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Summary Of Death Be Not Proud By John Gunther

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Death Be Not Proud: Summary
John Gunther’s Death Be Not Proud: A Memoir is about the author’s charismatic seventeen-year-old son, John Gunther Jr., who struggles in a battle with brain cancer, which will eventually overcome him. The book takes place in the nineteen forties as the amount of available medical information on brain tumors was extremely limited. Over the course of the story, Gunther captures his son’s positive spirit despite the gravity of the onerous struggle to hold onto life, describes the medical treatments Johnny went through, and includes letters his son wrote throughout his lifetime.
When being told he had a brain tumor, Johnny was optimistic, while most would be petrified. The author describes his son as a warm-hearted kid with a passion for science, and mentions that his biggest fear of the tumor would be to not graduate from high school. Despite only having half of his brain, Johnny begged to take his final …show more content…

The first attempt to cure Johnny was through X-ray therapy, which was unsuccessful and took a major toll on his body. The doctors were then forced to stop because too much radiation would cause the brain tissue to die. The next strategy was mustard gas, originally created to kill in World War I, but now used to combat the tumor. This often made Johnny vomit and did little to help. Looking to any possible treatment, Johnny’s parents put him on a salt free, fat free diet, under Dr. Maxx Gerson whose methods of recovery were often controversial. Johnny despised this recovery method the most, and he often begged to quit; however, a surprise period of improvement would force him to remain on the diet. All attempts would be of little success as Johnny would die, but his autopsy provided key information about brain tumors, as his parents knew he would want to die helping to further advance scientific

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