Engrossing true stories of the pioneers of epidemiology who risked their lives to find the source of deadly diseases-now revised to include updated information and a new chapter on Covid-19. More people have died in disease epidemics than in wars or other disasters, but the process of identifying these diseases and determining how they spread is often a terrifying gamble. Epidemiologists have been ignored, mocked, or silenced all while trying to...

This introduction to pandemics and their history shows readers how to stay safe, and also includes a glossary, an infographic on how the coronavirus spreads, a handwashing diagram and a timeline showing the pandemics of the past.

Discusses what an epidemic is, how it evolves, various causes and carriers, and efforts to prevent epidemics.

"The deadly outbreak of plague known as the Great Mortality, which struck Europe in the mid 1300s and raged for four centuries, wiped out more than 25 million people in the course of just two years. With its vicious onslaught, life changed for millions of people almost instantaneously. Deadly pandemics have always been a part of life, from the Great Mortality of the Middle Ages, to the Spanish Influenza outbreak of 1918, to the eruption of COVID-19...

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...

"Before HIV or Ebola, there was the Spanish flu--this narrative history marks the one hundredth anniversary of an epidemic that altered world history. In January 1918, as World War I raged on, a new and terrifying virus began to spread across the globe. In three successive waves, from 1918 to 1919, influenza killed more than 50 million people. German soldiers termed it Blitzkatarrh, British soldiers referred to it as Flanders Grippe, but world-wide,...

"With a mix of sidebars, illustrations, photos, and graphic panels, this book uncovers the hidden truths about history's pandemics, from the Black Death to COVID-19"--

"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,...

"A vibrant cultural history investigating the tangled and complex history of pandemics and vaccines, by bestselling author and historian Simon Schama"--Dust jacket flap. Pandemics have been a constant presence throughout human history, as humans and disease have lived side by side for millennia. Over the centuries, our ability to react to these sweeping killers has evolved, most notably through the development of vaccines. The story of disease eradication...