Nancy Tomes

Rereading Priscilla Wald’s "Contagious" and Nancy Tomes’ "Gospel of Germs" amidst a 21st-century pandemic.

New understandings of how disease spread informed Imogene Rechtin's ill-fated 1910 campaign to ban a universal human practice.

Disease reshapes our lives in surprising ways.

Until the mid-1800s, doctors didn’t bother washing their hands. Then a Hungarian medic made an essential, much-resisted breakthrough.

Horace Greeley ran against incumbent Ulysses S. Grant in November 1872. Twenty-four days later, he died of unknown causes at a private mental health facility.

Lessons from a century ago.

Women are slightly better at hand-washing than men. Here’s one theory for why.