Plague

Chronicles the history and mystery of several centuries of plague including bioweapons programs initiated by the former Soviet Union.

Author Lizabeth Hardman gives readers a compelling look into the history of the plague. Readers will learn about the scourge of mankind and its chaos over ancient times. They will learn about the third pandemic, and where the plague is in the world now. Readers will evaluate the impact it could have on the future. Bright images, illustrations, diagrams, and charts provide excellent concise details, perfect for report writing and researching.

Being sick is horrible. But it used to be worse. Inside this book, you'll see evidence of the plagues of the past—rotting skin, dissolving lungs, and sinister swelling all over the body. Diseases like the Black Death wiped out whole towns and villages. Tuberculosis consumed young people like a bloodsucking vampire. And Smallpox left its victims scarred for life—if they survived. At the time, no one knew where these killer diseases came from or how to treat them. But eventually doctors discovered how these diseases and others were spread. Being sick isn't quite as sickening as it was in the past!

How epidemic photography during a global pandemic of bubonic plague contributed to the development of modern epidemiology and our concept of the “pandemic.” In Visual Plague, Christos Lynteris examines the emergence of epidemic photography during the third plague pandemic (1894–1959), a global pandemic of bubonic plague that led to over twelve million deaths. Unlike medical photography, epidemic photography was not exclusively, or even primarily, concerned with exposing the patient’s body or medical examinations and operations. Instead, it played a key role in reconceptualizing infectious diseases by visualizing the “pandemic” as a new concept and structure of experience—one that frames and responds to the smallest local outbreak of an infectious disease as an event of global importance and consequence. As the third plague pandemic struck more and more countries, the international circulation of plague photographs in the press generated an unprecedented spectacle of imminent global threat. Nothing contributed to this sense of global interconnectedness, anticipation, and fear more than photography. Exploring the impact of epidemic photography at the time of its emergence, Lynteris highlights its entanglement with colonial politics, epistemologies, and aesthetics, as well as with major shifts in epidemiological thinking and public health practice. He explores the characteristics, uses, and impact of epidemic photography and how it differs from the general corpus of medical photography. The new photography was used not simply to visualize or illustrate a pandemic, but to articulate, respond to, and unsettle key questions of epidemiology and epidemic control, as well as to foster the notion of the “pandemic,” which continues to affect our lives today.

The Diana trilogy concludes with Plague! in which the evil bioterrorist, Z’ivik, has once again used his incredible intelligence to formulate and release devastating botanical plagues on numerous planets throughout the galaxy. The daughter of the Chief Medical Officer of the Explorer works with Alliance scientists to find the cure for these plagues. She suffers a vicious attack by Z’ivik and seems to suffer a debilitating nervous breakdown as a result. Z’ivik then formulates a deadly hemorrhagic fever which he unleashes on numerous planets including the planet of Zahri. The Emissary of the Alliance and his wife, parents of the Executive Officer of the Explorer, as well as the High Priest of Zahri, all fall victim to this catastrophic fever which has a mortality rate of 100%. The crew of the Explorer put their lives on the line to put an end to Z’ivik’s devastation and to save the universe from total annihilation. Read Plague! with its fast-paced action and tension-filled plot in this perilous journey to the stars. A must-read for science fiction fans! If you love Star Trek, you’ll love Plague!

Plague has erupted in periodic outbreaks for almost as long as human history has been recorded. Its easy transmission has been responsible for some of the most severe death rates from any epidemic disease in history.

This study of sixteenth-century Seville offers a new perspective on how early modern cities adapted to living with repeated epidemics of plague.

The preeminent meditation on plagues and pandemics from the Islamic world, now in English for the first time A Penguin Classic Six hundred years ago, the author of this landmark work of history and religious thought—an esteemed judge, poet, and scholar in Cairo—survived the bubonic plague, which took the lives of three of his children, not to mention tens of millions of others throughout the medieval world. Holding up an eerie mirror to our own time, he reflects on the origins of plagues—from those of the Prophet Muhammad’s era to the Black Death of his own—and what it means that such catastrophes could have been willed by God, while also chronicling the fear, isolation, scapegoating, economic tumult, political failures, and crises of faith that he lived through. But in considering the meaning of suffering and mass death, he also offers a message of radical hope. Weaving together accounts of evil jinn, religious stories, medical manuals, death-count registers, poetry, and the author’s personal anecdotes, Merits of the Plague is a profound reminder that with tragedy comes one of the noblest expressions of our humanity: the practice of compassion, patience, and care for those around us.