Showing results for "The Two Worlds" in Physical Illness & Disease

In 2001, Jade C. Angelica's mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and thus began a surprising and transformative journey for both mother and daughter. From the early stages of the disease until her mother died, Angelica was dedicated to her mother's care. In that time she learned about grief, relationship, the nature of selfhood, and the unexpected blessings of Alzheimer's disease. She also found a purpose and embarked on her life's work—to teach that people with Alzheimer's can have meaningful lives, relationships, joy, and growth.

On the night of December 2nd, 1943, the Luftwaffe bombed a critical Allied port in Bari, Italy, sinking 17 ships and killing over a thousand servicemen and hundreds of civilians. Caught in the surprise air raid was the John Harvey, an American Liberty ship carrying a top-secret cargo of 2,000 mustard bombs to be used in retaliation if the Germans resorted to gas warfare. After young sailors began suddenly dying with mysterious symptoms, Lieutenant Colonel Stewart Alexander, a doctor and chemical weapons expert, was dispatched to investigate. 

Few diseases are more gruesome than typhus. Transmitted by body lice, it afflicts the dispossessed - refugees, soldiers, and ghettoized peoples - causing hallucinations, terrible headaches, boiling fever, and often death. The disease plagued the German army on the Eastern Front and left the Reich desperate for a vaccine. For this they turned to the brilliant and eccentric Polish zoologist Rudolf Weigl.