Tuberculosis

Abstract

No disease better illustrates the difficulties of early modern medical practice than tuberculosis. Arguments over heredity, nutrition, environment, and contagion all came together within the potent cultural frame of a condition that, by the early 19th century, killed about one in five Europeans. Rather than claiming thousands in swift, savage epidemics tuberculosis took its victims slowly, racking their bodies and exhausting their minds. Older names for the disease—consumption and pthisis (from a Greek word meaning to waste away)—reflect the way in which it seemed to destroy the body from within. Tuberculosis was a constitutional condition par excellence, one that seemed to sap strength until life was exhausted. In appreciation of the peer-review heroes from 2015The Lancet is responding to the increased volume of high quality research by not only expanding the number of specialty journals within our family, but also by publishing more research studies. In 2015, we published almost 20% more research papers than in the previous year. And we did this more quickly, by offering the possibility of 10 + 10 rapid publication for randomised controlled trials sent for peer review. We also launched The Lancet Clinic, published highly clinical and global health Commissions, and Series on topics as diverse as radiation and religion. Full-Text PDF HypertensionFor most of its history medicine has not been a matter of numbers. Just as an early modern physician felt entirely justified in diagnosing without a fine-level grasp of anatomy, so he could confidently prognosticate and prescribe without a great deal of quantifying. Although the classical tradition took a close interest in the movement of blood, seeing it as a kind of nutritious tide originating in the liver, practitioners were more concerned with pulse rate and quality—hard, soft, languid—as markers of general health. Full-Text PDF Lung cancerAt the intellectual heart of the new scientific medicine of the late 19th century was the idea of specificity: each disease had a single specific cause, and in time medicine would generate a specific and effective cure. This idea transformed the diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases, but through the 20th century, as the burden of mortality shifted towards chronic diseases, its limitations became abundantly clear—nowhere more so than in the case of lung cancer. Full-Text PDF