The Relevance of Edith Wharton’s Roman Fever to the Modern World Essay

The Relevance of Edith Whartons Roman Fever to the Modern World tally to the World Health Organization, of the 75 million children under five in Africa a million and a half die each year of pneumonia. As distressing and sad as this statistic is, it points out the great danger pneumococcus subdued is to progeny people in the developing world. Its in the substantial world, but at a time before antibiotics, at a time when acute respiratory ailments posed an even greater but still preventable threat to the younger set that concerns us here and that inspires a deeper look at the full implications of respiratory disease. The WHO goes on to say that acute respiratory infection (ARI) is one of five conditions which account for more than 70% of child mortality in Africa. So not only is pneumonia prevalent, it is still deadly. The danger it poses to young people has life-influencing ramifications, ones with an incredible emotional content. Though more treatable now, as well see later, the p ersistence of pneumonia fits in with the puzzle as it presents itself, since it is linkable to a much more underlying human ailment.In Edith Whartons Roman Fever we also see ailments of a pulmonary and life-changing import. Indeed, the entire story seems shot-through with infection. Wharton writes of Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley, both widowed, both taking their daughters to capital of Italy on holiday as they had been. Their own intertwined histories Wharton describes at the storys onset as all of the movings, buyings, travels, anniversaries, illnesses (emphasis mine) (751). Wharton then begins the tale with illness. It is only as the record progresses that we get a sense of how important illness is to become Yes being the Slades widow wa... ...an be treated with antibiotics, it screwing be treated with abuse therapy or the simple addition of marriage. Other love preventatives such as war and country music are both quite feasible and can actually be really profitable for Western nations, though they seem a little cruel, especially the latter. Whartons Roman Fever at the very least points the way it is a warning that love and pneumonia are inextricably linked, an idea that wed do well to pay more attention to immediately when the ease of a high technology lifestyle fosters an arrogance that all the worlds problems have been solved. Works CitedWharton, Edith. Roman Fever. Edith Wharton Collected Stories 1911-1937. New York literary Classics 2001. 749-62.World Health Organization. Childhood Diseases in Africa Fact Sheet N 109. March 1996. 14.3.2003 http//www.who.int/inf-fs/en/fact109.html