Product Description
From Victorian anxieties about syphilis to the current hysteria over herpes and AIDS, the history of venereal disease in America forces us to examine social attitudes as well as purely medical concerns. In No Magic Bullet, Allan M. Brandt recounts the various medical, military, and public health responses that have arisen over the years--a broad spectrum that ranges from the incarceration of prostitutes during World War I to the establishment of required premarital blood tests.
Brandt demonstrates that Americans' concerns about venereal disease have centered around a set of social and cultural values related to sexuality, gender, ethnicity, and class. At the heart of our efforts to combat these infections, he argues, has been the tendency to view venereal disease as both a punishment for sexual misconduct and an index of social decay. This tension between medical and moral approaches has significantly impeded efforts to develop "magic bullets"--drugs that would rid us of the disease--as well as effective policies for controlling the infections' spread.
In the paper edition of No Magic Bullet, Brandt adds to his perceptive commentary on the relationship between medical science and cultural values a new chapter on AIDS. Analyzing this latest outbreak in the context of our previous attitudes toward sexually transmitted diseases, he hopes to provide the insights needed to guide us to the policies that will best combat the disease.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 1 review)

Outdated, but good

I read this good book, here in Brazil.This book isn't longing or boring, but it is a little outdated, because it was published, more than 20 years ago.
As I wrote on the title of this review, this book is outdated and good, because americans and in fact, almost all the mankind, didn't do nothing really new, about venereal diseases.To example, writing about USA in first deacde of twenty century, on page 23:"The press reamined reticent on the subject of sexual diseases, refusing to print accounts of their effects".
On page 176, writing about american press and venereal disease in 1960 decade:"In 1964 NBC cancelled plans to air a two-part drama on two popular television series , "Mr. Novak " and "Dr. Kildare" in which a high school student contracted veneral disease."

I think that I'll be the only reviewer of this book, than I must show the table of contents of this book:
Introduction:Sex Disease and Medicine > Page 3.
I-"Damaged Goods":Progressive Medicine and Social Hygiene > Page 7.
II-"Fit to Fight":The commission on Training Camp Activities > Page 52.
III-"The Claenest Army in the World":Venereal Disease and the AEF>Page 96.
IV-"Shadow in the Land">Thomas Parran and the New Deal> Page 122.
V-Dr. Erlich's Magic Bullet:Venereal Desease in the Age of antibiotics > Page 161.
VI-"Plagues and Peoples":The AIDS Epidemic > Page 183.
Appendix > Page 205.
Note on sources > Page 206.
Manuscript Sources > Page 207.
Abbreviations > Page 209.
Notes > Page 210.
Index > Page 259.
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Failures of this book really exists.Some of them:
1-Has nothing about circumcision; it was also used "to prevent" veneral diseases in USA.
2-Being published in 1987, it is very outdated about AIDS.
3-Has nothing about anti-masturbation hysteria and its relation with doctors, clergy,etc.
July 18, 2008

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