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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. When was Bernard de Gordon's Pratiqum published?

2. At the time the book was written, when was TB thought to be incurable?

3. In Chapter 1, how does Sontag describe doctors' efforts to cure TB for a long time?

4. When did English physician Richard Morton set forth a definition for tuberculosis in his Phthisiologia?

5. How did the Goncourts describe the smell when they visited Murger, who was dying of TB?

Short Essay Questions

1. At the time the book was written, what did many people believe about cancer?

2. How did a character in The Magic Mountain explain symptoms of disease?

3. What example does Sontag provide of sex being prescribed to tuberculars as therapy?

4. How were metaphors of TB broken up in the twentieth century?

5. Who invented the cult of TB?

6. What did Karl Menninger observed about the word cancer?

7. How was TB seen as a disease of passion?

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

9. Why did Insarov, the hero in Turgenev's On the Eve, get TB and die?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Culture and psychology were used to explain illness. How were culture and psychology used to explain illness? What did psychologizing disease seem to provide? What did it seem to undermine?

Essay Topic 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

Some metaphors for TB and cancer were taken from economics. What metaphors for TB and cancer were taken from economics? Is economics a more apt metaphor for TB or for cancer?

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