Diphtheria Quotes

Up to 90% of the total decline in the death rate of children between 1860-1965 because of whooping cough, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and measles occurred before the introduction of immunisations and antibiotics. ~ Archie Kalokerinos

I can give no adequate description of the Horror Camp in which my men and myself were to spend the next month of our lives. It was just a barren wilderness, as bare as a chicken run. Corpses lay everywhere, some in huge piles, sometimes they lay singly or in pairs where they had fallen. It took a little time to get used to seeing men women and children collapse as you walked by them and to restrain oneself from going to their assistance. One had to get used early to the idea that the individual just did not count. One knew that five hundred a day were dying and that five hundred a day were going on dying for weeks before anything we could do would have the slightest effect. It was, however, not easy to watch a child choking to death from diphtheria when you knew a tracheotomy and nursing would save it, one saw women drowning in their own vomit because they were too weak to turn over, and men eating worms as they clutched a half loaf of bread purely because they had to eat worms to live and now could scarcely tell the difference. Piles of corpses, naked and obscene, with a woman too weak to stand propping herself against them as she cooked the food we had given her over an open fire; men and women crouching down just anywhere in the open relieving themselves of the dysentery which was scouring their bowels, a woman standing stark naked washing herself with some issue soap in water from a tank in which the remains of a child floated. It was shortly after the British Red Cross a ~ Imperial War Museum

Childhood vaccines are one of the great triumphs of modern medicine. Indeed, parents whose children are vaccinated no longer have to worry about their child's death or disability from whooping cough, polio, diphtheria, hepatitis, or a host of other infections. ~ Ezekiel Emanuel

Papa cut his business trip short when he heard how ill you were. He'll be home on the afternoon train. Won't he be happy to see you looking so well!"
Hannah came running up the stairs. "Dr. Fulton's on his way, Mama."
"He's in for a surprise, isn't he?" Mrs. Tyler smiled at me. "Dr. Fulton didn't think you'd live till morning, Andrew. The very idea--Hannah told him it would take more than diphtheria to kill you. ~ Mary Downing Hahn

They were still talking about polio, now by recalling its frightening precursors. His grandmother was remembering when whooping cough victims were required to wear armbands and how, before a vaccine was developed, the most dreaded disease in the city was diphtheria. She remembered getting one of the first smallpox vaccinations. The site of the injection had become seriously infected, and she had a large, uneven circle of scarred flesh on her upper right arm as a result. ~ Philip Roth

Each human life hypothetically saved by implementing these [radiation] regulations costs about $2.5 billion. Such costs are absurd and immoral, especially when compared to the costs of saving lives by immunization against measles, diphtheria and pertussis, which in developing countries range between $50 and $99 per one human life saved. ~ Zbigniew Jaworowski

Oh, good. I was worried you'd taken ill."
"Why?" Elizabeth asked as she took a sip of the chocolate. It was cold as ice!
"Because I couldn't wake-"
"What time is it?" Elizabeth cried.
"Nearly eleven."
"Eleven! But I told you to wake me at eight! How could you let me oversleep this way?" she said, her sleep-drugged mind already groping wildly for a solution. She could dress quickly and catch up with everyone. Or…
"I did try," Berta exclaimed, hurt by the uncharacteristic sharpness in Elizabeth's tone, "but you didn't want to wake up."
"I never want to awaken, Berta, you know that!"
"But you were worse this morning than normal. You said your head ached."
"I always say things like that. I don't know what I'm saying when I'm asleep. I'll say anything to bargain for a few minutes' more sleep. You've known that for years, and you always shake me awake anyway."
"But you said," Berta persisted, tugging unhappily a her apron, "that since it rained so much last night you were sure the trip to the village wouldn't take place, so you didn't have to arise at all."
"Berta, for heaven's sake!" Elizabeth cried, throwing off the covers and jumping out of bed with more energy than she'd ever shown after such a short period of wakefulness. "I've told you I'm dying of diphtheria to make you go away, and that didn't succeed!"
"Well," Berta shot back, marching over to the bell pull and ringing for a bath to be brought up, "when you told m ~ Judith McNaught

We were told in one lecture that it was possible to immunize against diphtheria and tetanus by the use of chemically treated toxins, or toxoids. And the following lecture, we were told that
for immunization against a virus disease, you have to experience the infection, and that you could not induce immunity with the so-called "killed" or inactivated, chemically treated virus preparation. Well, somehow, that struck me. What struck me was that both statements couldn't be true. And I asked why this was so, and the answer that was given was in a sense, 'Because.'
There was no satisfactory answer. ~ Jonas Salk

You'll never be the heavyweight champion of the world," he said, "but you should be able to duck anything Edward throws at you."
Theo wanted his turn, but John said it was too hot for more lessons. He looked up into the tree where Hannah sat swinging her feet, and smiled. "Maybe your sister will come down from her perch and offer us a nice cold glass of lemonade."
Hannah gave her hand to John and allowed him to help her. "Not that I need your assistance," she said. "I'm merely practicing my manners."
We watched John and Hannah walk away, still holding hands. "He's as bad as diphtheria," Theo muttered.
"What do you mean?"
"Diphtheria made you into a perfect gentleman," Theo said, "and John makes Hannah into a perfect lady. I'm sure I don't know which is worse--being sick or falling in love. ~ Mary Downing Hahn

Paganism is infectious, more infectious than diphtheria or piety. ~ E. M. Forster

The Mexicans gave the Spaniards malaria, and the Spaniards gave the Mexicans smallpox, whooping cough, diphtheria, and syphilis. The Spaniards believed it was better to give than to receive. ~ Will Cuppy

I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch – hay fever, I fancy it was. I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases, generally. I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into – some fearful, devastating scourge, I know – and, before I had glanced half down the list of "premonitory symptoms," it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it.

I sat for awhile, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever – read the symptoms – discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it – wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus's Dance – found, as I expected, that I had that too, – began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically – read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright's disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee.

...

Jerome K. Jerome

... of a child dying an agonizing death from diphtheria, of a young mother ravaged by cancer, of tens of thousands of Asians swallowed in an instant by the sea, of millions murdered in death camps and gulags and forced famines ... Our faith is in a God who has come to rescue His creation from the absurdity of sin and the emptiness of death, and so we are permitted to hate these things with a perfect hatred ... As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child, I do not see the face of God, but the face of his enemy. It is ... a faith that ... has set us free from optimism, and taught us hope instead. ~ David Bentley Hart

I have a healthy disrespect for religion. I really do. When Columbus came to this country in 1492 he brought syphilis, diphtheria, tuberculosis, influenza and Christianity. The diseases were curable. ~ David Feherty

If diphtheria is a disease caused by a microorganism, it is essential that three postulates be fulfilled. The fulfilment of these postulates is necessary in order to demonstrate strictly the parasitic nature of a disease:
1) The organism must be shown to be constantly present in characteristic form and arrangement in the diseased tissue.
2) The organism which, from its behaviour appears to be responsible for the disease, must be isolated and grown in pure culture.
3) The pure culture must be shown to induce the disease experimentally.
An early statement of Koch's postulates. ~ Friedrich Loeffler

We may be immune to typhoid, tetanus, chicken-pox, diphtheria, but never memory. There is no inoculation against that. ~ Sebastian Barry