Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and The Forgotten History

Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and The Forgotten History
by Dr. Suzanne Humphries and Roman Bystrianyk

Why do we believe something? Is it because everyone else believes it? Is it because our family and community believe it? Is it because we were told to believe it by someone in a position of power and respect? Were we taught to believe it in school? Do we believe it because the idea has existed for a long time?
What if what we believed was nothing more than an illusion?

It wasn't long ago when infections plagued the Western world. Smallpox, scarlet fever, measles, typhoid, diphtheria, whooping cough, and other diseases were once considered a tragic part of life. Starting in the mid-1800s, there was a steady drop in the deaths from all these infectious diseases, decreasing by the mid-1900s to very low levels. The elimination of these diseases is one of the most amazing, yet unsung, public health revolutions in history.

That journey from disease cesspool to our modern world is a tale of plagues and famine, crushing poverty and filth, lost cures, individual freedoms versus state might, protests and arrests, and much more. Dissolving Illusions paints a historic portrait with quotes from the pages of long overlooked medical journals, books, newspapers, and other sources to reveal a startling history that has been disregarded. With this historic information and originally researched data in the form of myth-shattering graphs, Dissolving Illusions shines new light onto issues that are assumed to be clear-cut and settled long ago.

About the Authors

Dr. Suzanne Humphries is a medical doctor, Internist and Board Certified Nephrologist. She is currently in private practice and continues to dispel the mythology surrounding vaccination. She can be reached or consulted through the contact tab on drsuzanne.net

Roman Bystrianyk has been researching the history of diseases and vaccines since 1998. He has an extensive background in health and nutrition as well as a B.S. in engineering and M.S. in computer science.

Chapters

1 The Not So Good Ol' Days
2 Suffer the Little Children 
3 Disease—A Way of Life 
4 Smallpox and the First Vaccine 
5 Contaminated Vaccines 
6 The Great Demonstration 
7 The Rebel Experiment 
8 The Power of the State 
9 The Case of Arthur Smith Jr. 
10 The Health Revolution 
11 The Amazing Decline 
12 The "Disappearance" of Polio 
13 Whooping Cough 
14 Measles 
15 Starvation, Scurvy, and Vitamin C 
16 Lost Remedies 
17 Belief and Fear

Appendices

Britannica 1890 
Vaccination In Italy 
Jenner III 
Jenner II 
Jenner I 
Britannica 1922 
Britannica 1903