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

Public health, not censorship

Library burned books in 1905

In 1905 the Grand Island, Nebraska, public library burnt books. A library burning books, you say? No, it wasn't censorship, or some response to a community outcry. The reason why Austen's Sense and Sensibilty and other works were burnt was because of concerns over scarlet fever and its transmission (you know, the same reason the toys of The Boy were taken away in The Velveteen Rabbit).

An interesting bit of history, that. I know in medical libraries we often face infection control in terms of library book carts that go from unit to unit, especially to the immunosuppressed, such as cancer patients. It's a perennial request on the medical librarian list, MEDLIB-L.