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Eleven Blue Men and Other Narratives of Medical Detection
1953: by Berton Roueche- This unusual book presents twelve lively literate stories of authentic medical detection.
214 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1965
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1134 people want to read
About the author
Berton Roueché
68 books28 followersBerton Roueché was a medical writer who wrote for The New Yorker magazine for almost fifty years. He also wrote twenty books, including Eleven Blue Men (1954), The Incurable Wound (1958), Feral (1974), and The Medical Detectives (1980). An article he wrote for The New Yorker was made into the 1956 film Bigger Than Life, and many of the medical mysteries on the television show House were inspired by Roueché's writings.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
October 16, 2007
A colleague recommended this collection of articles about epidemiology in action that were originally published in the New Yorker in the late 40's. It's out of print, but I got a copy from the library.
I work with epidemiologists and other public health scientists though I am not one myself, and I found it really interesting to read about how epidemiology was done back then. But even if you know nothing about the field, you might be interested in the medical detective angle. Roueche writes about how public health officials found the connection between eleven NYC transients who all turned blue and became deathly ill, how they investigated a bird-borne illness, a smallpox outbreak, salmonella poisoning, and a poisonous fog that killed several people in a Pennsylvania mining town and sickened hundreds of others.
There's also a chapter about how antibiotic research was done back then, including a tour of Pfizer's research facility. There are also two chapters that deal with the social history of certain diseases, one on leprosy and one on gout, both of which have been known and written about for thousands of years.
This book was later published as The Medical Detectives and you can find further reviews of it on this site under that name. There's also a second volume called, of course, The Medical Detectives, Volume 2. I wish someone would write an annotated version that explains the ways in which medical science has advanced since these articles were written.
A side note: I was amused to read the casual references to smoking everywhere in all kinds of situations: in doctor's offices, research labs, hospital rooms. I knew it was like that before the Surgeon General's warning came out in the 60's, but this really brought home how little people knew or cared about the adverse effects of smoking. During the poison fog mentioned above, the first thing a couple of the doctors and nurses did after they stopped choking and gagging on the incredibly polluted air was to light up a cigar or cigarette!
I work with epidemiologists and other public health scientists though I am not one myself, and I found it really interesting to read about how epidemiology was done back then. But even if you know nothing about the field, you might be interested in the medical detective angle. Roueche writes about how public health officials found the connection between eleven NYC transients who all turned blue and became deathly ill, how they investigated a bird-borne illness, a smallpox outbreak, salmonella poisoning, and a poisonous fog that killed several people in a Pennsylvania mining town and sickened hundreds of others.
There's also a chapter about how antibiotic research was done back then, including a tour of Pfizer's research facility. There are also two chapters that deal with the social history of certain diseases, one on leprosy and one on gout, both of which have been known and written about for thousands of years.
This book was later published as The Medical Detectives and you can find further reviews of it on this site under that name. There's also a second volume called, of course, The Medical Detectives, Volume 2. I wish someone would write an annotated version that explains the ways in which medical science has advanced since these articles were written.
A side note: I was amused to read the casual references to smoking everywhere in all kinds of situations: in doctor's offices, research labs, hospital rooms. I knew it was like that before the Surgeon General's warning came out in the 60's, but this really brought home how little people knew or cared about the adverse effects of smoking. During the poison fog mentioned above, the first thing a couple of the doctors and nurses did after they stopped choking and gagging on the incredibly polluted air was to light up a cigar or cigarette!
October 9, 2008
I love this collection of essays. Roueche writes beautifully. And he has an apparently beautiful soul. And best of all, he writes beautifully, with soul, about epidemiology. A staff writer for the NYer for something like fifty years, the Annals of Medicine column was originally created for him, and many of his stories have since been used for the TV series House. He obviously loves slick medical detection and the often absurd circumstances that lead to figuring out that the cook filled the salt shakers with sodium nitrite! or the man was exhibiting signs of leprosy! There’s just the right balance of science and drama. But best of all I love how much humanity he uses in depicting the people in these stories. One essay about an exterminator in Queens with an artistically scientific mind who helps the NYC health dept. figure out that a particular kind of tick is behind a Kew Gardens outbreak of Rickettsial fever, well, it was so touching I almost cried.
October 17, 2017
I read this while in medical school. These are a series of 'short stories' about how strange medical conditions were figured out by medical 'detectives', mostly from a public health point of view. They are fascinating and written like exciting mysteries. Highly recommended.
10 of 10 stars
10 of 10 stars
Read
August 4, 2024Clever little book, seems unfair to rate it. I liked the sociocultural throwback it offered as someone in medicine
September 29, 2014
What a delightful book! Published in 1953, it's the original "House, MD," but on an epi level rather than an individual one. These guys (they were almost all men) were boots-on-the-ground types, tracking down diseases and their sources. They lacked many of the advances we take for granted, like easy access to phones (to say nothing of mobile technology), quick diagnostic techniques, and computer modeling capabilities. I love reading about old-school epi investigations.
