Filth in America

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Hear the interesting story of the disease that despite being one of the more extensively studied and well-understood diseases in human history, has been a public health problem from antiquity until today. Learn the details of an illness that while being almost completely treatable for decades still plagues us today and has given rise to Sir William Osler's well-known saying: "The physician who knows syphilis knows medicine."  

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On this episode of Filth in America, we discuss the Measles, a disease that at one time infected nearly everyone in the U.S., but was eradicated in America by the year 2000. 25 years after it's eradication in America, measles is back and again causing significant problems.

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Polio was once one of the most frightening diseases in America, seeming appearing out of nowhere and sickening thousands. With the advent of a vaccine, it disappeared from America just as fast, although continued to affect the rest of the world for years to come. 

Hear the compelling story of how the fight against this disease completely changed the way Public Health activities were funded and implemented!

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In this episode hear the compelling story of how an observation by a young dentist led to the development of one of the 10 most important public health interventions in history.

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In this episode hear the story of how American public health know-how was the key to the building of the Panama Canal

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In this episode of Filth in America hear the story of how prostitution was legalized in Nashville during the Civil War as a public health measure!

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In this episode of the Filth in America podcast, hear the history of vaccination, especially to smallpox, from ancient times until the eradication of smallpox nearly 50 years ago. 

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In the inaugural episode of the Filth in America podcast we discuss the surprising birth of antiseptic treatment of wounds in Nashville, Tennessee during the American civil war. A decade before the germ theory of disease was widely known and years before Joseph Lister's experiments, there is the compelling story of Middleton Goldsmith, a U.S. Army physician who developed the first techniques for wound antisepsis that were both practical and successful.