World TB Day - CDC
CAIRO – 24 March 2021: World Tuberculosis Day falls annually on March 24. It aims to build public awareness about the global tuberculosis epidemic and efforts to eradicate this disease.
During the following lines, ET reviews some world poets and writers who died due to tuberculosis.
Gibran Khalil Gibran was born on January 6, 1883 in the town of Bushra and grew up in poverty in northern Lebanon when it was affiliated with the Ottoman province of Mount Lebanon. He immigrated as a child with his mother to America in 1895, where he studied art and began his literary career.
He then returned to Beirut and stayed there for 10 years, before leaving for the United States again, and only returned as a corpse. Gibran's life in America was turned upside down after losing his family to tuberculosis. He lived a life without any restrictions, and knew many women, according to his close friend Mikhail Naima.
When Gibran contracted tuberculosis and liver cancer, he chose to live a life of solitude. His isolation was a source of inspiration for him and the birthplace of his ideas and imaginations. Gibran remained isolated, until he passed away in New York on April 10, 1931, at the age of 48, due to cirrhosis and tuberculosis.
His wish was to be buried in Lebanon, which was achieved in 1932, when he was buried in his old silo in Lebanon, later known as the Gibran Museum.
He recommended that these words are written on his tomb after his death, "I am as alive as you, and I am now standing by your side, so close your eyes and turn and see me in front of you."
The Czech writer Franz Kafka, was born on July 3, 1883. He is considered one of the best writers novels and short stories. His works are classified as miraculous realism. Most of his works include stories of eccentric heroes who find themselves in trouble in a surreal setting. This is attributed to the psychological issues he addresses in his works, such as social alienation, anxiety, panic, guilt and absurdity.
In 1924, Kafka became severely ill with tuberculosis, which made him return from Berlin to Prague, so that his family, especially his sister, would take care of him.
On April 10 of the same year, he entered a hospital for treatment, and the disease struck his throat, which made eating any food very painful. He chose to abstain from eating, until he passed away on June 3, 1924.
The famous Italian artist Modigliani fell ill in 1919, after he returned to Paris following several successful exhibitions in Britain, at a time when British collectors began buying his paintings.
At the end of that year, tuberculosis attacked Modigliani and became very severe until he passed at 35 after a lifetime of struggle with poverty and chronic ill health. He was known for his excessive drinking and drugs-use.
George Orwell was born as Eric Arthur Blair in Bengal, India, on June 25, 1903. His father was a minor employee in the Indian civil service, and his mother is of French origin. He returned with his parents to England; then at the age of eight, was sent to boarding school on the coast of Saxe in the southeast of England.
In 1938, Orwell contemplated going back to India to work for Pioneer, a newspaper in Lucknow. However, his health deteriorated, and he was subsequently admitted to Preston Hall, Kent. It is a clinic for those who were in military service. They initially diagnosed him as suffering from tuberculosis, and he remained in the clinic until September.
Orwell’s health continued to deteriorate, and on the morning of January 21, a burst artery leading to Orwell's lungs caused his death at the age of forty-six.
John Keats is one of the most prominent poets of the English Romantic movement during the nineteenth century. John Keats was born in Moorgate, London, and his parents are Thomas and France's Jennings Keats.
His parents could not afford Eton or Harrow schools, so he was sent in the summer of 1803 to John Clark School near his grandparents' home, and lived in a very poor family in London.
His works were published 4 years before his demise. His poetry was mainly the product of only six years. Keats passed away on February 23, 1821, as a result of his infection with tuberculosis.
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