Patient Zero

Starred review from September 27, 2021
Physician Kang and historian Pedersen team up again (after Quackery) with a thorough and morbidly funny study of some of the world’s deadliest diseases. Those covered include rabies (so ancient it’s mentioned in the ancient Middle Eastern Laws of Eshnunna), HIV (which likely circulated in the U.S. for nearly a decade before its recognition), and ergotism (a fungus found in bread made with contaminated flour, which made the sick smell like dead mice). Despite the wide-ranging varieties of illnesses, the authors show, some constants appear throughout history, such as the politicization of pandemics and “our voracious human appetites” that push people to disrupt animal habitats (60% of the diseases that affect humans are caused by germs that spread between animals and people). Kang and Pedersen’s conversational tone keeps things moving, and they’re magnificent at reminding readers that, although pathogens will probably continue to “consume ravenously, kill what’s in their way, and adapt,” medicine has come a long way from recommending blood baths, drinking urine, and consuming mercury as treatments. Readers will be swept away by this energetic and enlightening survey.

November 1, 2021

Kang and Pedersen (co-authors of Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways To Cure Everything) return with a compendium of brief, informative chapters on significant disease outbreaks throughout the world, from the 1800s to the present day. The book is separated into three sections--infection, spread, and containment--with easy-to-understand text and attractive illustrations. It discusses contagions like yellow fever, Ebola, and coronaviruses, their origins, and their social impacts, and is global in scope, covering outbreaks in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Snapshot sidebars provide brief information about related subjects; for instance, a sidebar about public health workers discusses the detective work of backtracking, discovering transmission points, and outlining timelines of outbreak events. This resource is a great starting place to learn about outbreak conditions and the development of medical technologies to control the spread of disease. For more detail, readers should seek out histories of specific illnesses or outbreaks, which Kang and Pedersen support with this book's extensive lists of resources. Kang and Pedersen's entertaining narrative style makes the informative content engaging. VERDICT A solid purchase for public libraries.--Elizabeth J. Eastwood, Los Alamos, NM

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