The White Plague: Tuberculosis, Man and Society

by Jean Dubos, René Dubos

In The White Plague, René and Jean Dubos argue that the great increase of tuberculosis was intimately connected with the rise of an industrial, urbanized society and—a much more controversial idea when this book first appeared forty years ago—that the progress of medical science had very little to do with the marked decline in tuberculosis in the twentieth century. The White Plague has long been regarded as a classic in the social and environmental history of disease. This reprint of the 1952 edition features new introductory writings by two distinguished practitioners of the sociology and history of medicine. David Mechanic's foreword describes the personal and intellectual experience that shaped René Dubos's view of tuberculosis. Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz's historical introduction reexamines The White Plague in light of recent work on the social history of tuberculosis. Her thought-provoking essay pays particular attention to the broader cultural and medical assumptions about sickness and sick people that inform a society’s approach to the conquest of disease.

Genres: History, Science, Nonfiction, Medicine, History Of Medicine, Medical, Health

277 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1952

Reviews

[Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was an eye opener. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably been vaccinated and have benefited from antibiotics and other medical advances. Tuberculosis is highly contagious and has been taking lives for centuries, bringing down some of history’s most famous people.

[Lissa Notreallywolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been years since I read this book but it was fascinating. I read it during the time of the great AIDS epidemic to better understand how American culture copes with catastrophic disease, and what role disease and epidemics play in forming culture. It was all that, and entertaining as well. A good thing to read if you want to understand our current concerns about healthcare.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating! A study of the history of tuberculosis throughout human civilization, this book was a very sympathetic and informative read with only slightly dated language in a few spots.

We rarely think of tuberculosis in our privileged day and age in the US, but as recently as 1950 it was the 7th leading cause of death across the age spectrum and THE leading cause of death of the 15-30 age group. I found that reading this book during the summer of 2020, with the coronavirus pandemic still widespread and causing enormous damage both in individual and communal health and throughout all human enterprises, was particularly enlightening and oddly reassuring. The final chapter emphasizes that control, if not eradication, of tuberculosis by the time of the book's writing (1952) was the result of a successful coalition bringing government agencies, medical professionals and - most importantly - an educated public to curtail the spread of the bacillus and address the unhealthy living conditions that conduce to the fatal and debilitating forms of the infection.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about a now-little acknowledged disease that has had such an important impact on mankind since we first collected in civilized life.

[Eleanor With Cats · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting history of tuberculosis in Europe and America through the end of the 1940s. (The book was originally published in 1952.) Obviously, some of the bacterial science is missing, which the book addresses:

"What properties do tubercle bacilli possess that permit them to establish themselves, multiply, and do damage in the human body? In other words, what is the mechanism of tuberculous disease?

"Benjamin Marten was not far from the truth when he suggested that his hypothetical 'animalculae' caused disease by virtue of the fact that their 'disagreeable Parts are inimicable to our Nature.' Modern research is attempting to restate his hypothesis in the words of pathology and biochemistry. . . . Progress is slowly being made towards the chemical identification of the bacillary constituents responsible for all these dramatic effects." (p111-2)

There is still a lot of interesting reading about what happens in the disease and what various physicians and researchers did to study it and fight it and the social history of the disease. This includes a social history of public response to the disease. For example, during the 1700s laws attempting to prevent contagion were passed in Italy and Spain, and for a while Naples required the public authorities to replaster the interior of the house and burn wooden shutters and doors in the dwelling of anyone diagnosed with TB. In America, a number of societies dedicated to public education about TB facts and prevention sprang up in the late 19th century and early 20th century, with publicity techniques including infographics and jars of tuberculous lungs preserved in formaldehyde.

Includes about 25 pages of foreword and introduction written in 1987.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important early work in infectious disease epidemiology and human ecology. Reminds us that tuberculosis was once far more threatening to western Europe than HIV-AIDS is today to that part of the world. Rene Dubos was a microbiologist and philosopher.

[Mills College Library]

614.54209 D817 1987

[jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my opinion this is the _original_ authority on TB as a disease and it's relationship to society.