December 1, 2010
This guy was Oliver Sacks before Oliver Sacks was Oliver Sacks. Reportage style is a little old-timey but in the pre-Sacks era this book was the only game in town! Would be interesting to re-read now. This is where I first learned about leprosy, trichinosis, and all kinds of creepy stuff.
November 16, 2024
September 25, 1944, New York City. An elderly man collapses on the sidewalk. When a police officer investigates, he discovers the man has turned blue. The blue man is rushed to the hospital where the doctors are baffled by his condition. Worse, he’s only the first of eleven blue men!
Berton Roueché (1910-1994) was a medical writer for the magazine The New Yorker. His “The Annals of Medicine” feature covered various interesting medical cases and topics, and this 1953 collection is primarily focused on investigations carried out by the New York City Bureau of Preventable Diseases in the 1940s. Some names have been changed to protect patient privacy.
The first story in the volume is “A Pig from Jersey”, about an outbreak of trichinosis. The cases are traced to a German-American Schlactfest, but if that’s the cause, why are only a handful of people who ate there affected?
The final story, “The Fog”, takes place in a Pennsylvania factory town as a heavy fog falls at Halloween time. A fog that kills. But since this is a medical story rather than a Stephen King novel, the culprit is “merely” that a temperature inversion trapped toxic smoke in the fog (what later got the nickname “smog”) for a couple of days, making anyone with breathing difficulties or other medical weaknesses just that much more vulnerable.
The title story eventually reveals that the blue men all ate at a particularly poorly run restaurant that got its salt supply mixed up with sodium nitrite, which tastes similar, but is poisonous to humans. The reason only these men collapsed and turned blue is that they all put extra “salt” in their oatmeal.
The odd chapters out are a history of gout in general, and a visit to a pharmaceutical company to learn how they discover new antibiotics. “Or we could have just rediscovered streptomycin again.”
The medical mystery chapters are “procedurals”, playing down the sensational aspects to concentrate on the doctors doing tests, interviewing witnesses, and pounding the pavement to figure out the source of outbreaks. As such, the book won a Raven award from the Mystery Writers of America. Sometimes the writing is a bit dry, but the subject matter is fascinating and clearly presented.
The stories are also a time capsule of life in the 1940s, when smallpox vaccinations weren’t mandatory, America hadn’t gotten serious about improving air quality, and decent drugs to combat leprosy were just coming on the market. The good old days indeed!
Mr. Roueché put out several more collections of his columns over his career, as well as some fictional thrillers. All the collections are fascinating, so if you can’t find this one you won’t go wrong with another.
Content note: unpleasant medical descriptions, outdated terms for ethnic groups, maybe a touch of period sexism.
My copy had an unusual bookmark, a ticket to a 1964 University of Minnesota Medical School event, which tells me a bit about the previous owner.
Highly recommended to fans of medical mystery stories.
Berton Roueché (1910-1994) was a medical writer for the magazine The New Yorker. His “The Annals of Medicine” feature covered various interesting medical cases and topics, and this 1953 collection is primarily focused on investigations carried out by the New York City Bureau of Preventable Diseases in the 1940s. Some names have been changed to protect patient privacy.
The first story in the volume is “A Pig from Jersey”, about an outbreak of trichinosis. The cases are traced to a German-American Schlactfest, but if that’s the cause, why are only a handful of people who ate there affected?
The final story, “The Fog”, takes place in a Pennsylvania factory town as a heavy fog falls at Halloween time. A fog that kills. But since this is a medical story rather than a Stephen King novel, the culprit is “merely” that a temperature inversion trapped toxic smoke in the fog (what later got the nickname “smog”) for a couple of days, making anyone with breathing difficulties or other medical weaknesses just that much more vulnerable.
The title story eventually reveals that the blue men all ate at a particularly poorly run restaurant that got its salt supply mixed up with sodium nitrite, which tastes similar, but is poisonous to humans. The reason only these men collapsed and turned blue is that they all put extra “salt” in their oatmeal.
The odd chapters out are a history of gout in general, and a visit to a pharmaceutical company to learn how they discover new antibiotics. “Or we could have just rediscovered streptomycin again.”
The medical mystery chapters are “procedurals”, playing down the sensational aspects to concentrate on the doctors doing tests, interviewing witnesses, and pounding the pavement to figure out the source of outbreaks. As such, the book won a Raven award from the Mystery Writers of America. Sometimes the writing is a bit dry, but the subject matter is fascinating and clearly presented.
The stories are also a time capsule of life in the 1940s, when smallpox vaccinations weren’t mandatory, America hadn’t gotten serious about improving air quality, and decent drugs to combat leprosy were just coming on the market. The good old days indeed!
Mr. Roueché put out several more collections of his columns over his career, as well as some fictional thrillers. All the collections are fascinating, so if you can’t find this one you won’t go wrong with another.
Content note: unpleasant medical descriptions, outdated terms for ethnic groups, maybe a touch of period sexism.
