The Pioneering Surgeons Who Cleaned up Filthy Hospitals | BBC
“Lister is often referred to as the father of modern surgery, because he laid the foundations for future surgical and operative care – to think that such a step change in surgery occurred in the hospital where I work is phenomenal.”
The Nurse Who Introduced Gloves to the Operating Room | Distillations/Science History Institute
“We’re still reaping the benefits of these innovations today, of course, benefits that have been made all the more obvious during our current pandemic. And for this we can thank a brilliant, drug-addled surgeon who fell for his whip-smart nurse.”
“Invisible Little Worms” Athanasius Kircher’s Study of the Plague | The Public Domain Review
“Although the epidemic continued for more than a year, many of these tactics did help prevent the spread of the disease. The effects of the plague in Rome were much less devastating than in Naples — only about fifteen thousand people died. But living through it was frightening. One figure who did: the fairly eccentric, extremely prolific Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher.”
A Complete History of Pandemics | The MIT Press Reader
“As far as unpredictable discontinuities are concerned, only one somatic threat trumps all of this: we remain highly vulnerable to another episode of viral pandemic. “
The Chloroquine Chronicles: A History of the Drug That Conquered the World | PRI
“Looking for a treatment for the disease, priests from the Jesuit Roman Catholic order set out on a scientific expedition and mission, traveling as far as the Andean region of South America. It was there that they found the cinchona plant. “
Poor Rats! How One Radical Woman Protested Paris’s War on Rats | Ladyscience.com
“In the autumn of 1920, as Parisians caught plague and went to war with rats and when public discussions turned to criminalizing, stigmatizing, and dehumanizing vulnerable groups in the city, Fanny Clar’s writings rang out in protest. While Paris writers were filling their pages with vitriol for rats, immigrants, people of color, criminals, and the poor, Clar punctured the hate by frankly rooting for the rats. “