Disease is largely a removable evil. It continues to afflict humanity, not only because of incomplete knowledge of its causes and lack of individual and public hygiene, but also because it is extensively fostered by harsh economic and industrial conditions and by wretched housing in congested communities ... The reduction of the death rate is the principal statistical expression and index of human social progress. It means the saving and lengthening of lives of thousands of citizens, the extension of the vigorous working period well into old age, and the prevention of inefficiency, misery, and suffering. These advances can be made by organized social effort. Public health is purchasable. Hermann M Biggs, 1911
Disease may be defined as: a change produced in living things in consequence of which they are no longer in harmony with their environment. William Thomas Councilman, In Disease and its Causes, 1913
There’s disease in all these places. We try to keep it down. Ken Loach, Cathy Come Home: The Wednesday Play, story Jeremy Sandford ***** hostel nurse, BBC 1966
The availability of the genome sequence is just the beginning. Scientists now want to understand the genes and the role they play in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease. Dr Randy Scott, President of Incyte
In 1972 a journalist uncovered a research project that had been going on for 40 years among black men in rural Alabama. Several hundred men had been involved in this government-sponsored study of untreated syphilis, but it continued up until the time that it was revealed to the public, which was plainly shocked to discover that scientific curiosity had apparently won out over medical care in the treatment of the victims of this disease in the study group. Professor Alexander Capron
Eradication of microbial disease is a will-o’-the-wisp; pursuing it leads into a morass of hazy biological concepts and half-truths. Rene Dubos, Man Adapting, 1965
Hi, Donna. It’s Michael. I have a disease for which there is no known cure. (Office & Disease) The Office US s7e4: Sex Ed, Michael, NBC 2010
It didn’t come up organically. (Office & Disease) ibid. Michael
Today is about herpes. ibid. Dwight to Michael in car
Within the next five to ten years it would probably be possible to make a new infective micro-organism which could differ in certain important aspects from any known disease-causing organisms. Most important of these is that it might be refractory to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon which we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious disease ... It is highly controversial and there are many who believe such research should not be undertaken. Congressional Record 1969, Department of Defense Appropriations for 1970
And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. Matthew 9:35
And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. Matthew 10:1
The Contagious Diseases Acts encouraged the arrest, detention and screening of women as young as thirteen on suspicion they might be infected with a sexually transmitted disease. Amanda Vickery, Suffragettes: Forever! The Story of Women and Power II, BBC 2015
Every physician almost hath his favourite disease. Henry Fielding, Tom Jones
In Europe alone 30 million people suffer from rare diseases; nearly half of these are undiagnosed. Medical Mysteries: The Woman Who Smells of Fish, Channel 5 2016
We meet a boy whose behaviour was terrifyingly transformed overnight. Plus a woman giving off an unpleasant odour. And an athlete whose love of exercise is endangering her life. ibid.
Cameron: a cocktail of drugs is masking the symptoms of a mysterious illness which has transformed him. ibid.
The smell isn’t typical stale sweat … ‘Fish that has been left out in the warm.’ ibid.
Swimming induced pulmonary edema is a potentially fatal condition. ibid.
Stem cells have the potential to be used to treat and better understand some of the world’s most deadly and disabling diseases. Mark Udall
Disease spread like wildfire, and dysentery, typhoid fever and malaria quickly ravaged both sides. Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Colour s1e3: Bloodbath, History 2015
We have I think a horrible epidemic. Under Our Skin: The Untold Story of Lyme Disease, Youtube 2008
Pain. Pain. Pain. Relentless pain. ibid. sufferer
There is evidence that Lyme disease has been around for a long time but here in the United States it was the early 1970s when a Connecticut mum looked around her neighbourhood and noticed that something was not quite right. ibid.
Lyme disease is caused by bacteria … The most common form of transmission is through the bite of several species of tick. ibid.
The actual [US] number may be over 200,000 making Lyme more prevalent than AIDS. ibid.
They said I needed to see a psychiatrist. ibid. sufferer, typical medical reaction
This is the height of the season for baseball, summer vacations and Lyme disease. The disease is now being reported in almost every state and it’s reached epidemic levels in some parts of the north-east. ibid. news 1989
The Lyme disease organism was discovered in 1981. ibid. Kris Newby, science writer