The Remedy
Page 28
Finally: In many respects, I’ve been preparing to write this book—with its mix of literature and history and science—since 1986, the same year I met Whitney Wright, who remains my most significant discovery of all. All love and appreciation go to her and to our two boys, Rex and Buck, who fear neither needles nor germs.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
In train after train William Thomas Stead, “Character Sketch: Robert Koch,” Review of Reviews 2, no. 12 (Dec. 1890): 547–51.
In the last half René Dubos and Jean Dubos, The White Plague: Tuberculosis, Man, and Society, 1st ed. (1952; repr. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996), xiv–xvi.
So the consumptives came Christopher Gradmann, Laboratory Disease: Robert Koch’s Medical Bacteriology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 128.
the Berlin police department Thomas Brock, Robert Koch: A Life in Medicine and Bacteriology (Washington, DC: American Society for Microbiology, 1999), 209.
“serious danger to the public health” Arthur Conan Doyle, “Character Sketch, Dr Robert Koch,” Review of Reviews 2, no. 12 (Dec. 1890): 547–59.
In England, as many as H. O. Lancaster, Expectations of Life: A Study in the Demography, Statistics, and History of World Mortality (New York: Springer, 1990), 360.
In the United States Barbara Bates, Bargaining for Life: A Social History of Tuberculosis, 1876–1938 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), 1.
a plurality of deaths JÖrg VÖgele, Urban Mortality Change in England and Germany, 1870–1913 (Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, 1998), 144.
In England circa 1870, twenty-two people Figures published in The Accountant (London), July 16, 1904, 79.
Infant mortality in England Samuel H. Preston and Michael R. Haines, Fatal Years: Child Mortality in Late Nineteenth-Century America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), Table 2.5.
“To the drowning man” Philip Peter Jacobs, Fake Consumption Cures (New York: Metropolitan Life Insurance, 1913), 3.
“When he clearly eyes” John Tyndall, Scientific Addresses (New Haven, CT: Charles C. Chatfield and Co., 1870), 29.
“Gentlemen, this is no humbug” Quoted in Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity (New York: Norton, 1998), 367.
“If once tried” Advertisement in The Christian Messenger (London), Jan. 1885, 66.
CHAPTER 1
When the young doctor Brock, Robert Koch, 19.
“It’s going awful here” Quoted in ibid.
“The smell of dead bodies” Robert Koch to Hermann Koch, Metz, Sept. 20, 1870, in Deutsche Revue 16, no. 2 (April 1891): 92.
At Metz Geoffrey Wawro, The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in 1870–1871 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 186–87.
the Germans suffered Valery Havard, Manual of Military Hygiene for the Military Services of the United States (New York: William Wood and Co., 1917), 12.
Delirium is common George W. Fuller, “Typhoid Fever Death Rates in American Cities,” Public Health Papers and Reports 27 (1901): 100–102.
He pined for Robert Koch to Hermann Koch, Metz, Sept. 29, 1870, in Deutsche Revue 16, no. 2 (April 1891): 93.
The Germans deployed Wawro, Franco-Prussian War, 57–59.
“battle squirt” Charles Alexander Gordon, Lessons on Hygiene and Surgery from the Franco-Prussian War (London: Bailliere, Tindall and Cox, 1873), 101.
The real agent of destruction Wawro, Franco-Prussian War, 53.
“It was not an unfrequent sight” Gordon, Lessons on Hygiene, 194.
Still, despite such appalling Matthew Smallman-Raynor and Andrew D. Cliff, “The Geographical Transmission of Smallpox in the Franco-Prussian War: Prisoner of War Camps and Their Impact upon Epidemic Diffusion Processes in the Civil Settlement System of Prussia, 1870–71,” Medical History 46 (2002): 241–64.
“this preparation” Gordon, Lessons on Hygiene, 124.
One couldn’t have designed Patrice Debré, Louis Pasteur (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 266.
a fatality rate Fielding H. Garrison, Notes on the History of Military Medicine (Washington, DC: Association of Military Surgeons, 1922), 179.
“In this war” Gordon, Lessons on Hygiene, 197.
Klebs was stationed Gradmann, Laboratory Disease, 42.
One afternoon K. Codell Carter, The Rise of Causal Concepts of Disease: Case Histories (London: Ashgate Publishing, 2003), 95.
