“Every sickness has an alien quality, a feeling of invasion and loss of control that is evident in the language we use about it.”
—Siri Hustvedt,
Red Nightgowns
In England, from about the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, the color red was thought to be helpful to the sick. To bring down the fever, patients were dressed in red nightgowns and surrounded by as many red objects as possible.
Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts, 1979.
