Men, Microbes, and Medical Microbiologists: A Concise Pictorial History of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Han T. Siem

Abstract

What do Hippocrates, Chekhov, Emily Bronte, Frederick Chopin, Mickey Mouse’s dog Goofy, Elizabeth Taylor, and Bill Clinton have in common? Well, they are all on postage stamps, and for one reason or another, which will only become evident when you read this book, their image on a stamp can be used to illustrate a point about infectious disease. Chopin and Bronte died of TB; Goofy is shown with a stethoscope; Elizabeth Taylor campaigns against AIDS; and so on. What is not clear from anything in the long title of this book is that it is actually a thematic illustration of microbiology through postage stamps—hundreds and hundreds of stamps. Dr. Siem, a microbiologist born in Indonesia and whose career over three decades was in the Netherlands, is not so much a historian but a remarkable thematic philatelist who has amassed an outstanding collection of stamps and postcards, postmarks and any other material related to infectious disease or any person or discipline field even faintly related, and the illustrations in this book must number in the thousands. A recognized microbiologist, he is also the delegate to an international commission on thematic philately. It is such a beautiful example of a thematic philately collection that it is unfortunate that he has not indicated this in the title as it may be missed by the many who collect medically related stamps, and there are many. The historical sweep over the centuries is necessarily cursory, and arranged by categories that do not hold well together chronologically or thematically, and tend to stand alone, but I am not sure of a better way to handle categories as disparate as microscopy, vaccines, the sanitary movement, all the major infectious diseases, and biological warfare. He sometimes wanders from the historical discussion to mention some peripheral aspect that makes the inclusion of a particular stamp relevant. Thus we see stamps of Italian statues and bridges, the Archangel Michael, Saint Roch and his dog, Napoleon, Franz Liszt, Albert Camus, and the Passion Plays at Oberammergau. This is an unusual but very interesting and captivating book, beautifully produced in a large format by Erasmus Press. So if you like history and you like stamps, this is the book for you.