Anacleto Palabay, a young Filipino domestic worker in Washington, D.C., was intent on returning home to the Philippines. His soon-to-be […]
Deconstructing HIV and AIDS on Designing Women
Before protease inhibitors radically improved the lives of many people living with HIV in the mid-1990s, numerous sitcoms from Mr. […]
Losing ‘sorrow in stupefaction’: American Women’s Opiate Dependency before 1900
In 1791 Elizabeth Blake tried to help her sister, New Yorker Catalina Hale, to end her years-long dependency on laudanum, […]
The World Celebrates the First Malaria Vaccine—But Don’t Expect Malaria to Disappear
On October 6, 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced it was recommending the first malaria vaccine, known as RTS,S, […]
Echo Chambers
Anthony Antonio has been charged with five crimes related to his participation in the January 6, 2021 insurrection, including violent […]
Assassination as Cure: Disease Metaphors and Foreign Policy
On January 3, 2020, I was at my mother’s house where CNN is her constant companion. A drone strike ordered […]
“Our Dogged and Deadly Archnemesis”: A Review of Timothy C. Winegard’s The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator
In 2015, mosquito-borne pathogens caused approximately 830,000 deaths worldwide. Malaria alone killed 435,000 people in 2017. Statistical extrapolations suggest that […]
Emigration as Epidemic: Perspectives on the Eighteenth-Century Scottish Highlands
In our digital age, the contagion metaphor is often part of the language we use regarding the exchange of information. […]
New Medical Tourism on St. Kitts
The late William Halford of Southern Illinois University’s School of Medicine spent his life developing what Hollywood director Agustín Fernández […]
Climate Calamity: Lice, Typhus, and Gender in Mexico
By tucking themselves away in the corners of beds and the folds of clothes, insects have long evolved alongside humans. […]
