Disease History

From the masters of storytelling-meets-science, 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 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.

The story of viruses and humanity is a story of fear and ignorance, of grief and heartbreak, and of great bravery and sacrifice. Michael Oldstone tells all these stories as he illuminates the history of the devastating diseases that have tormented humanity, focusing mostly on the most famous viruses. For this revised edition, Oldstone includes discussions of new viruses like SARS, bird flu, virally caused cancers, chronic wasting disease, and West Nile. Viruses, Plagues, and History paints a sweeping portrait of humanity's long-standing conflict with our unseen viral enemies.

London's Great Plague of 1665 devastated the city, as Europe's final bubonic outbreak killed thousands of helpless citizens. Daniel Defoe, author of the classic Robinson Crusoe, was five years old when the Plague swept through London, and grew up hearing many stories - some truthful, others exaggerated - of its deadly effects. Blending those anecdotes with his childhood recollections and factual data from government registers, Defoe wrote this comprehensive account of what happened to London in 1665.

A riveting thriller reminiscent of The Hot Zone, this true story dives into the mystery surrounding one of the most controversial and misdiagnosed conditions of our time - Lyme disease - and of Willy Burgdorfer, the man who discovered the microbe behind it, revealing his secret role in developing bug-borne biological weapons and raising terrifying questions about the genesis of the epidemic of tick-borne diseases affecting millions of Americans today.

Arising from collaboration between a doctor and a historian, Disease and History offers the general listener a wide-ranging and accessible account of the ways in which disease has left its dramatic mark on the past. It discusses the impact made by bubonic plague and other infections upon the ancient and medieval worlds; the likely role of syphilis in the careers of Henry VIII and Ivan the Terrible; the significance of smallpox for the conquest of Mexico; and the contribution of typhus to Napoleon's downfall and of hemophilia to the collapse of Tsarist rule in Russia.

Today, we are told that medical interventions increased our lifespan and single-handedly prevented masses of deaths. But is this really true? Dissolving Illusions details facts and figures from long-overlooked medical journals, books, newspapers, and other sources. Using myth-shattering information, this book shows that vaccines, antibiotics, and other medical interventions are not responsible for the increase in lifespan and the decline in mortality from infectious diseases.

It is 1919 and Elizabeth Hughes, the 11-year-old daughter of America's most-distinguished jurist and politician, Charles Evans Hughes, has been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. It is essentially a death sentence. The only accepted form of treatment - starvation - whittles her down to 45 pounds, skin and bones. Miles away, Canadian researchers Frederick Banting and Charles Best manage to identify and purify insulin from animal pancreases - a miracle soon marred by scientific jealousy, intense business competition, and fistfights.

The most fatal virus known to science, rabies kills nearly 100 percent of its victims once the infection takes root in the brain. From Greek myths to zombie flicks, from the laboratory heroics of Louis Pasteur to the contemporary search for a lifesaving treatment, Rabid is a fresh, fascinating, and often wildly entertaining look at one of mankind’s oldest and most fearsome foes.

Human history hinges on the battle to confront our most dangerous enemies—the half-dozen diseases responsible for killing almost all of mankind. The story of our medical triumphs reveals an inspiring tapestry of human achievement, but the journey was far from smooth. It is a tale replete with dramatic episodes as spellbinding as any blockbuster Hollywood movie. In The Masters of Medicine, Dr. Andrew Lam, an award-winning author and retinal surgeon, distills the long arc of medical progress down to the crucial moments that were responsible for the world's greatest medical miracles.

It can come in waves - like tidal waves. It changes societies. It disrupts life. It ends lives. As far back as 3000 B.C.E. (the Bronze Age), plagues have stricken mankind. COVID-19 is just the latest example, but history shows that life continues. It shows that knowledge and social cooperation can save lives. Viruses are neither alive nor dead and are the closest thing we have to zombies. Their only known function is to replicate themselves, which can have devastating consequences on their hosts.

This book covers the history of 12 important diseases and addresses public health responses and societal upheavals.

