Tales of TB: White Plague of the North

(Paperback)

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Though all but forgotten in affluent regions, tuberculosis is an ancient pandemic that still kills 1.5 million people every year. Rampant in England during the 1800s, it was accepted that 1% of the population would succumb each year to the wasting disease-consumption. A grim reaper that would one day be known as tuberculosis, or more dramatically, "The White Plague."
Although it was most often a disease of poverty, no one was safe from the White Plague. Seven well-known people of a not-so-distant past left detailed accounts of their tuberculous lives across letters, essays, poems, and biographies. Their surnames are Barrett-Moulton, Keats, Bronte, Poe, Browning, Trudeau, and Stevenson.
The stories of these talented writers and poets, along with documentation from their doctors, are explored here, portraying the variations of the disease and the personalities of its victims.
Beginning with the subject in the well-loved painting "Pinkie" by Thomas Lawrence in 1794 on to Robert Louis Stevenson of Treasure Island fame), the book moves into the sanatorium era of the late 1800s and first half of the 20th century. In 1950, medical science came up with several semi-miraculous medications that amazingly cured the worst types of tuberculosis.
However, the White Plague has soldiered on, and there have been unexpected happenings that play a role in maintaining mortality: the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), drug resistant tuberculosis, and the Covid-19 pandemic, which has severely damaged tuberculosis control and reduced access to medication in the less privileged regions of the world.
Will tuberculosis always be with us as a "forever" pandemic

Reviews

A meticulously researched, unique approach to a devastating disease through recounting its "consumption" of the lives of familiar famous persons. The social mores of the time period related through a compelling history of the treatments for tuberculosis, and personal anecdotes of each of the characters. Insightful, informative, riveting. I could not put it down.

Anne Raina, author, Clara's Rib: A True Story of a Young Girl Growing up in a Tuberculosis Hospital

Dr. Winn has meticulously researched the stories of six extraordinary people whose lives were cut short by tuberculosis. These stories stand as poignant reminders of the far-reaching impact this disease had and continues to have on people around the world. He provides new insights into the course of the disease, methods of treatment, and its impact on society. This book will serve as a valued library resource at our Saranac Laboratory Museum, here in the building that was founded by one of Dr. Winn's subjects, Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau.

Amy Catania, Executive Director of Historic Saranac Lake

This book is a gem. Written by a highly competent physician whose knowledge of relevant history is extensive, it can either be read for pleasure or as the nexus of proposed interdisciplinary courses for individuals who are considering a career in the health professions. With in-depth discussions of tuberculous poets and authors, such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Louis Stevenson, Winn makes nineteenth century literature come alive by presenting well-documented accounts of untreatable and usually fatal tuberculosis in years gone by using this knowledge to elucidate the most vulnerable nations and cultures of today.

John H. Hughes, MD, FACS, Fulbright Senior Scholar serving on faculty of both the University of Arizona in Tucson and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland

Author Bio

Dr. William Winn is a retired pulmonologist who spent his childhood and high school years living on the grounds of a county tuberculosis sanatorium where his father was medical director.
He still remembers what it was like for those with tuberculosis before there were streptomycin and the other miracle drugs of the late 1940s and early '50s, as well as the young man he met when he was five who passed away from the White Plague in 1943. Tuberculosis never went away. It still flourishes in the poverty-stricken regions of this world.
Dr. Winn has continued his pulmonology education over the last seven years, learning more about tuberculosis while writing his book, "Tales of TB" that explains why this "forever" will always be with us.