“I found rod-shaped bodies” Gradmann, Laboratory Disease, 43.
“Does disease follow” Brock, Robert Koch, 30.
“I will never regret” Robert Koch to Hermann Koch, Metz, Aug. 27, 1870, in Deutsche Revue 16, no. 2 (April 1891): 91.
Robert Koch returned Brock, Robert Koch, 19–20.
“the most ingenious book” Samuel Pepys, Diary, Jan. 21, 1665, http://www.pepys.info.
“By the means of Telescopes” Robert Hooke, Micrographia: or, Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses. With Observations and Inquiries Thereupon (London: Royal Society, 1665).
Van Leeuwenhoek improved upon Porter, Greatest Benefit, 225.
In a bit of verse Hugo Erichsen, Medical Rhymes (St. Louis, MO: J. H. Chambers and Co., 1884), 84.
By 1873, Koch’s practice Brock, Robert Koch, 24–26.
“We shall soon perceive”“Professor Rudolf Virchow,” Popular Science Monthly 21, no. 46 (October 1882): 838.
Virchow was his own Paul de Kruif, Microbe Hunters (New York: Pocket Books, 1926), 140.
“it is no longer necessary” Rudolf Virchow, Scientific Essays (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971), 149.
“before microscopic forms” Quoted in Alfred S. Evans, Causation and Disease: A Chronological Journey (New York: Plenum Publishing, 1993), 14.
In humans John Bertram Andrews, Anthrax as an Occupational Disease (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1917), 19–21.
For farmers Nicholas H. Bergman, Bacillus Anthracis and Anthrax (New York: Wiley, 2011), 1969–74.
A French veterinarian Andrews, Anthrax, 9.
He may have treated Ibid., 52.
On April 12, 1874 Brock, Robert Koch, 31–32.
“Whether they are” Ibid., 30.
“My heart says” Ibid.
CHAPTER 2
For an hour, then two Brock, Robert Koch, 32.
As Koch’s experiments Ibid., 321.
“It was my job” Ibid., 31.
At the time, death in childbirth Geoffrey Chamberlain, “British Maternal Mortality in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 99, no. 11 (Nov. 2006): 559–63.
Semmelweis monitored the two Porter, Greatest Benefit, 369–70.
“Where are these little beasts” Ibid., 372.
In 1877, Klebs was confident K. Codell Carter, “Koch’s Postulates in Relation to the Work of Jacob Henle and Edwin Klebs,” Journal of Medical History 29 (1985): 353–74.
As the scientific journalLa Presse René Vallery-Radot, The Life of Pasteur, Vol. 1 (New York: McClure, Phillips and Co., 1902), 129.
Thomas Kuhn proposed Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 4th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 2–5.
“In investigating nature” Joseph Lister, “Edinburgh Graduation Address, 1876,” excerpted in Rickman John Godlee, Lord Lister (London: Macmillan, 1918), 388.
Though the hygiene hypothesis Torsten Olszak et al., “Microbial Exposure During Early Life Has Persistent Effects on Natural Killer T Cell Function,” Science 366, no. 6080 (April 27, 2012): 489–93.
“great ideas, like species” Stephen Jay Gould, “The Wheel of Fortune and the Wedge of Progress,” Natural History 98 (March 1989): 14–22.
In Wöllstein, he was far removed Brock, Robert Koch, 36–37.
“In recent times, our knowledge” Ibid., 43.
“Honored Professor!” Ibid., 43–44.
The next morning Ibid., 44–45.
“My experiments were” Ibid., 45.
“This man has made” Julius Cohnheim, Lectures of General Pathology (London: New Sydenham Society, 1889), xiv.
Cohn’s home was warm Brock, Robert Koch, 48.
“whole business” Ibid., 82.
“I see from your letter” Ibid., 81.
After the invention of photography Normand Overney and Gregor Overney, “The History of Photomicrography,” March 2011, accessed July 16, 2012, http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artmar10/go-no-history-photomicro.html.
“true to nature” Brock, Robert Koch, 62.
He began to correspond Ibid.
“I am well aware” Ibid., 65.
but there was little experimental Gradmann, Laboratory Disease, 54–55.
In Parisian hospitals Greg Seltzer, “The American Ambulance in Paris, 1870–1871,” MA thesis, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2009, 22–23.
