Episode 178: Public Health Is a Utopian Vision

Detail of artwork from “The Plague Doctors” by Karen Lord

Public health is a vital part of keeping all of us safe — but what does it mean, and where did the concept come from? Special guest host Naseem Jamnia breaks it down for us, and tells us about some fantasy stories that show why public health is a collective concern. Plus we talk to scientist Natsaha O'Brown at Rutgers University about all the discoveries we've made lately about the blood-brain barrier.

Notes, citations, & etc.

Naseem Jamnia. Naseem is @jamsternazzy on Bsky, Instagram, etc.

The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia

Natasha O'Brown at Rutgers, plus the O'Brown Lab

Natasha O'Brown on Bluesky 

Someone on Tumblr described Dr. Chef from The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers as "A WEIRD OTTER-GECKO-CATERPILLAR HUG FRIEND" 

County: Life, Death, and Politics at Chicago's Public Hospital by David A. Ansell. 

“Jundi-Shapur, bimaristans, and the rise of academic medical centres,” by Dr. Andrew Miller at SUNY

Semelweiss linked handwashing to infant and maternal mortality rates in Austria in 1847

John Snow did a water study in 1854 during  an outbreak of cholera

“The Plague Doctors” by Karen Lord appears in the free anthology Take us to a Better Place

These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart by Izzy Wasserstein

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

There was a study out of Yale in 2022 and University of Texas Dallas in 2021 about bypassing the blood-brain barrier to deliver drugs

There's a ton of new research lately about how pathogens get past the BBB, especially covid.