The Making of a Social Disease: Tuberculosis in Nineteenth-Century France

In this first English—language study of popular and scientific responses to tuberculosis in nineteenth—century France, David Barnes provides a much—needed historical perspective on a disease that is making an alarming comeback in the United States and Europe. Barnes argues that French perceptions of the disease—ranging from the early romantic image of a consumptive woman to the later view of a scourge spread by the poor—owed more to the power structures of nineteenth—century society than to...