Surgery manuals Thomas Bryant, A Manual for the Practice of Surgery (Philadelphia: Henry C. Lea’s Son and Co., 1885), 67.
Though Klebs had clearly Gradmann, Laboratory Disease, 55.
The scientific method Terrie M. Romano, Making Medicine Scientific (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 16.
“The various researchers” Felix Victor Birch-Hirschfeld, quoted in Gradmann, Laboratory Disease, 56.
This was evident in the title Koch’s essay was also translated into English as Investigations into the Etiology of Traumatic Infective Diseases, as in an 1880 volume published in London by the New Sydenham Society.
“In order to prove” Robert Koch, Etiology of Traumatic Infective Diseases (London: New Sydenham Society, 1880), 22–27.
In these principles Ragnhild Munch, “On the Shoulders of Giants: Robert Koch,” Microbes and Infection 5 (2003): 69–74.
He was now in regular Brock, Robert Koch, 84.
In early July 1880 Ibid., 88–89.
CHAPTER 3
Pasteur took the post Debré, Pasteur, 279–82.
“If it is terrifying” Vallery-Radot, The Life of Pasteur, 271.
“Do you know why” Debré, Pasteur, 300.
“If by chance” Ibid., 289.
“I obey a call” Louis Pasteur to University of Bonn, Jan. 18, 1871. Quoted in H. H. Mollaret, “Contribution to the Knowledge of Relations Between Koch and Pasteur,” Journal of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine 20 (1983): 57–65.
“each of my studies” Debré, Pasteur, 24.
“the Beer of Revenge” Ian S. Hornsey, Brewing (Cambridge, UK: Royal Society of Chemistry, 1999), 7.
“While politics with” Arthur Goldhammer, “Grumpy,” London Review of Books 17, no. 19 (Oct. 5, 1995): 26–27.
Pasteur had come to the germ theory Debré, Pasteur, 87.
Pasteur’s first theory Ibid., 194.
“Everything indicates” Ibid., 258.
In the 1860s, Joseph Lister Ibid., 279.
He got to work Ibid., 307.
“the original drop of blood”Émile Duclaux, Pasteur: The History of a Mind (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders and Co., 1920), 251.
In a letter to Cohn Robert Koch to Ferdinand Cohn, July 15, 1877, in Brock, Robert Koch, 70.
To solve the mystery Debré, Pasteur, 316.
“You must prevent” Ibid., 318.
The experiment took place Ibid., 396.
“Here it is!” Ibid., 400.
“We now possess” Louis Pasteur, “Summary Report of the Experiments Conducted at Pouilly-le-Fort, Near Melun, on the Anthrax Vaccination,” Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Sciences 92 (June 13, 1881): 1378–83.
“It is always possible” Editorial, British Medical Journal 2, no. 1076 (Aug. 13, 1881): 290.
“every land in which”The Lancet 1, no. 3022 (July 30, 1881): 184.
“not once only”Popular Science Monthly 20, no. 10 (Dec. 1881): 245.
“Though a hard worked” Joseph Lister, “On the Relation of Micro-Organisms to Disease,” Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science 21, no. 81 (Jan. 1881): 330.
Though Pasteur had the spotlight Brock, Robert Koch, 114–16.
In the weeks following Ibid., 103.
“Of these conclusions” Ibid., 171.
“The theory on the role” Mollaret, ”Contribution to the Knowledge,” 57–65.
“M. Koch is not liked” Robert M. Frank and Denise Wrotnowska, Correspondence of Pasteur and Thuillier (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1968), 111.
Pasteur himself kept silent Debré, Pasteur, 407–8.
“When I saw in the program” Brock, Robert Koch, 174.
Privately, meanwhile Ibid., 174.
“Concerning inoculation” Robert Koch, “On the Anthrax Inoculation,” from K. Codell Carter, trans., Essays of Robert Koch (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), 97–107.
“You ascribe to me errors” Debré, Pasteur, 408.
Many historians, understandably Mollaret, “Contribution to the Knowledge,” 57–65.
“Why did you hide” Louis Pasteur to Robert Koch, Dec. 24, 1882.
For Koch in particular Brock, Robert Koch, 90–92.
The disinfection paper Ibid., 106–8.
In Paris, meanwhile Ibid., 105–7.
As late as 1883 Debré, Pasteur, 257.
