The White Plague - by Jean Dubos (Paperback)

About the Book

DuBos et. al. examine the social aspects of the TB epidemic, along with some of the biological factors. They show how TB was romanticized, how it was portrayed as a demon coming to rob the healthy of life, and how it sparked scientific invention--in particular the stethoscope. The introduction is wonderful as it lays out the basic parts of the book.

Book Synopsis

In The White Plague, René and Jean Dubos argue that the great increase of tuberculosis was intimately connected with the rise of an industrial, urbanized society and--a much more controversial idea when this book first appeared forty years ago--that the progress of medical science had very little to do with the marked decline in tuberculosis in the twentieth century.

The White Plague has long been regarded as a classic in the social and environmental history of disease. This reprint of the 1952 edition features new introductory writings by two distinguished practitioners of the sociology and history of medicine. David Mechanic's foreword describes the personal and intellectual experience that shaped René Dubos's view of tuberculosis. Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz's historical introduction reexamines The White Plague in light of recent work on the social history of tuberculosis. Her thought-provoking essay pays particular attention to the broader cultural and medical assumptions about sickness and sick people that inform a society's approach to the conquest of disease.

About the Author

RENE DUBOS (1901-1981) was a distinguished microbiologist and commentator on the ecology of disease. Dubos's other books include a standard biography of Louis Pasteur and several influential books on the environmental aspects of public health. His book Mirage of Health has been reprinted by Rutgers University Press. His wife, Jean Dubos-who had suffered from tuberculosis herself-collaborated on The White Plague.