Kathryn Lougheed

This review originally appeared on my blog at www.gimmethatbook.com.
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, the research and science are excellent and multilayered. You can easily discern the love the author has for tuberculosis and how to contain it. On the other hand, some of her attempts at humor and lightening the mood seemed out of place to me. A reader who is not familiar with pop culture may find some of her sentences confusing – such as:

“Basically, in some settings, the machines are just sitting there like big ugly espresso machines that no one really knows how to use. Even if someone does get the urge to brew some coffee, George Clooney has used the last cassette and not put in a new order”.

I would be totally immersed in the science aspect and she would throw something like that in there from time to time. It seemed as if she was attempting to lighten the serious subject up with these humorous asides, but it just didn’t work for me.

There are a lot of facts and statistics about TB, which are staggering when you stop to consider how many people have been, and are, suffering from this disease. Certainly TB doesn’t get the airtime of, let’s say, AIDS or cancer – but its presence is still felt daily in places like Africa or India. I hadn’t realized how prevalent it still is, or how stricken these countries are.

The writer goes deep into the origin of TB and the different ways scientists are trying to defeat it. It’s a canny bacteria, though, and has the ability to mutate or take advantage of other sicknesses in the body. After reading CATCHING BREATH, I know more about TB than I ever have; from the obvious to the minutiae, the author gives us everything she’s got. I definitely appreciate her effort but the writing style was at times too dry, too broadly humorous or too rambling. Maybe a bit of editing would do the trick? In any case, don’t avoid this book if you are a fan of diseases – just be prepared for a little strangeness. You will be educated, amazed, and humbled by this tenacious germ.… (meer)

Catching Breath by Kathryn Lougheed is the story of Tuberculosis, one of our oldest foes. While I am somewhat familiar with TB, it is not really a disease that is on our radars as something terribly dangerous at the present time. Dr. Lougheed begins by discussing the history of Tuberculosis and how it is entwined with the development of the human race. Trying to plumb the depths of history for DNA and other telltale signs of infection is really hard, but given the correct conditions, it is possible to find pristine samples. Take the settlement of Atlit Yam; since the conditions were right, it was possible to find burial sites that demonstrated the existence of Tuberculosis around 9000 years ago.

While we know for certain that it predates writing, finding the original disease vector has proven to be really difficult. It could be that TB has always infected humans and did not come from another source. We also know that it originated in Africa, and developed into seven lineages. The lineages are named after the main areas that the version of the disease is found in, though three of the seven are still found in Africa.

Tuberculosis was made out to be romantic in the nineteenth century, but it still was not well understood without the Germ Theory of Disease. We can still see that in some movies based on those times, like with Moulin Rouge and in literature with The Magic Mountain. Since TB is so old, it goes by many names; such as Consumption, Phthisis, Scrofula, the White Plague, and Potts Disease.

In any case, since the Tuberculosis bacterium developed alongside the human immune system it has found numerous ways to avoid or circumvent it entirely, and with the rise of HIV/AIDS, it has become a serious threat to a number of people again. While Tuberculosis does not need a weakened immunity to infect you, it certainly doesn’t hurt.

However, it seems that the Tuberculosis Bacterium wants to be recognized by the immune system and uses it to aid in its spread to other hosts. This makes it difficult to make a vaccine or other method to fight it off. Most vaccines work by priming the immune system to attention and familiarizing the immune system to a threat. It might be a weakened version of the microbe that causes it or something along those lines, but the result is the same; antibodies against that particular disease are made. With TB though, it doesn’t seem to work like the Influenza virus, which changes its coating to avoid detection.

The book is really fascinating, and it paints a picture of TB that is not black and white. There is a spectrum of disease symptoms from latent to active. Tuberculosis infection also goes hand-in-hand with poverty, malnutrition, and other social issues. A lot of poorer countries with less medical advancements and money cannot compete. In the same vein, TB research is expensive, you can’t purposely infect someone with Tuberculosis and run experiments.

With humor and grace, Dr. Lougheed brings the story of Tuberculosis from the distant past to the present. While the book focuses on something other than what I expected, it still works quite well.… (meer)

Catching Breath: The Making and Unmaking of Tuberculosis by Kathryn Lougheed is a book that I was able to get from NetGalley and thank you so much! I enjoyed this fascinating book greatly. The writing was full of great info and written with a fun witty style that kept the would-be boring info light, refreshing, and constantly a joy to read. It had lots of history on the dreaded disease of how it was transferred and by who and what. Animals could transfer the disease and the author discusses time periods and what, who, when, and the where. Mummies, animals, different body parts that might be effected not just lungs, and so much more is discussed in this book. There is a wealth of info here. Medical history always interest me for I am a nurse and a history nerd. With the way this author writes, I smiled plenty of times at her clever style and absorbed her tremendous knowledge she generously gave out. What a wonderful book! Thanks again NetGalley and publisher for letting me read this awesome book.… (meer)