Sunday, July 11, 2010

MEDICAL literature, like any other, reflects

MEDICAL literature, like any other, reflectsEmotional Factors and Tuberculosis A Critical Review of the Literature BEATRICE BISHOP BERLE, M.D. MEDICAL literature, like any other, reflects the current notions of the times in which it is written. Questions are asked and answered in the vocabulary of the period. In this way each age corrects the other, and the hope persists that gradually a more complete picture of truth will become manifest. The psychologic aspects of tuberculosis have been a topic of interest to both

laymen and physicians over the centuries. The Hindus, who recognized consumption as a disease entity as early as 1500 B.C., mention con- tagiousness as a factor but stress the importance of overexertion, sexual excesses, fasting, grief, advanced age, and chest wounds in the development of tuberculosis (26, 30, 52). The School of Hippoc- rates also considered that the disease could be influenced by "sentiment—conditions of weather, soil and water, etc." Benjamin Rush mentions "grief and all other debilitating passions of the mind" among many other causes. Writers of fiction describing people with tuberculosis have often shown themselves observant and perceptive. Charles Dickens describes tuberculosis as "a disease in which death and life are so strangely blended, that death takes the glow and hue of life, and life the gaunt and grisly form of death . . . which sometimes moves in giant strides and some- times at a tardy sluggish pace but slow or quick is eversure and certain." The pathetic figures of Mimi and La Dame aux Camelias still bring tears to the eyes of those who permit nineteenth century romanticism to cloud the vision of twentieth century statistics. Perhaps the most comprehensive literary study...

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