The White Plague: A Social History of Tuberculosis - Professor Sir Richard J. Evans

Of all diseases tuberculosis is the most widely represented in literature, opera and drama. The disease has been present in humans since prehistory and hence has a particularly long pedigree of representation in myth and culture, being one of the sources of vampire stories on the one hand, and playing a key role in novels of slow deathbed decline on the other. Though many characters in the fictional representation of tuberculosis are well-off, most famously of course in Thomas Mann's 'The Magic Mountain', it was in fact a disease of the poor, and reached new levels in the industrial revolution. Correspondingly the slow decline of its incidence owed more to housing reform, slum clearance and increasing prosperity than to medical intervention. The discovery of the vector of the disease in the late nineteenth century led to effective prevention through the BCG vaccine from the 1920s, and after 1945 the arrival of antibiotics promised its complete eradication. Since the 1980s however resistant strains of the disease have been spreading, and it has once more become associated with poverty, poor state management and control of disease, and wretched housing conditions, above all in India.
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and...
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[@AnbruchASMR]

I have found Professor Sir Richard J. Evans Lectures immensely interesting! I believe I have found my new favorite KZbin Channel! So glad to have found this Channel with it's wonderful Lectures on so many great subjects!

[@teddy2596]

I would kill to take a class from him

[@syourke3]

Edgar Alan Poe’s short story “The Masque of the Red Death” is obviously about TB. Poe’s mother died of TB when he only two years old. His young wife did too.

[@imrahil2006]

I'm trying to watch this video for a good while. And for some unknown reason this video is not running on my PC. Can anyone explain to me: How fast could comsumption to kill people at sec XVIII?

[@kevinn4038]

For some reason I find him more credible due to his British accent. Lol.

[@junecooper]

Maybe you should considerate adding subtitles, either in English or Spanish. There's an ocean of people craving for knowledge, but it's just a bit too far for them...

[@JohannSc]

June Cooper Although there are not subtitles in the video. There is a link in the description that Gresham College provides in all of their videos that provides a transcript, which may help. www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-white-plague Unfortunately for the people who do not speak English, the Transcript is provided in that language.

[@educatedmanholecoverbyrich8890]

They don't deserve subtitles because they are foreigners. They should learn English, as I had so to do.

[@imrahil2006]

Consumption, I mean. I'm sorry for my poor english.

[@wallyheiderheider7542]

Nowadays they ship people to a dryer climate As they turn 60, And give them oxygen concentrators and a hose to their nose, which costs 2500 dollars. This slows the destruction of Tuberculosis to the lungs. And helps them live longer with less coughing & chest pain, hopefully.

[@stevenmcgillivray9283]

Not true, they have antibiotics,that'll cure it.

[@ivandate9972]

26:17 lobster cure inaccurate lobster just get expensive and be a rich person food in mid 19 cent before that lobster was food for the poor

[@gnypp45]

+ivan date I think it is more a question of availability in regions away from the sea coasts.