Patient Zero

A Curious History of the World's Worst Diseases

By: Lydia Kang MD, Nate Pedersen

Narrated by: Hillary Huber

Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

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 gripping medical stories about a particular disease or virus—smallpox, Bubonic plague, polio, HIV—that combine “Patient Zero” narratives, or the human stories behind outbreaks, with historical examinations of missteps, milestones, scientific theories, and more.

Learn the tragic stories of Patient Zeros throughout history, such as Mabalo Lokela, who contracted Ebola while on vacation in 1976, and the Lewis Baby on London’s Broad Street, the first to catch cholera in an 1854 outbreak that led to a major medical breakthrough. Interspersed are origin stories of a different sort—how a rye fungus in 1951 turned a small village in France into a phantasmagoric scene reminiscent of Burning Man. Plus the uneasy history of human autopsy, how the HIV virus has been with us for at least a century, and more.

©2021 Lydia Kang, MD and Nate Pedersen (P)2022 Workman Publishing Company

Critic reviews

"[A] rich and thought-provoking book... It's also a profound reconsideration of our common understanding of our most famous stories of sickness and science." —Salon.com

“A thorough and morbidly funny study of some of the world’s deadliest diseases… Readers will be swept away by this energetic and enlightening survey.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A fascinating foray into the etiology of fevers, flus, and other foul febrilities.” —James Nestor, New York Times bestselling author of Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art

Excellent Pop Science Book

For what it is, another popular science book on another very timely and VERY interesting subject, the book nails the mark. The narrator is excellent and the stories/histories of each of the relevant outbreaks is intriguing. Great book.

Great book, lots of new information.

I love this sort of medical/science/investigative/plague stuff. So I’m very familiar with a lot of the information in any one of these books I pick up. But there was lots of good information in here some of which I already knew but came from a new angle some of which I hadn’t heard before. I can say if you enjoy this and you haven’t read spillover yet you should add that one to your list.

Great info

Great info inside a great story. Will give this audio book as a gift to my son who thinks he knows it all.

Timely and Historic

Should be required reading for all whiners of our current time. You might learn something.

Timely, informative, entertaining but not overwhelming

As my province enters it’s 7th wave of COVID and I currently know more people dealing with active infections than ever before, I _really_ appreciated that this was not a chronological description of disease outbreaks.

Lots of information on areas where I only had surface levels of knowledge. I enjoyed it a lot.

utterly fascinating!

what a fantastic book! I learned so much and was horrified by so much (couldn't listen to the covid chapter because it made me upset. as well as the native Americans being decimated by the various awful diseases white people brought over) but beside that. I couldn't get enough. I hope to find more books by these authors.

more information than the US media gives

(As posted in Goodreads)
The title of this book is not nearly as telling as the subtitle; patient zero per se does not talk about the diseases or their methods of contagion or whatever. I'm sure that this is not the topic for many readers, but it was very interesting and informative! I already knew a whole lot of this come on but some of the details were captivating. And I really liked being reminded!
For instance, Ebola, the disease, is terrifying, but the national media really addressed more the parts that make one scared than the true situation. The end of the book got more into history and what we have discovered about disease, viruses, bacteria, pathogens in general, and the science around all of it. Some of the background and well known diseases- such as rabies- was interesting and enlightening.
Well, this review has been somewhat rambling, but I think I stuck all the pertinent points. If you're interested in medicine and the history, read the book; you'll like it.

Can’t listen to the reader

I was excited to listen to this, but had to turn off- the reader sounds like a Google-generated robot. So flat, odd enunciation. Made listening annoying rather than pleasant

Just ok

Scattered interesting tidbits throughout but somehow political beliefs get included to the detriment of the content. Also, the pronunciation of some of the medical terms is awful.