Ha!

Gotta love the headline "Stephen Hawking Both British and Not Dead." In fact, I'm considering making pins with a similar phrase--want one?

Update: I made the pins.

Mme Gardriol en chaise, Luchon, 9 juillet 1899

Mme Gardriol en chaise, Luchon, 9 juillet 1899
Originally uploaded by Bibliothèque de Toulouse

Another fin-de-siecle matron in a wheeled chair turned up in the Flickr Commons today, this time in the uploads from the Bibliotheque de Toulouse. Above, a black-and-white photograph shows a man standing behind a woman using a three-wheeled chair, in an outdoor setting we're told is Luchon, on 9 July 1899.

Luchon was a spa town in the French Pyrenees--still is. Who was Madame Gardriol? It's probably safe to assume she was a summer visitor to the springs. Was she someone who used a wheelchair ordinarily, or was this day in 1899 (perhaps like Mrs. Field's photo, in an earlier DS,TU post) a special occasion of touring, for which she chose wheels? Mme Gardriol's chair looks a bit sturdier than the wicker at the Bronx Zoo--hard to tell from this angle, though. The man is holding a parasol--is it for himself, or an additional accommodation for Mme. Gardriol's health and comfort? Anyone have more insight into the Luchon wheelchair accommodations in 1899?

Where There's Smoke

Although the name of the blog is Disability Studies, Temple U., and Temple U. is in Philadelphia, you can learn from the sidebar that I'm not--I'm in Southern California. Redondo Beach is nowhere near any of the wildfires in the news, and we're not in any danger of evacuation or road closings here. But...

We're seeing ashfall. It's not Pompeii after the eruption of Vesuvius, but cars parked outside get a fine dusting. And if you look closely, there are ash particles floating around in the air everywhere. That means there must also be smaller-than-visible particles in every breath. Our Air Quality Index on the coast today is at U--U for "unhealthy." (There are actually two worse designations: V, for "very unhealthy," and H, for "hazardous.") Schools are advised to cancel outdoor physical activities. People are rubbing their eyes on every corner. Throats burn, and we're all coughing a lot. I'm keeping my little-used inhaler handy.

For most folks, it's a minor, temporary problem, and they're grateful that's all we're getting here. But for people with existing heart, lung, or other health conditions; for people whose jobs have them working outdoors all day; and for older people and little kids, this can be a serious, even life-threatening matter. So when you see the satellite images of the smoke plumes, or hear about how many square miles are burned, remember that a much wider area is affected by these events in less dramatic ways (no good television footage to gain from asthmatic gasping, or kids sitting indoors instead of having recess). And disabled people are often feeling it more than most.

May 24: Helen Brooke Taussig (1898-1986)

On this date in 1898, pediatric cardiologist Helen Brooke Taussig was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

This website has some interesting photos of her work with "blue babies"--children born with a heart condition known as tetralogy of Fallot, which affects oxygenation. The second photo shows a small child in a very large wicker wheelchair (how on earth is she staying in that chair? no wonder she looks so annoyed, eh?). There's also a graphic from a 1947 charity appeal, "Saving our Doomed 'Blue' Babies." Helen Taussig's research was also crucial in the decision to keep thalidomide from being approved for use in the US.

But she had personal experience with disability too. She was a frail child who survived tuberculosis, and struggled with dyslexia long before it was an identified learning disability. By the time she completed requirements for her M.D. in 1927, she had lost her hearing, too--legacy of a childhood bout with whooping cough. Deafness was an unusual challenge for a cardiologist, in an era when the stethescope was the main tool of the trade--so she became an expert at alternative means of monitoring heart structure and function.

February 27: Alice Hamilton (1869-1970)

Living in a working-class quarter, coming in contact with laborers and their wives, I could not fail to hear tales of the dangers that workingmen faced, of cases of carbon-monoxide gassing in the great steel mills, of painters disabled by lead palsy, of pneumonia and rheumatism among the men in the stockyards. Illinois then had no legislation providing compensation for accident or disease caused by occupation. (There is something strange in speaking of 'accident and sickness compensation.' What could 'compensate' anyone for an amputated leg or a paralyzed arm, or even an attack of lead colic, to say nothing of the loss of a husband or son?)

Ever met someone with phossy jaw? How about painter's colic? Probably not, if you live in the West; the early 20th century saw a successful movement in the US and Europe to improve workplace safety and hold employers accountable for hazardous conditions in the manufacturing process. One of the scientists at the forefront of research on industrial medicine in the US was Alice Hamilton, born on this date in 1869 (image at right is her portrait on a 55-cent US postage stamp), in Indiana. She was a longtime resident of Jane Addams' Hull House, the first woman on the faculty at Harvard Medical School, an active member of the Woman's Peace Party, and she lived long enough to denounce McCarthyism and US involvement in Vietnam. Read here from her memoir how she became interested in industrial medicine, and the resistance she faced in trying to study workplace hazards (the quote above is an excerpt).

WHO's Premier Photo and Video Contest

"Images of Health and Disability 2006-2007"

The World Health Organization (WHO) invites photographers and video producers world-wide to participate in a global photo and video contest -- "Images of Health and Disability 2006-2007". This year's theme focuses on "Health and Environment" an invitation to provide high-quality photographs and video clips, capture emotions and give your creativity free reign. The photos and video contest will contribute to WHO's global efforts to raise the awareness of the importance of ensuring healthier environments.

Your photographs or short video clips should capture the positive or negative impact of the environment on people's health and functioning in their day-to-day life. Portray how a healthy and enabling environment can prevent or reduce diseases. Illustrate how environmental risks such as air pollution, poor sanitation, work-related stress, excessive ultraviolet radiation, chemicals, or built environments (such as streets, buildings etc) affect people's health, and hamper their functioning. Show how people and communities protect themselves from environmental risks, portray how people are living in healthy and enabling environments, or show how enhanced physical activity and public transport,and/or improved housing environment can make a difference in terms of preventing or reducing diseases.

Photos can be submitted until 09 March 2007 in four categories: (1) Colour photographs (digital or prints); (2) Black and white photographs (digital or prints); (3) Digital Art photographs (images created or drastically manipulated by computer software or electronic filters); and (4) short video clips.

In each category, prizes will be awarded from 100 to 1.000 US-Dollars.
1st Prize: USD $1000 + one set of ICF publications
2nd Prize: USD $750 US-Dollars + one set of ICF publications
3rd Prize: USD $500 US-Dollars + one set of ICF publications
Special mentions: USD $100 US-Dollars + one set of ICF publications

This contest is in its fourth year. It was launched in 2002 to coincide with the release of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) with the aim to promote the ICF understanding of health and disability.

For competition rules, and further information download their announcement; entry form.