Pasteur himself boldly René Dubos, Pasteur and Modern Science (New York: Anchor Books, 1960), 224.
CHAPTER 4
On the brisk evening Brock, Robert Koch, 126–28.
Later, Loeffler recalled Ibid., 128.
“If the importance of a disease” Robert Koch, “On Tuberculosis,” from Codell Carter, trans., Essays of Robert Koch, 83.
The usual technique Frank Ryan, The Forgotten Plague: How the Battle Against Tuberculosis Was Won—and Lost (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1993), 11–12.
There was no applause Brock, Robert Koch, 128–29.
Simply put, more people Francis Sheppard, London, 1808–1870: The Infernal Wen (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), 16.
HIV/AIDS has killed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accessed March 14, 2013, http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm.
Six waves of cholera Dhiman Barua and William B. Greenbough, eds., Cholera (New York: Plenum, 1992), 5–7.
Tuberculosis was altogether Dubos and Dubos, The White Plague, 2–6.
By the end of the century George Allen Herron, Evidences of the Communicability of Consumption (London: Longman, Green and Co., 1890), 107.
This toll was particularly John Mann, A Contribution to the Medical Statistics of Life Assurance; with Hints on the Selection of Lives (London: J. Masters, 1865), 40.
“There is a dread disease” Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008 reissue), 637–38.
“a disease so frequent” Thomas Young, A Practical and Historical Treatise on Consumptive Diseases, Deduced from Original Observations, and Collected from Authors of All Ages (London: B. R. Howlett, 1815), 20.
“Consumptive patients” Logan Clendening, ed., Sourcebook of Medical History (New York: Dover, 1962), 433.
Early symptoms Bates, Bargaining for Life, 17.
One can get a sense“List of Tuberculosis Cases,” accessed July 5, 2013, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tuberculosis_cases.
It infused the poetry Dubos and Dubos, White Plague, 58.
Working people typically Allison Aiello et al., Against Disease: The Impact of Hygiene and Cleanliness on Health (Washington, DC: Soap and Detergent Association, 2007), 3–6.
During the “Grea
t Stink” David S. Barnes, The Great Stink of Paris and the Nineteenth-Century Struggle Against Filth and Germs (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 55.
“Why do we expectorate?” J. J. Lawrence, “Is Spitting a Crime?” Medical Brief: A Monthly Journal of Scientific Medicine 25 (1897): 389.
They spit, as a matter Alfred Bunn, Old England and New England, in a Series of Views Taken on the Spot, Vol. 2 (London: Richard Bentley, 1853), 372.
An 1847 French A. F. Chomel, Elements of General Pathology (Boston: William Ticknor, 1847), 158.
“When we consider” C. Theodore Williams, “The Contagion of Phthisis,” British Medical Journal 2 (Sept. 30, 1882): 618–21.
In each droplet Dubos and Dubos, White Plague, 8–15.
Today’s epidemiologists Ian Nelson, Infectious Disease Epidemiology (Burlington, MA: Jones and Bartlett, 2012), 151–58.
This was the error Timothy Alborn, “Insurance Against Germ Theory: Commerce and Conservatism in Late-Victorian Medicine,” Bulletin of Medical History 75 (2001): 406–55.
“If contagion had anything” Henry I. Bowditch, “Is Consumption Ever Contagious?” (Boston: David Clapp, 1864), 12.
“There is hardly any” Sidney Coupland, “Extract from a Lec-ture on Tubercule,” The Canadian Journal of Medical Science 7 (1882): 113.
The hereditary theory Bruno Meinecke, Consumption in Classical Antiquity (New York: P. B. Hoeber, 1927), 383.
“In developing certain” James Ross, The Graft Theory of Disease, Being an Application of Mr. Darwin’s Hypothesis of Pangenesis to the Explanation of the Phenomena of the Zymotic Diseases (London: J. and A. Churchill, 1872), 240.
Among those who believed Dubos and Dubos, White Plague, 96–97.
Just as the taxonomy Ibid., 69–72.
Koch’s discovery, though Gradmann, Laboratory Disease, 14, 32.
More than 150 years Wesley William Spink, Infectious Disease: Prevention and Treatment in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1978), 6–7.
Budd, who practiced medicine Dubos and Dubos, White Plague, 97.
The most substantial predecessor Selman Abraham Waksman, The Conquest of Tuberculosis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964), 84–85.