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Thank you, veterans. Photo by Ian MacDonald on Unsplash
Happy Veterans Day and a special thank you to all the veterans who have served to defend America and its freedoms.
For those curious about the origins of Veterans Day, and why it is on November 11, History has a nice summary of Veterans Day facts:
Veterans Day originated as “Armistice Day” on November 11, 1919, the first anniversary of the end of World War I. Congress passed a resolution in 1926 for an annual observance, and November 11 became a national holiday beginning in 1938. Unlike Memorial Day, Veterans Day pays tribute to all American veterans—living or dead—but especially gives thanks to living veterans who served their country honorably during war or peacetime.
Veterans Day occurs on November 11 every year in the United States in honor of the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918 that signaled the end of World War I, known as Armistice Day.
Again, grateful thanks to America’s veterans and their families.
Wash your hands, 007. I haven’t seen the latest entry in the James Bond film franchise because I have no time to watch. But a group of James Bond-minded epidemiologists with plenty of time on their hands1 watched all the previous James Bond films and provided an evaluation of 007’s risk of exposure to infectious agents2 and Bond does not score well in that department, whatever his success in other aspects:
Global travelers, whether tourists or secret agents, are exposed to a smörgåsbord of infectious agents. We hypothesized that agents pre-occupied with espionage and counterterrorism may, at their peril, fail to correctly prioritize travel medicine. To examine our hypothesis, we examined adherence to international travel advice during the 86 international journeys that James Bond was observed to undertake in feature films spanning 1962–2021.
… We uncovered above-average sexual activity, often without sufficient time for an exchange of sexual history, with a remarkably high mortality among Bond's sexual partners (27.1; 95% confidence interval 16.4–40.3). Given how inopportune a bout of diarrhea would be in the midst of world-saving action, it is striking that Bond is seen washing his hands on only two occasions, despite numerous exposures to foodborne pathogens. We hypothesize that his foolhardy courage, sometimes purposefully eliciting life-threatening situations, might even be a consequence of Toxoplasmosis. Bond's approach to vector-borne diseases and neglected tropical diseases is erratic, sometimes following travel advice to the letter, but more often dwelling on the side of complete ignorance.
Get the full report to M in the latest issue of Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease and learn from 007’s mistakes as you prepare for your next international mission.
No time to die: An in-depth analysis of James Bond's exposure to infectious agents
That time a national magazine bought a short story from Stephen Crane and then sat on it for 20 years before publishing it. Paul Auster on One of the Most Astonishing War Stories in American Literature
On the last day of October 1895, a letter was sent to Stephen Crane by the corresponding editor of The Youth’s Companion inviting him to submit work to the magazine: “In common with the rest of mankind we have been reading The Red Badge of Courage and other war stories by you… and feel a strong desire to have some of your tales.”
The magazine, which you’ve probably never heard of, was a national institution back in the day and published all the big names, like Mark Twain and Booker T. Washington. It also paid well. So Crane did what any writer would do when offered a check and a slot in a national magazine: He said yes, and a few months later delivered a new Civil War short story, called “An Episode of War”.
The shortest of Crane’s Civil War stories from 1895–96, “An Episode” is also the strongest, the boldest, and the most moving—a thoroughly modern work that takes on the issue of war trauma with pinpoint clarity and perceptiveness. The condition has been a part of human life ever since the first war was fought between battling clans thousands of years ago, and even though it has gone by several different names in America over the course of our history—soldier’s heart during the Civil War, shell shock during World War I, war neurosis during World War II, and post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) during the Vietnam War and on through subsequent wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere—its symptoms have never varied, and the affliction is the same one in all wars, repeated again and again in an eternal pattern of inner brokenness and wordless suffering.
I won’t summarize the rest of the article, which dissects the story and also relates how the editor of The Youth’s Companion got cold feet once he had the story in hand and shelved it. Crane still got paid, but the story went unpublished until well after his death. The story is haunting, and so in its way is the story behind the story.
Thank you for reading Thursday Things. Again, please click the hearts, comment, and use the share feature to send this issue to a friend who might enjoy it. See you next Thursday!
It has obviously been a slow couple of years in the epidemiology field and I guess they have to do something to keep busy.
Meaning viruses, bacteria and parasites, not the Xenia Onatopp top kind of agent. But maybe that kind too.