Thomas Dormandy was a retired consultant chemical pathologist and professor who worked at the University of Brunel and Whittington Hospital at the University of London. Dormandy wrote several books in addition to over three hundred scientific articles. In 1999 Dormandy published The White Death: A History of Tuberculosis. In it he combined scientific and sociological history to create his account of tuberculosis and various people's struggle with the disease primarily in the United States and Europe.

Reviews of The White Death were mixed among the critics. Muiris Houston, writing in the British Medical Journal, commented that Dormandy "has a knack of explaining technical matters" as he "weaves literature, social history, pharmacology, and epidemiology into an entertaining tale." In a Lancet review, Anne Hardy agreed that the book was "clearly written," but felt it "offers little to stimulate the interest of those already familiar with … the history of tuberculosis in general." Writing in the English Historical Review, Helen Jones thought the outline of the book was unclear. "There is no explanation at the outset of how the chapters are organized, and no sense of what will follow from chapter to chapter," Jones commented. A critic concluded in a Publishers Weekly review, however, that the "prodigious research and an anecdotal style blend to make this a fascinating foray into the history of medicine."