Catalog Search Results
Author
Language
English
Description
In Yellow Fever Black Goddess, popular author and biology professor, Christopher Wills, brings the latest scientific developments to the page in entertaining, dramatic form. Through meticulous yet riveting research, he pens a vivid account of deadly microbes struggling for survival in hostile hosts.
Beginning with ancient illnesses like the Black Death and syphilis, Christopher Wills explores how these devastating diseases have changed their method...
Author
Language
English
Description
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...
Author
Language
English
Description
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.
Author
Language
English
Description
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.
•...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
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...
Author
Language
English
Description
Quarantine is our most powerful response to uncertainty: it means waiting to see if something hidden inside us will be revealed. It is also one of our most dangerous, operating through an assumption of guilt. In quarantine, we are considered infectious until proven safe. Manaugh and Twilly track the history and future of quarantine around the globe. It is a story of emergency isolation, but they also guide us through a nuclear-waste isolation facility...
Author
Language
English
Description
A suspenseful, authoritative account of how the battle against a mid-century polio epidemic sparked a revolution in medical care. Americans knew polio as the "summer plague." In countries further North, however, the virus arrived later in the year, slipping into the homes of healthy children as the summer waned and the equinox approached. It was described by one writer as "the autumn ghost." Intensive care units and mechanical ventilation are the...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
This sweeping exploration of the impact of epidemic diseases looks at how mass infectious outbreaks have shaped society, from the Black Death to today, and in a new preface addresses the global threat of COVID-19. In a clear and accessible style, Frank M. Snowden reveals the ways that diseases have not only influenced medical science and public health, but also transformed the arts, religion, intellectual history, and warfare. A multidisciplinary...
Author
Language
English
Description
"A sweeping look at how the major transformations in history--from the rise of Homo sapiens to the birth of capitalism--have been shaped not by humans but by germs. According to the accepted narrative of progress, humans have thrived thanks to their brains and brawn, collectively bending the arc of history. But in this revelatory book, professor Jonathan Kennedy argues that the myth of human exceptionalism overstates the role that we play in social...
Author
Language
English
Description
"Plagues upon the Earth is a history of human civilization and the germs that have shaped its course. At every stage in our species' past, micro-organisms have had macro-effects on the development of human societies. Kyle Harper proposes the first history of human disease to make full use of a radical new source of evidence: pathogen genomes as a biological archive and window into prehistoric times. We can now begin to reconstruct the natural history...