Profiles various pandemics that have struck the world in years past, such as the Black Death and influenza. Details efforts to contend with these diseases over the years and develop new medicines to combat illness. Considers how major pandemics may shape our future and features color illustrations throughout.
General Note
Includes index.
Content Note
Living proof -- Talk about sick! -- Bacterial invasion -- Viral attack -- Bugs and the bloodstream -- Lifestyle choices and chances -- Why soap and water? -- Wrath of the gods -- First epidemics--or not -- the plague of Athens -- Death of a demigod -- Empire and epidemics -- Hippocrates and Galen--miasmas and humors vs. the supernatural -- Leprosy : the wages of sin -- The Black Death (1348-1351) -- Living with death -- The art of death -- So you think you can dance? -- The English sweat -- Smallpox goes viral -- Contagion or conquest? old diseases meet new people -- Inoculation, vaccination, extinction -- Return to sender : syphilis and scurvy -- The black vomit aka yellow fever -- Superstition to science -- Cholera : death by drinking water -- Ignaz Semmelweis and Florence Nightingale--connecting health and cleanliness -- Tuberculosis : what's romantic about coughing and spitting? -- The legacy of Louis Pasteur : from his laboratory to the sickbed -- World War I and the Spanish Flu -- Childhood diseases -- The impact of antibiotics -- The devastating polio epidemics -- Meningitis -- AIDS : a modern plague -- Jumping species -- SARS--pandemic panic -- Biological warfare : then and now -- Are your vaccinations up-to-date? -- Big lessons from pandemics.