My copy had an unusual bookmark, a ticket to a 1964 University of Minnesota Medical School event, which tells me a bit about the previous owner.
Highly recommended to fans of medical mystery stories.
May 4, 2023
4.5
A largely forgotten book that, were it to be published today, would be an inevitable best seller.
Roueche blends mystery and medicine in a fascinating collection. It scratches the true crime itch without steeping your thoughts in gruesome tales of murder.
Each chapter is a stand alone true story of an outbreak, an epidemic, and/or a cure. Many are located in New York City and all take place around the 1940s.
I have no medical background and so found myself enjoying, not only the detective work, but also the explanations so expertly offered throughout each piece. That being said, I think my friends who work in medicine would enjoy this even more than I did.
For anyone who loves mystery, medicine, or lived through COVID (that’s all of us), this is a wonderful read. I wish it had been longer.
A largely forgotten book that, were it to be published today, would be an inevitable best seller.
Roueche blends mystery and medicine in a fascinating collection. It scratches the true crime itch without steeping your thoughts in gruesome tales of murder.
Each chapter is a stand alone true story of an outbreak, an epidemic, and/or a cure. Many are located in New York City and all take place around the 1940s.
I have no medical background and so found myself enjoying, not only the detective work, but also the explanations so expertly offered throughout each piece. That being said, I think my friends who work in medicine would enjoy this even more than I did.
For anyone who loves mystery, medicine, or lived through COVID (that’s all of us), this is a wonderful read. I wish it had been longer.
November 21, 2025
Pull quote/note
"There were, however, in the course of the next hundred years or so, a few spasms of dissent. Several highly placed lepraphobes, including Henry II of England, his great-grandson Edward I, and Philip V of France, took the position that the recommended ritual was unnecessarily symbolical. The revisions instituted by Henry and Philip were similar. Both chose to replace the religious service with a simple civil ceremony. It consisted of strapping the leper to a post and setting him afire. Edward adhered a trifle more closely to the letter of the ecumenical decree. Lepers, during his reign, were permitted the comforts of a Christian funeral. Then they were led down to the cemetery and buried alive." (131)
June 8, 2021
The stories in this collection include both medical mysteries and how they were solved, and some overviews of the history of some infamous diseases. The history ones have some interesting info and aren't written too dryly, but the medical mystery accounts are invariably better. They are creepy and strange, but the writing never feels pulpy. They are simply accounts of some odd notable medical cases and the process that was required to solve them. These are my favorites:
-A Pig from Jersey
-A Game of Wild Indians
-The Alerting of Mr. Pomerantz
-Eleven Blue Men
-A Pinch of Dust
-The Fog
-A Pig from Jersey
-A Game of Wild Indians
-The Alerting of Mr. Pomerantz
-Eleven Blue Men
-A Pinch of Dust
-The Fog
June 21, 2018
This is one of three books from Roueche, each chapter reads like a mystery about a certain ailment or infectious disease. The chapters are just short enough so that you'll quickly be gaining insight into various important epidemiological disasters of the ages from gout, botulinum toxin, trichinosis, typhoid fever to the 1948 Donora smog. If these are terms you only superficially understand, as was the case for me, prepare to feel more comfortable with them by the end of the book. Very fun and rewarding read.
February 8, 2022
Keeping in mind that the material is more than seventy years old, this is still fascinating. You can read of the public health concerns of the 1940s and earlier with a keen awareness that many of these concerns are still with us.
March 15, 2022
Head of Pfizer in the 1940s: "There's a lot of money in antibiotics." I guess some things never change. Though it's weird to consider this company was probably ethical at the time, unlike today.
"The Fog" was the best story in this book.
"The Fog" was the best story in this book.
October 5, 2019
The writing was a bit over the top, but the stories and history of science were fascinating. Crazy to think how much has changed scientifically since the early 40s but also how little.
December 31, 2021
Great Book! A fabulous way to explore epidemiology through these short stories that engage the mysteries of trichinosis to poisoning.
October 25, 2023
An irreplaceable, thrilling classic.
September 28, 2011
Very interesting. Written a good many years ago. Before email, fax, and apparently not many phones either. Very easy to read short medical mystery stories. The copy I had was tattered and yellowed but still great!
October 15, 2012
Marvelous narratives of medical mysteries. The weakest one is the essay on gout, withe the case of leprosy coming next. But the others are fascinating and full of humane spirit. Ever need to review why a tetanus inoculation is a good idea? Read 'A Pinch of Dust' and be afraid.
February 10, 2015
Another wonderful collection of medical detection stories from Berton Roueche, author of The Incurable Wound. I read this one in college, I think. Roueche's writing style is superb and he fashions each story that keeps you glued to the page. The story titles are ironically hilarious.
February 26, 2011
Interesting. This book is about some of the earliest forensic science. Each chapter is an article discussing one case.
June 25, 2012
This book was just ok. I read another book about medical detectives that was more interesting. This is just an older book. The cases are still interesting but the delivery is dry.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews