Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent

Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent by Kim Bowes

How did the typical person live in Rome? It is amazing the quantity of data that they are about the piece together from a time a few millennia ago. Pompeii has provided a great source as things were suddenly stopped and frozen in time. Other archaeology work has been used to find details of the life, while written records provide some clue to wages and work. Analysis is influenced by those doing the work. What was needed to subsist? It appears that most of the family would work. Children would do work when they could. Farmers often had small plots that they would farm to live on and to trade with others. It was not a life of abundance, but did seem to be survivable.

Survival of the City: Living and Thriving in an Age of Isolation

Survival of the City: Living and Thriving in an Age of Isolation by Edward L. Glaeser and David Cutler

I wanted to like this book. The general idea and the conclusions are great. However, the execution just leaves something to desire. The authors come from different political perspectives and find issue with the way things are tackled politically. We need to get long term solutions to the big problems rather than just short term crowd pleasers. Policing is an example. On one side you have "defund the police". They are seeking to limit the harm that people experience due to police violence and excessive incarceration. On the other side you have "tough on crime" and "three strikes" policies aiming to prevent people from being harmed by crimes. People with lower incomes and minorities are often the most likely to be incarcerated and the most likely to be victim of crimes. Rather than a zero sum of "tough on crime" vs. "defund the police" we need to improve policing to reduce crime and incarceration. This does not bring itself to easy soundbites, but will provide a better solution. We need to address similar areas of education and health. Income, housing availability and costs are also related. Zoning has created havoc on the United States as a whole. Previously, people would migrate from poor areas to areas with opportunity, gradually leading to an equalization. Now the areas with opportunity are so expensive that migration is limited. The high cost of housing and limited availability makes it difficult for people to relocate there. A combination of the car and end-runs around racial integration have wreaked havoc on our cities. The poor bear the biggest burden of these changes. Despite these issues, people still desire to live in these cities. 

Breakthrough: Elizabeth Hughes, the Discovery of Insulin, and the Making of a Medical Miracle

Breakthrough: Elizabeth Hughes, the Discovery of Insulin, and the Making of a Medical Miracle by Thea Cooper and Arthur Ainsberg

In the 1920s, the best treatment for diabetes was a starvation diet. This would allow somebody to live a few more months of life, but with a significantly degraded quality of life. The hope was that this would allow them to live long enough for a potential "cure" that would just be around the corner.

In Canada, Frederick Banting was a maverick doctor who talked his way into a research position in Toronto. He was convinced that he could help isolate a substance from pancreatic tissue that could treat diabetes. With Charles Best and James Collip they extracted what was to be named insulin and injected into to dogs that were forced to be diabetic. They had success in reducing the diabetic symptoms. John MacLeod was the "adult supervision" that helped give their research credibility and run the clinical trials. Eli Lilly in Indianapolis was also interested in the work and led their work to help mass produce insulin. They were one of the first drug companies to have a research arm. They were able to have more success producing large quantities of insulin than the Toronto labs. This was one of the earlier cases of patent and technology transfer by educational institutions and the start of "big pharma".

Banting was quite a character, and seemed to have issues with many people. His story was intertwined with the story of Elizabeth Hughes. She was the diabetic doctor of a high ranking politician (who narrowly failed to get elected president, and later served as secretary of state.) She was among the first Americans to receive insulin and was able to live a long life with the injections.