Plagues upon the Earth is a monumental history of humans and their germs. Weaving together a grand narrative of global history with insights from cutting-edge genetics, Kyle Harper explains why humanity’s uniquely dangerous disease pool is rooted deep in our evolutionary past, and why its growth is accelerated by technological progress. He shows that the story of disease is entangled with the history of slavery, colonialism, and capitalism, and reveals the enduring effects of historical plagues all around us, in patterns of wealth, health, power, and inequality.

Interweaving a grand historical narrative with cutting-edge climate science and genetic discoveries, Kyle Harper traces how the fate of Rome was decided not just by emperors, soldiers, and barbarians but also by volcanic eruptions, solar cycles, climate instability, and devastating viruses and bacteria. He takes listeners from Rome's pinnacle in the second century, when the empire seemed an invincible superpower, to its unraveling by the seventh century, when Rome was politically fragmented and materially depleted.

Oxford Case Histories in Infection and Microbiology contains over 45 well structured cases, providing comprehensive coverage of the diagnostic and management dilemmas in clinical microbiology and infectious diseases. Each case comprises of a brief patient history with relevant clinical examination findings, thus insuring the listener is aware of how to confirm a diagnosis rapidly, with reference throughout to laboratory techniques, advice on therapy, epidemiological features, and areas which can be controversial.

In the middle of the second century AD, Rome was at its prosperous and powerful apex. The emperor Marcus Aurelius reigned over a vast territory that stretched from Britain to Egypt. The Roman-made peace, or Pax Romana, seemed to be permanent. Then, apparently out of nowhere, a sudden sickness struck the legions and laid waste to cities, including Rome itself. This fast-spreading disease, known now as the Antonine plague, may have been history’s first pandemic. Soon after its arrival, the Empire began its downward trajectory toward decline and fall.

REVIEWS "A tour de force of research and scholarship" " The definitive prequel to "Cure Unknown" showing that Lyme disease has been around for a long time and its victims have been badly treated over the centuries!"THE SENTRY "every now and then a literary work comes along that really grabs my attention and gets me fired up enough to write about it. "Disguised As The Devil: How Lyme Disease Created Witches And Changed History" by M.M. Drymon is one of those books.And before I reached the end of the book, I found myself nodding in agreement with many of the passages, caught up in the ...

Reviews of Litsios' Plague Legends This finely crafted, scholarly book traces the long 2000 years of western civilization during which philosophy, literature, and the arts flourished but medical science remained a confused, often dangerous, body of ignorance.... Litsios' book presents an expert account of what the discovery of microbes and their pathogenic potentials meant to human health. Robert S. Desowitz, PhD, DSc, Emeritus Professor of Tropical Medicine and Medical Microbiology, University of Hawaii; Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Plague ...

Medical Mysteries – Deadly Fevers: 20 Devastating Cases of Outbreaks, Strange Plagues, and Race-to-Survive Scenarios When fever strikes without warning, survival can come down to a matter of hours. In Medical Mysteries – Deadly Fevers, bestselling author Dean Lawton unearths 20 real-life cases where invisible killers — from ancient plagues to newly emerged viruses — left devastation in their wake. Explore history’s deadliest outbreaks, the frantic races to contain them, and the lives forever changed by mysterious and terrifying fevers. How did a deadly mist kill thousands in ...

Inflammation is the body’s ancestral response to its greatest threats: injury and foreign microbes. But as the threats we face have evolved, new science reveals simmering inflammation underneath the surface of everything from heart disease and cancer to mysterious autoimmune conditions. In A Silent Fire, gastroenterologist Shilpa Ravella takes us on a lyrical quest across time, around the world, and into the body to reveal hidden inflammation at the root of modern disease―and how we can control it.

Did the Black Death destroy medieval Europe? Did cholera pave the way for modern Manhattan? Did yellow fever help end the slave trade? Remarkably, the answer to all of these questions is "Yes". Time and again, diseases have impacted the course of human history in surprisingly powerful ways. From influenza to smallpox, from tuberculosis to yellow fever, Bryn Barnard describes the symptoms and paths of the world’s worst diseases - and how the epidemics they spawned have changed history forever.