Historically, AIDS is just one of a series of dreaded diseases that have aroused both great fear and irrational actions. The previous diseases, including bubonic plague, syphilis, tuberculosis, leprosy and cancer, have evoked such a sense of dread that rational moves to halt the disease have become compromised.; This text examines the deep sense of fear that AIDS evokes, stigmatizing those who suffer from the disease, as well as their families and caregivers. Until AIDS can be seen for what it actually is - a life-threatening disease - policies providing for humane treatment will not evolve. The book also emphasizes that diseases are more than biological phenomena or individual catastrophes - they are profoundly social events. The ways in which diseases are spread and treated are strongly influenced by larger sociological considerations, and they may have the capacity to change social institutions or society Itself. Rooting Aids In The History Of Diseases, The First Part Of The book reviews the nature, history and responses of earlier dreaded diseases. The next section examines AIDS itself, proposed as the archetypal dreaded disease. Already creating a sense of panic, AIDS is also shown to be a social disease, likely to have significant effects on the social order. Thus, only by containing the epidemic of fear and controlling the resulting irrationality, can the AIDS epidemic be halted.
Alcabes persuasively argues that people's anxieties about epidemics are created not so much by the germ or microbe in question--or the actual risks of contagion--but by the unknown, the undesirable, and the misunderstood. b&w illustration insert.
The average individual is far more likely to die in a car accident than from a communicable disease…yet we are still much more fearful of the epidemic. Even at our most level-headed, the thought of an epidemic can inspire terror. As Philip Alcabes persuasively argues in Dread, our anxieties about epidemics are created not so much by the germ or microbe in question—or the actual risks of contagion—but by the unknown, the undesirable, and the misunderstood. Alcabes examines epidemics through history to show how they reflect the particular social and cultural anxieties of their times. From Typhoid Mary to bioterrorism, as new outbreaks are unleashed or imagined, new fears surface, new enemies are born, and new behaviors emerge. Dread dissects the fascinating story of the imagined epidemic: the one that we think is happening, or might happen; the one that disguises moral judgments and political agendas, the one that ultimately expresses our deepest fears.
This book has a multidisciplinary appeal, covering a range of therapies No existing text on this topic for arts therapies This book further expands the arts therapies, something Diane Waller has done in her previous books
Critical illness is a fact of life. Even those of us who enjoy decades of good health are touched by it eventually, either in our own lives or in those of our loved ones. And when this happens, we grapple with serious and often confusing choices about how best to live with our afflictions. A Life Worth Living is a book for people facing these difficult decisions. Robert Martensen, a physician, historian, and ethicist, draws on decades of experience with patients and friends to explore the life cycle of serious illness, from diagnosis to end of life. He connects personal stories with reflections upon mortality, human agency, and the value of “cutting-edge” technology in caring for the critically ill. Timely questions emerge: To what extent should efforts to extend human life be made? What is the value of nontraditional medical treatment? How has the American health-care system affected treatment of the critically ill? And finally, what are our doctors’ responsibilities to us as patients, and where do those responsibilities end? Using poignant case studies, Martensen demonstrates how we and our loved ones can maintain dignity and resilience in the face of life’s most daunting circumstances.