Tuberculosis
I’ve been waiting for Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green to come out ever since I first heard about it. When it was finally ready for me at the library, I knew I didn’t have time to read it. I tried to cancel the hold until the fall. When I’m not supposed to be working on my History Camp Boston presentation. And when the hectic summer is over. I really did!
But when I couldn’t figure out how to cancel the hold without trying too hard, I had no choice other than to read it immediately.
I’m so glad I did. I learned some new stuff that directly ties into my presentation:
In a 1916 magazine article, Dr. Edwin F. Bowers declared “there is no way of computing the number of bacteria and noxious germs that may lurk in the Amazonian jungles of the well-whiskered face.”
According to Harper’s Weekly, this lead to a fear of beards which lead to “the revolt against the whisker.”
More importantly, I learned a ton about tuberculosis … all of which was far more fascinating and also needlessly tragic than one might expect. (Highly recommend picking up a copy if you haven’t read it yet.)
Here’s a quick roundup of some semi-related doodles from my sketchbooks.
“Our mother read the books. We believe it made her tubercular.”
A TB reference in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna made me even more eager to read this book.
I love when books overlap. I just started reading The Women of Chateau Lafayette by Stephanie Dray and guess what? There was a TB on one of the first few pages.
Edgar Allan Poe died of tuberculosis
And before that, when Poe was just two, his mother died of tuberculosis.
And sometime in between their two deaths, 17-year-old Edgar Allan Poe attended Thomas Jefferson’s funeral. The span between the deaths of Washington and Jefferson lasted 26 years. That’s still the longest we’ve ever gone between presidential deaths. Five and a half hours after Jefferson died, John Adams died… marking the shortest period of time between presidential deaths. None of that has anything to do with tuberculosis (at least I don’t think so, but they don’t really know how Jefferson died) but I couldn’t not mention it since it’s right there next to my doodle of Poe.
Sunshine and fresh air
Martin Van Buren’s wife Hannah died of tuberculosis before his presidency. There was only one window like this at his home, Lindenwald. It allowed his son, Martin Jr., to get more sunshine and fresh air in the hopes that would cure his tuberculosis. During a trip to Europe with his father to find relief, the younger passed away from TB in Paris.
Hush.
Franklin Pierce’s Vice President William Rufus King was the only American exec to take the oath outside of the US. He was in Cuba trying to recover from tuberculosis. It didn't work. King died less than a month into office, saying "Hush, let me pass quietly."
Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan and William Rufus King, by Thomas J. Balcerski
First Lady Caroline Harrison died of TB
… which freed Benjamin Harrison up to marry her secretary / niece and gross out their children.
Eleanor Roosevelt didn’t let anything stand in her way
Despite attracting attention from the KKK, southern Democrats, and receiving hate mail and death threats, she continued attending events knowing her safety wasn’t guaranteed. Even knowing of Klan raids in a town with a Klan-friendly sheriff.
She was furious when Freedom Riders, including John Lewis, were attacked. She made financial donations, wrote about the Freedom Fighters in her My Day column, encouraged JFK to protect the Riders, and (despite being sick with tuberculosis and aplastic anemia), agreed to chair a committee to look into the violence.
Eleanor Roosevelt died five months later.
Black Americans, Civil Rights, and the Roosevelts, 1932-1962, by Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum
Since we’re talking about Eleanor
…here’s a picture of her patio and pool at Val-Kill.
Guess what I learned about Adirondack Chairs?! They were invented for tuberculosis patients! The chairs allowed patients to rest outdoors without the need to have beds moved outside.
Pat Nixon bobsledded with TB patients
She worked in a tuberculosis hospital for six months. She’d sneak away to bobsled with younger patients, reflecting later that “it almost seemed that they might contract good health from me.” Her experience at the hospital was “haunting".
First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies, by Kate Andersen Brower
George Orwell died of TB
I don’t have a doodle of Orwell, but I have one of Al Haig ranting about Richard Nixon’s taping system, which “never occurred to [him] that anyone in his right mind would install anything so Orwellian as a system that never shuts off, that preserved every word, every joke, every curse, every tantrum, every flight of presidential paranoia, every bit of flattery and bad advice and tattling by his advisors.”
The Last of the President’s Men, by Bob Woodward
Cowboy hat
Ronald Reagan didn’t die of tuberculosis. I have this doodle of him in a cowboy hat, though, and the invention of the cowboy hat (by John Batterson Stetson!) can be traced back to tuberculosis.
Also, when I looked up “Ronald Reagan tuberculosis”, I discovered that a sailor aboard the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan tested positive for TB in 2006.
Watch this
While I highly recommend reading Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection, this explainer has visuals that make it worth the time. Even if you read the book.
PS I recently finished typing up all 14 of my presidential sketchbooks which, in theory, will help me find doodles I’m looking for. I left myself a note (“#4: thanks, America, for … measles typhoid smallpox tb syphilis, mumps and alcoholism”) in the draft for this post. This should mean a related doodle is in sketchbook #4, but I can’t find it and it’s maddening. Leaving this maddening note here in the hopes that one day I can crack the code and find the doodle.