Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is seen as a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.
Known as consumption in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the term tuberculosis was introduced in 1834. TB became associated with industrialization which forced poorly nourished working class people to live in drafty and damp dwellings.
In 1900, the disease was the country’s most common killer, and between 1873 and 1945, Saranac Lake, NY, became a world-renowned center for the treatment of tuberculosis, by exposing patients to as much fresh air and bed-rest as possible.
In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. Green became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile.
In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, preventable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a million people every year.
In Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection (Crash Course Books, 2025) Green tells Reider’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world — and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.
John Green is the author of books including Looking for Alaska, The Fault in Our Stars, Turtles All the Way Down, and bestselling The Anthropocene Reviewed. With his brother, Hank he has co-created many online video projects, including Vlogbrothers and the educational channel Crash Course.
He serves on the board of trustees for the global health nonprofit Partners In Health and spoke at the United Nations High-Level Meeting on the Fight to End Tuberculosis.
Upcoming Author Event in Saranac Lake
Historic Saranac Lake and The Bookstore Plus will present a book release party with John Green on Tuesday, March 18, 2025 at the Saranac Laboratory Museum at 89 Church Street in Saranac Lake, NY from 5 until 8 pm.
Read more about TB in New York State.
Book Purchases made through this Amazon link support the New York Almanack’s mission to report new publications relevant to New York State.
See more new books HERE.
Source link
