diseases

Investigates the breakthroughs in surgery, vaccines, drugs and medical technology; medicine's new ethical questions; and assumptions about life and death. Topics include fighting disease, penicillin, insulin, surgery and organ transplants.

Rosie goes to the vet in this Readers' Theatre title that includes a story, the same story rewritten as a play, and a short nonfiction piece at the end.

Daisy "Willie" Wilcox and her family struggle to survive after the Civil War when a horrifying sickness in which infected people--shakes-- attack the living in West Texas, but when her good-for-nothing father steals a fortune from one of the shake hunters in town, Willie, with two hunters as guides, sets out across the desert to find her father.

Examines the history, science, and impact of the influenza pandemic of 1918.

Invisible microbes cause sickness by invading our bodies and multiplying. But doctors didn't always know that sickness was caused by germs. Most people thought diseases came from smelly, damp air. But over time, those ideas changed. A Dutch scientist saw bacteria through his microscope. Doctors realized that when they washed their hands, fewer people died. And a doctor in London recognized that disease could spread through contaminated water. Because of these discoveries, people eventually learned that hygiene was the key to stopping disease. Hospitals used clean surgical instruments, and cities developed trash removal and sewage systems. Learn more about the discovery and defeat of bacteria!.

Exposes 12 of the most enduring myths about medicine.

"Clover and Danny are the kind of best friends who make each other even better. They're so important to each other that Clover believes they're symbiotic: her favorite science word, which describes two beings who can't function without the other. But when Danny comes down with a mysterious illness that won't go away, the doctors can't figure out what's wrong with him. So Clover decides to take matters into her own hands by making lists--lists of Danny's symptoms, his good days, his bad days. As the evidence piles up, only one thing becomes clear: Danny is only better when Clover is around. Suddenly it feels like time is running out for Clover and Danny to do everything they've planned together--to finally see snow, to go on a trip with the suitcase they picked out together. Will science be able to save Danny, or is this the one time when magic can overcome the unthinkable?"--Amazon.com.

Discusses a number of issues related to understanding and preventing pandemics.

Describes the disease of polio and its treatment, the scientific endeavour that led to the discovery of the poliovirus, and the studies in virology and immunology that culminated in the production of a polio vaccine. It also highlights the experiences of patients and the voices of survivors, revealing how ethnicity, class, age, and gender all mediated individual's reactions to the disease, which included fear, rejection, denial and anger. There is still no cure for polio. The treatment remains the same as it was forty plus years ago. The only way to prevent future epidemics is by vaccinating the population. If the poliovirus cannot find an unvaccinated individual to infect, it will die out. As long as there is a single case of polio, all unvaccinated children throughout the world are at risk.

Follows the dual story lines of Small Sam on his search for Ella and of Shadowman's discoveries about Saint George and the disease itself.