Well, just phooey

I laid down for awhile, and then YKWIA called me and we talked for a good hour-and-a-half or so on the phone, and then I got up and put up the new shower curtain liner (what can I say, I use a clear liner with an open weave black cloth curtain you can see through. Years ago, when we lived in the same house and there was a connecting door, YKWIA hid in my shower and scared the beejesus out of me when I got home. At the time, I had a lovely opaque aqarium curtain. No more of that, for years now--I like to see through). I also put the recyclables into bags for transport, and in the process of getting the bits out of the bottom, I knocked into the shelving the container was near, ever so gently, but a ceramic pentacle a gaming buddy gave me years ago toppled to the floor and shattered. Unlike the past, where I'd hoard the pieces thinking I'd somehow make it whole, I chucked it in to the garbage, salvaging only the plate holder, which may still be useful. I am sorry to see it go--it was a nice gesture on her part, and it looked nice in its space. But I'm practicing keeping emotionally detached from things, so I don't hoard them, so there we go. See, it's not that I'm really a materialist. I just form emotional attachments to things that I shouldn't. Oh, that teddy bear will never find a home. Oh, I remember this when I was a little girl. That sort of thing. So we're not going to do that this time. I appreciate that Dee gave it to me, and it was nice for the years I had it. I'm sorry it broke. But its time is at an end, unfortunately. But I do wish I weren't a klutz.

I did take the old liner and the recylables out, so that leaves doing something fun for about an hour until it's time to go to bed. I have some DVDs I've been meaning to watch, but they're a couple of hours long. So I think I'm going to read. I have a book out from the library on the 1854 London cholera epidemic that was the turning point in public health, when the source of the cholera was found. It's called The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World, by Steven Johnson, or there's Hollow City by Ransom Riggs, the second novel of the series begun by Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, which I own, but it's currently being borrowed by a friend, so I downloaded it onto my Kindle from the library. I should go ahead and read it. I loved the first book, and there is apparently already a third one out, Library of Souls.

A couple of things of interest related to the history of public health

Lexington's 1833 cholera epidemic chronicled in new book

The stricken died quickly, sometimes within hours.

Others hung on a few days, but they were so dehydrated they no longer looked like themselves, but rather like skin stretched taut over bones and tendons. Their brains still worked, even as their bodies died all around them.

People passed one another in the street without greeting, fearful that their friends and neighbors would contaminate them. Orphaned children wandered the streets, seeking food and shelter from strangers. Those with means fled to the countryside.

Ebola in 2014?

No. Cholera in Lexington — in summer 1833.

Terry Foody, a public health nurse who has lectured about cholera for the Kentucky Humanities Council for the past decade, has written a book about the 1833 epidemic in Lexington: The Pie Seller, The Drunk, and The Lady: Heroes of the 1833 Cholera Epidemic in Lexington, Kentucky (Self-published; $18.33).

Terry Foody is signing her book at the Woodford County Public Library, 115 North Main Street, Versailles, KY, from 1-4 pm on Saturday, November 1st. She did a signing recently at the Morris Book Shop, which is an independent bookseller here in Lexington. I'll check with them tomorrow to see if I can get a copy.

Also, today is the 100th anniversary of polio-vaccine pioneer Jonas Salk's birth. Google honoured him with a Doodle, but there was also this, which I think is dead on--with the restrictions we have today (many to protect research subjects) and with the anti-vaccine nuts out there, such a large double-blind trial (of 2,000,000 school children) would not happen today.

Jonas Salk's Polio Vaccine Trials Would Be Hard To Repeat Today

I'm a medical librarian and with a history background

So it's probably no surprise that this interests me:

The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson from Book Videos on Vimeo.

For more, see The Ghost Map: Hard Lessons in Epidemiology from Victorian London by Maria Popova

and here's the book itself:
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson (which is cheaper than the Kindle edition).

I think people are forgetting about Haiti

Haiti still under rubble 18 months after quake

According to an interview with anthropologist, physician, and author Dr Paul Farmer, 600-700,000 people are still living in settlement camps, rubble still needs to be removed, rebuilding is a long way from happening, and cholera is taking an awful toll on the country.

Haitians continue to suffer

More than 2,000 dead of cholera in Haiti, officials say: 90,000 have been sickened as outbreak has spread to every region

Haiti: “If She Does Not Drink, She Will Die”

Looking to give money to for that charitable giving deduction, or just because you want to help?

Check out Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières. They are doing wonderful things in Haiti and elsewhere to keep people alive. It doesn't cost much to help.

They say misfortune comes in threes--pray for Haiti

Earthquake...cholera...tropical storm

Tropical storm Tomas taking torrential rains to Haiti

Apparently there is a saying in Haiti: 'We are bamboo. We bend, but we don’t break.' I see proof of that every day, but as one UN official put it (and I may be paraphrasing--I don't have the quote at hand), 'Can't this country get a break?'

My thoughts and prayers are with them. I think another donation to MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières)/Doctors Without Borders is in order.

Oh, no, as if they're not having a bad enough time of it

Cholera confirmed in flood-ravaged Pakistan: River Indus is now more than 15 miles wide in places

A case of the deadly, waterborne disease cholera has been confirmed in Pakistan's flood-ravaged northwest and aid workers expect it is not isolated, the U.N. said Saturday.

The chilling discovery underscores the latest threat to the millions whose lives have been disrupted by the crisis and came as new flood surges hit the south.

In a press conference Saturday, Pakistan's Prime Minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani said that so far 1,384 people were known to have died, with more than 1,000 of those in the country's northwest.

He added that more than 1,600 had been injured with some 20 million people affected. Aid workers have warned that diseases spread in the aftermath could raise the death toll.

Cholera is a real threat whenever you have contaminated water. Modern sanitation goes a long way to prevent it, but in a case where you have major flooding and people homeless and in the midst of a major natural disaster, sanitation goes out the window, it could spread quickly, killing more than the floods.

My prayers are with the people in Pakistan.