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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Although TB was celebrated as a disease of passion, what was it also regarded as?

2. When did Camille Saint-Saens write that Chopin was tubercular when it was not fashionable to be healthy?

3. In Chapter 3, what type of people were thought to be affected by TB?

4. How does Sontag say people with cancer might be treated by relatives and friends?

5. At what sanatorium in Chapter 2, did patients carry their X-rays with them?

Short Essay Questions

1. How was TB romanticized by the mid-eighteenth century?

2. Which economic spheres are affected by tuberculosis and by cancer?

3. What does Sontag reveal about metaphor and tuberculosis (TB) and cancer?

4. How might the name of a disease seem to have a magic power?

5. When and why was it possible to separate the definitions of cancer from TB?

6. What is the origin of the word tuberculosis?

7. What did Marie Bashkirtsev write about having tuberculosis?

8. What is the history of the use of a synonym for TB?

9. How did the apperance of tuberculosis become a staple of nineteenth-century manners?

10. What stages does cancer have and how does it progress?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The myth of tuberculosis was dispelled in the mid-twentieth century. When were cures for tuberculosis discovered? How was the reality and description of tuberculosis transformed and changed when a cure was found?

Essay Topic 2

Metaphors used to describe cancer and tuberculosis changed over time. How did the metaphors used to describe cancer and tuberculosis change over time? What does etymology reveal about those changes?

Essay Topic 3

Disease metaphors have been used to describe society and politics. How have disease metaphors been used to describe society and politics? What problems are there with using disease metaphors to describe society and politics?

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