Kissing can be dangerous: The public health campaigns to prevent and control tuberculosis in Western Australia, 1900-1960

摘要

As the author of a book on antituberculosis efforts in Seattle, Washington, during the twentieth century, I enjoyed reading Criena Fitzgerald's book, Kissing can be dangerous, her history of tuberculosis control in Western Australia during the same time period. Throughout her book, Fitzgerald emphasises how health officials treated the disease as more than a medical phenomenon, consistently emphasising the need to improve "the social and economic circumstances of the tubercular".rnIt is striking how the basic outlines of tuberculosis control in Western Australia so resembled those in the USA, Europe and elsewhere. Well before international air travel and the Internet, officials in Western Australia were able to incorporate many of the innovations introduced by the world's leaders in tuberculosis control.