are included here, featuring failures, as well as successes. ... Read more

Product Description
New York Univ., NY. Summarizes the current advances in tuberculosis and discusses the pathology and pathogenesis of the disease. Also covers complications and treatment options. Chapters include history and epidemiology, genomics and microbiology, host response, therapy, and prevention and control. Previous edition: c1996. DNLM: Tuberculosis--Pulmonary. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Review of stuart garay's tuberculosis
he made his mother proud.
i couldn't put it down. ... Read more

Product Description
As HIV spreads across the developing countries of the world, a second epidemic is never far behind. Tuberculosis has become the principal emerging infection and cause of death in AIDS patients. This report summarizes the current state of tuberculosis research and control and aims to: describe the global burden of tuberculosis and predict likely trends over the next decade with special attention to the HIV epidemic; identify and prioritize major research issues; and address specific questions relating to: diagnosis and clinical management; immunology and vaccinations; chemoprophylaxis; drug therapy and control strategies; and resource allocation. ... Read more

Product Description
This series of annual reports from WHO monitors the state of the global tuberculosis epidemic, and charts progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. The 2006 report, the tenth in the series, presents data on case notifications and treatment outcomes for 200 countries. It outlines activities that are essential for the successful implementation of the Stop TB Strategy, and sets out costs, budgets, expenditures and sources of funding. It also summarizes progress on special initiatives, such as the development of public-private partnerships in TB control, the management of drug-resistant TB and collaborations in TB and HIV/AIDS control. ... Read more

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An annual death toll of 2 million, coupled with rising drug resistance, highlights the need for the development of new drugs, better diagnostics, and a tuberculosis (TB) vaccine. Addressing these key issues, A Color Atlas of Comparative Pathology of Pulmonary Tuberculosis introduces TB histopathology to the non-histopathologists, students, scientists, and doctors working, learning, and teaching in the field of TB. It contains 100 color photographs and illustrations that bring clarity to the information presented.

The atlas takes the unusual approach of covering multiple species histopathology, arguably the first and quite possibly the only resource to do so. It provides a simple, annotated, and visual presentation of the comparative histopathology of TB in human and animal models. The editors have compiled information that helps TB scientists to distinguish between the features of all major animal models available and to use them with their strengths and limitations in mind. The book provides guidance for selecting the best animal model(s) to answer specific questions and to test the efficacy of drug candidates.

Product Description
(Horizon Bioscience) Ohio State Univ., Columbus. Discusses the interaction of M. tuberculosis with the host revealing new information on the disease's pathogenesis. Presents state-of-the-art approaches used to study microbe-host interactions and highlights emerging technologies. Also discusses mycobacterial entry, growth, and gene expression in macrophages. For researchers. ... Read more

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By the late 1890s, the question of bovine tuberculosis (TB) and infected meat had become one of national importance, reflecting a national sense of fear. Although the extent of the threat to health proved uncertain, bovine TB had come to stand at the centre of debates about diseased meat and public health. The anxiety it caused was part of a longer story, linked to concern over food safety, changes in how tuberculosis was understood, and to worries over diseased meat and the 'evils' of the urban meat trade. The Bovine Scourge explores the debates and fears that came to surround bovine TB, meat and public health between the 1860s and 1914. It traces how diseased meat and bovine TB emerged as a public health issue, examines the measures adopted to protect the public, and addresses how by the Edwardian era milk had become the major source of concern in discussion of bovine TB. It also raises important questions about the history of food safety, the concerns generated by diseased meat, and the role of the public health and veterinary profession in preventing the sale of contaminated food.KEIR WADDINGTON is a senior lecturer in the School of History and Archaeology at Cardiff University. ... Read more