The Magic Mountain

The Magic Mountain

by

Thomas Mann

Tuberculosis Term Analysis

Tuberculosis (historically known as “consumption”) is an infectious bacterial disease that mostly affects the lungs. Most tuberculosis infections have no accompanying symptoms, but a minority of cases (around 10 percent) lead to active disease, which is characterized by a chronic cough, fever, and weight loss. An active infection can also spread to other organs, leading to additional complications. The disease can be fatal if left untreated.

Tuberculosis Quotes in The Magic Mountain

The The Magic Mountain quotes below are all either spoken by Tuberculosis or refer to Tuberculosis. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Time  Theme Icon
).
Part 1, Chapter 2: Room 34 Quotes

It was a cough, apparently—a man’s cough, but a cough unlike any that Hans Castorp had ever heard; indeed, compared to it, all other coughs with which he was familiar had been splendid, healthy expressions of life—a cough devoid of any zest for life or love, which didn’t come in spasms, but sounded as if someone were stirring feebly in a terrible mush of decomposing organic material.

Related Characters: Hans Castorp, Joachim Ziemssen, The Austrian Horseman
Page Number: 12
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 3: Teasing/Viaticum/Interrupted Moment Quotes

Joachim searched for an answer. “My God,” he said, “they’re so free. I mean, they’re young and time plays no role in their lives, and they may very well die. Why should they go around with long faces? I sometimes think that illness and death aren’t really serious matters, that it’s all more like loafing around, and that, strictly speaking, things are serious only down below in real life. I think maybe you’ll come to understand that in due time, after you’ve been up here with us a little longer.”

Related Characters: Joachim Ziemssen (speaker), Hans Castorp, Hermine Kleefeld
Page Number: 50
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 5, Chapter 1: Eternal Soup and Sudden Clarity Quotes

“The only healthy and noble and indeed, let me expressly point out, the only religious way in which to regard death is to perceive and feel it as a constituent part of life, as life’s holy prerequisite, and not to separate it intellectually, to set it up in opposition to life, or, worse, to play it off against life in some disgusting fashion—for that is indeed the antithesis of a healthy, noble, reasonable, and religious view. […] Death is to be honored as the cradle of life, the womb of renewal. Once separated from life, it becomes grotesque, a wraith—or even worse. For as an independent spiritual power, death is a very depraved force, whose wicked attractions are very strong and without doubt can cause the most abominable confusion of the human mind.”

Related Characters: Lodovico Settembrini (speaker), Hans Castorp, Leo Naphta, Dr. Behrens
Page Number: 197
Explanation and Analysis:
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