TB or not TB

Tuesday 24th March is World TB Day which is a continuation of a two-year campaign to stop TB. The day raises awareness of people who are affected by tuberculosis (TB) throughout the world.
Here in Official Publications, we have many leaflets about TB from the UK's Department of Health as well as information from the World Health Organization.
Some may think TB is an illness of the past - TB is well known for killing writers Katherine Mansfield, Anne and Emily Bronte, Anton Chekhov and John Keats - and that it has no place in today's society. But TB has been on the increase since the 1990's in European cities and whilst antibiotics have been an efficacious treatment for the tuberculosis bacilli, the emergence of Multi-drug resistant TB (MDR TB) and Extensively drug resistant TB (XDR TB) is a serious concern.
(Picture credit: TBalert.org)

500 years behind bars

Prison: five hundred years of life behind bars by Edward Marston, has just been added to the OPU collection. It is published by the National Archives and contains information extracted from the documents and photographs held there.
It is a comprehensive history of prisons, from the Tower of London through to Victorian developments and the abolition of hanging. Illustrative plates show records and photographs of prisoners, prison plans and even prolific hangman Albert Pierrepoint's request for execution equipment.
In his conclusion, Marston writes, "Prison involved loss - loss of family, loss of friends, loss of reputation, loss of earning power and loss of control. Most of all, it meant loss of liberty, and this has remained the basic ingredient of imprisonment until the present day."
This book tells how this was implemented throughout history and what impact it had on those who were behind bars.