The campaign against TB: governments must commit themselves. TB in Africa

This article presents an interview with Pierre Chaulet on the campaign against tuberculosis (TB) in Africa. Chaulet noted during the 9th IUATLD Conference of the Africa Region that the national TB control programs have taken on a new commitment in Africa since the declaration of TB as a global emergency in the 1990s. The TB control program package consists of five principal components: 1) political will of the government and its commitment to support the program; 2) case detection; 3) initiation of short course chemotherapy among detected cases; 4) ensuring the regular supply of essential anti-TB drugs; and 5) establishing a registry and reporting system for program monitoring and evaluation. Of the 40 African countries participating in the conference, 30 have efficient programs. Comparing the management of National TB Control Programs in Francophone and Anglophone Africa, it is noted that both are complementary, although generally, public health issues are more easily integrated into the medical training in the Anglophone countries than they are in the Francophone. Anglophone uses a more comprehensive approach to public health while countries in the Francophone practiced a more traditional university centralization. Finally, Chaulet gives his comment on the role of WHO in addressing concerns over the financial issues involved in TB Control Programs, particularly in the mobilization of resources from nongovernmental organizations and international institutions.     

Determinants of the revival of dissection of the human body in the Middle Ages.

The author reviews the causes of the rebirth of human dissection in the Middle Ages after a hiatus of 1500 years, that is, after the practice was abandoned in the time following Herophilus of Alexandria in the third century BC. It is concluded that three main factors determined the rebirth: the removal of obstacles (i.e., the devaluation of the body), the stimulus to proceed (i.e., the resuming of the slow progress of medicine toward the scientific mode), and the different value attributed to cadavers of different people, that is, the correspondence between life deeds and the importance of the cadaver (which made the corpses of executed criminals available and pedagogical dissection possible).