Air-Borne Quotes

“Reagan-era policies also helped tuberculosis by spurring a crisis in homelessness in the United States. Thanks to cutbacks in support for low-income housing and a push to move the mentally ill out of institu-tions, hundreds of thousands of Americans ended up living on the streets. Losing their homes added an extra burden on people's immune systems, making them more vulnerable to TB.”
― Carl Zimmer, Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe

“Plague doctors protected themselves from this contagious threat by wearing leather masks that covered their entire heads. They peered through goggles. The front of their masks formed a long beak packed with cinnamon, cloves, and opium, desiccated viper, and the ground remains of human mummies. The plague doctors believed that by breathing in the fragrance, they could block the contagion from entering their bodies.”
― Carl Zimmer, Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe

“They increased the isolation to forty days—a change from trentino to quarantino. Thus the quarantine was born.”
― Carl Zimmer, Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe