Tag: disease
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The Black Angels by Maria Smilios
Brendan’s Alternate Tagline for The Black Angels: If you need something done, find yourself a nurse. Quick synopsis: The story of the Black nurses who helped cure tuberculosis. Fact for Non-History People: Tuberculosis killed Doc Holliday at age 36. Fact for History Nerds: In the first half of the twentieth century, tuberculosis killed 5.6 million…
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The Great Mortality by John Kelly
Brendan’s Alternate Tagline for The Great Mortality: If you think the coronavirus sucks… Quick synopsis: A look at the Black Death as it raged across Europe. Fun Fact Non-History People Will Like: In Italy, some towns saw over an 80% death rate. Think of 10 of your neighbors. 8 of them would have been dead…
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Timely History: Cats and the Catholic Church
Do you own a cat? Are you Catholic? You are a heretic! Burn at the stake! Just kidding. It’s not like cats were excommunicated by the Catholic Church. I mean there’s even a “cat” in the name for God’s sake (see what I did there?)! Except, cats were officially excommunicated by the Catholic Church at…
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Timely History: The Plague of Justinian
Everyone knows about the Black Death. One of the worst pandemics in history and caused by fleas on rats. People merely refer to it as the plague and associate it with the Black Death, which is true. But it’s not the first time the plague is seen in history and it’s definitely not the first…
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The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
Brendan’s Alternate Tagline for The Ghost Map: If you thought doctors were clueless now…. Quick synopsis: The story of the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak in England and how two men figured out why it was happening. Fun Fact Non-History People Will Like: The cholera outbreak chronicled here killed 616 people. It all came from…
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Timely History: Typhoid Mary
Mary Mallon was born in September of 1869 in Cookstown in what is now Northern Ireland. She immigrated to the United States in 1883 or so. In 1900, she found her calling as a cook for wealthy families in the New York City. Why should you care about this woman? Because as COVID-19 runs rampant…
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Musing: On Pandemics
What’s this musing about: Well the coronavirus is really screwing up everyone’s lives, isn’t it? My sister-in-law (Hi, Terri!) asked me about some of the other pandemics that occurred through history a couple days ago. And by “asked me,” I mean I took it upon myself to tell her about them. As of March 21,…