General information about what a pandemic is, examples of various pandemics throughout history, and ways humanity can fight future pandemics.

"Eradicating smallpox was one of the great medical success stories in human history. The disease once killed large numbers of people, but vaccination programs brought case numbers to zero by the 1970s. Smallpox explores the history and science behind this disease, as well as how it's treated. Easy-to-read text, vivid images, and helpful back matter give readers a clear look at this subject. Features include a table of contents, infographics, a glossary,...

Ever since we started huddling together in communities, the story of human history has been inextricably entwined with the story of microbes. They have evolved and spread amongst us, shaping our culture through infection, disease, and pandemic. At the same time, our changing human culture has itself influenced the evolutionary path of microbes. Dorothy H. Crawford here shows that one cannot be truly understood without the other. Beginning with a dramatic...

Chronicles the last century of scientific struggle against deadly contagious disease--from the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic to the recent SARS, Ebola and Zika epidemics--examining related epidemiological mysteries and the role of disease in exacerbating world conflicts.

This book covers the history of twelve important diseases and addresses public health responses and societal upheavals. • Chronicles the ways disease outbreaks shaped traditions and institutions of Western civilization. • Explains the effects, causes, and outcomes from past epidemics. • Describes a dozen diseases to show how disease control either was achieved or failed. • Makes clear the interrelationship between diseases and history. •...

"Before HIV or Ebola, there was the Spanish flu--this narrative history marks the one hundredth anniversary of an epidemic that altered world history"--Dust jacket flap.

In recent years, outbreaks of Ebola and Zika have provided vivid examples of how difficult it is to contain an infection once it strikes, and the panic that a rapidly spreading epidemic can ignite. But while we chase the diseases we are already aware of, new ones are constantly emerging, like the coronavirus that spread across the world in 2020. At the same time, antimicrobial resistance is harnessing infections that we once knew how to control, enabling...

"This book explores some of history's most gruesome diseases. Readers will be enthralled by the history and science of terrible plagues and the bacteria, bugs, bad hygiene, and rats responsible."--

"Similarities between human reactions to onslaughts of deadly diseases separated by millennia illustrates the morbid universality of such outbreaks. It reminds us that large attacks of lethal germs are nothing new, nor are human reactions to them. One problem inherent in such pandemics is that over time people tend to forget the lessons of past"--

"From the masters of storytelling-meets-science and co-authors of Quackery, Patient Zero tells the long and fascinating history of disease outbreaks-how they start, how they spread, the science that lets us understand them, and how we race to destroy them before they destroy us. Written in the authors' lively and accessible style, chapters include page-turning medical stories about a particular disease or virus-smallpox, Bubonic plague, polio, HIV-that...