The White Death: A History of Tuberculosis [Hardcover]

Thomas Dormandy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2000

The victims of tuberculosis (usually known as consumption) included not only Keats, The Bront's, Chopin and Chekhov, but members of almost every family. It was a killer on a huge scale.

The White Death is an outstanding history of tuberculosis. Thomas Dormandy's engrossing account of the search for a cure is complemented by a description of its complex natural history and by portraits of individual sufferers, including writers, artists, and musicians, whose lives and work were shaped (and often tragically curtailed) by the disease. 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 and Europe drug-resistant strains threaten its resurgence.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Accessible scientific and sociological history are combined by Dormandy, a consultant pathologist in London, in this account of a tenacious disease that has claimed victims from ancient Egypt to 1990s New York City. Focusing mostly on western Europe and the U.S., Dormandy vividly details the long struggle against tuberculosis. He takes readers through the high points of its history--from the discovery in 1882, by German physician Robert Koch, of the tubercle bacillus through the legendary tubercular deaths of writers, musicians and artists like Katherine Mansfield, George Orwell, D.H. Lawrence and Modigliani. He notes that before 1882, most observers thought infection was caused by a genetic predisposition, and doctors often treated it with measures such as bloodletting (which, Dormandy argues, hastened the deaths of famous sufferers like poet John Keats). Then he follows the disease as it made its way through crowded, poverty-stricken urban areas. He discusses the growth of the 19th century's sanatorium movement, examines the romantic, creative aura that was associated with it, and takes note of the post-WWII discovery and use of antibiotics, which began to effect dramatic cures. Dormandy points his research at present-day medical struggles--the global HIV epidemic, he notes, has combined with the emergence of multi-drug resistance to make tuberculosis, once thought almost eradicated, a threat to worldwide health again. Prodigious research and an engaging anecdotal style blend to make this a fascinating foray into the history of medicine. Illustrations and b&w photos. Editor, Niko Pfund. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

British pathologist Dormandy weaves together cultural and medical history with the skill of a learned, witty, and humane scholar. Exhaustively researched and documented, his book describes the havoc wreaked by tuberculosis over millennia--which, horrifyingly, was sometimes inflicted by physicians themselves. Happily, the search for a cure led also to significant medical innovations, including the stethoscope, antibiotics, and X-rays. More mundane advances, including park benches, bobbed hair, and an end to ornate Victorian d?cor, also emerged, as an appalling number of citizens of all social classes sought cures in sanatoria, where carefully calibrated exercise was a standard prescription and dust was relentlessly suppressed. Dormandy illuminates his medical history through the stories of dozens of artists and writers, from Keats and Chopin to Orwell, D.H. Lawrence, and Vivien Leigh, whose lives were tragically shortened before effective antibiotics became available in the 1940s and 1950s. Sadly, however, TB's protean bacteria quickly began to mutate into drug-resistant strains, and the search for a permanent cure or effective vaccine continues. Strongly recommended for serious readers in all libraries.
-Kathleen Arsenault, Univ. of South Florida at St. Petersburg Lib.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 433 pages
• Publisher: New York University Press; 1st edition (March 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814719279
• ISBN-13: 978-0814719275
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,183,911 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Consuming disease, March 23, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The White Death: A History of Tuberculosis (Hardcover)

When the whole world seemed to be suffering with flu last winter I read and thoroughly 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 "The White Death" was by far the best. We readers are all familiar with the idea of the limp, frail tubercular Victorian who is tragically going to waste away before his magnus opus is finished, but do we realise that until fairly recently, tuberculosis was so common - in fact expected in certain circles - that the wasted tubercular look was actually fashionable amongst the artistic and indolent (early heroine-chic?)? This very readable book charts the long and difficult fight between the medical establishment and tuberculosis - a disease that wasn't fussy who it struck or where it struck. Of course, the poor slum-dwellers didn't stand a chance, but history does not record their names. What is striking is how many well known 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 also rampaged through several royal households at various times. What made it so cruel was its slowness and the way it toyed with its victims. Availed with all that quackery could offer, the patient could have several seeming "recoveries" before eventually fading. Dormandy describes some of the practises of doctors in their battle against tuberculosis - you will have to read them for yourself! Gradually inroads were made by the scientific community but only after generations of sickness. Incredibly it was a long time before the idea of quarantine caught on (in Italy)! An interesting and readable medical and social history that becomes more compelling when you know that tuberculosis is again on the rise. Drug-resistant strains have been found, and it seems that whilst battles may have been won, the war may still be lost.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Best Work on the Subject, January 14, 2001

By 

Mark K. Mcdonough "Mark McDonough" (Reston, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The White Death: A History of Tuberculosis (Hardcover)

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.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The White Death is a force to be reckoned with!, April 30, 2001

By 

Rebecca Brown "rebeccasreads" (Clallam Bay, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The White Death: A History of Tuberculosis (Hardcover)

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!