Must We All Die?

My father, a retired PHS officer and medical director, has written several books about Alaskan medical history. I am presently reading one of his more recent ones called Must We All Die? Alaska's Enduring Struggle with Tuberculosis. The title comes from this anecdote:

"One of the villagers asked the (visiting) physician to come and see his nine year old son. The boy was lying in a tent on a few dirty blankets, within three feet of another son who had recently become very thin, was coughing constantly, and had occasionatlly spit up blood. The child was too weak to move and showed no interest in his surroundings. His father watched helplessly as the doctor examined the child. When he was told that his son had far advanced pulmonary tuberculosis and would die soon, the father pleaded: "Five of my children die this way -- I don't want my other kids to go. Must we all die of the TB?"

...This book is written for the public at large -- especially the people of Alaska -- but most of all for Alaska Natives, since the story interests their lives again and again in real andmoving ways. I have tried to document the story as fully as possible, with the hope that it can be a stanarting point for further studies in this neglected corner of Alaskas history -- the health of its people."

The book is carefully detailed and extensively footnoted. It is readable for the layman, but seems to fit in the category of archiving information and making it more readily available for people who have a particular interest in medicine, Alaskan history or Alaskan natives. Though he may make an occasional reference to a patient's suffering or to the patronizing tone of a 19th century white person's account, the book is about the history and treatment of tuberculosis in Alaska, not about my dad's opinions of those things.