Plagues Pox And Pestilence

Tells the history of diseases and epidemics and presents some information on efforts to fight them.

Covering some of humankind's most notorious diseases, this book describes, with individual examples, the changing historical relationships between humans and their diseases, many of which they have helped to create. Contemporary illustrations show how the diseases were perceived in the past.

Plagues, Pox, and Pestilence by Richard Platt, illustrated by John Kelly is a comprehensive history of disease and pestilence, told from the point of view of the bugs and pests that cause them. The book features case histories of specific epidemics, ‘eyewitness' accounts from the rats, flies, ticks and creepy-crawlies who spread diseases, plus plenty of fascinating facts and figures on the biggest and worst afflictions. Illustrated throughout with brilliantly entertaining artworks and endearing characters, you'll be entertained by a cabinet war room showing the war on germs, a rogues' gallery highlighting the worst offenders, the very deadliest diseases examined under the microscope and much more.

An eye-opening anthology from the bestselling editor of Histories of Nations, exploring how people around the globe have suffered and survived during plague and pandemic, from the ancient world to the present. Plague, pestilence, and pandemics have been a part of the human story from the beginning and have been reflected in art and writing at every turn. Humankind has always struggled with illness; and the experiences of different cities and countries have been compared and connected for thousands of years. Many great authors have published their eyewitness accounts and survivor stories of the great contagions of the past. When the great Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta visited Damascus in 1348 during the great plague, which went on to kill half of the population, he wrote about everything he saw. He reported, "God lightened their affliction; for the number of deaths in a single day at Damascus did not attain 2,000, while in Cairo it reached the figure of 24,000 a day." From the plagues of ancient Egypt recorded in Genesis to those like the Black Death that ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages, and from the Spanish flu of 1918 to the Covid-19 pandemic in our own century, this anthology contains fascinating accounts. Editor Peter Furtado places the human experience at the center of these stories, understanding that the way people have responded to disease crises over the centuries holds up a mirror to our own actions and experiences. Plague, Pestilence and Pandemic includes writing from around the world and highlights the shared emotional responses to pandemics: from rage, despair, dark humor, and heartbreak, to finally, hope that it may all be over. By connecting these moments in history, this book places our own reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic within the longer human story.

Although the invention of agriculture was the most important event in the history of civilization, it was a disaster for human health. Hunter-gatherers, frequently on the move, ate a great variety of foods and seldom paused in one place long enough to allow diseases to flourish. As people settled, living cheek to jowl with their newly domesticated animals, water teemed with pathogens, waste piled up, and nutrition deteriorated as diets focused on just a few items. Diseases became rampant. The build-up of large urban populations bred new and even more deadly diseases. Restless humans -- marauders, missionaries, merchants -- carried these strains across the world to communities never exposed to them. Death on epic scales ensued. The plague, scrofula, leprosy -- all these flourished in the early modern world. War was a harbinger of death in more ways than the traditional -- whenever soldiers were drawn together in large groups the potential for an epidemic increased exponentially. Some diseases in particular are linked to war; typhus, because it killed more soldiers and sailors than they have killed each other; cholera, which is carried by contaminated water; scurvy, 'the sailors' disease;; and syphilis, which burst upon the world from a battlefield. In this ... illustrated survey of disease in history, Kenneth Kiple, editor of The Cambridge World History of Human Disease, has brought together a team of experts to show for the first time how our world is the product of disease -- and its eradication.

The Power of Plagues presents a rogues' gallery of epidemic- causing microorganisms placed in the context of world history. Author Irwin W. Sherman introduces the microbes that caused these epidemics and the people who sought (and still seek) to understand how diseases and epidemics are managed. What makes this book especially fascinating are the many threads that Sherman weaves together as he explains how plagues past and present have shaped the outcome of wars and altered the course of medicine, religion, education, feudalism, and science. Cholera gave birth to the field of epidemiology. The bubonic plague epidemic that began in 1346 led to the formation of universities in cities far from the major centers of learning (and hot spots of the Black Death) at that time. And the Anopheles mosquito and malaria aided General George Washington during the American Revolution. Sadly, when microbes have inflicted death and suffering, people have sometimes responded by invoking discrimination, scapegoating, and quarantine, often unfairly, against races or classes of people presumed to be the cause of the epidemic. Pathogens are not the only stars of this book. Many scientists and physicians who toiled to understand, treat, and prevent these plagues are also featured. Sherman tells engaging tales of the development of vaccines, anesthesia, antiseptics, and antibiotics. This arsenal has dramatically reduced the suffering and death caused by infectious diseases, but these plague protectors are imperfect, due to their side effects or attenuation and because microbes almost invariably develop resistance to antimicrobial drugs. The Power of Plagues provides a sobering reminder that plagues are not a thing of the past. Along with the persistence of tuberculosis, malaria, river blindness, and AIDS, emerging and remerging epidemics continue to confound global and national public health efforts. West Nile virus, Lyme disease, and Ebola and Zika viruses are just some of the newest rogues to plague humans. The argument that civilization has been shaped to a significant degree by the power of plagues is compelling, and The Power of Plagues makes the case in an engaging and informative way that will be satisfying to scientists and non-scientists alike.

Editor Joseph P. Byrne, together with an advisory board of specialists and over 100 scholars, research scientists, and medical practitioners from 13 countries, has produced a uniquely interdisciplinary treatment of the ways in which diseases pestilence, and plagues have affected human life. From the Athenian flu pandemic to the Black Death to AIDS, this extensive two-volume set offers a sociocultural, historical, and medical look at infectious diseases and their place in human history from Neolithic times to the present. Nearly 300 entries cover individual diseases (such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, Ebola, and SARS); major epidemics (such as the Black Death, 16th-century syphilis, cholera in the nineteenth century, and the Spanish Flu of 1918-19); environmental factors (such as ecology, travel, poverty, wealth, slavery, and war); and historical and cultural effects of disease (such as the relationship of Romanticism to Tuberculosis, the closing of London theaters during plague epidemics, and the effect of venereal disease on social reform). Primary source sidebars, over 70 illustrations, a glossary, and an extensive print and nonprint bibliography round out the work.

Describes the symptoms and treatment of certain illnesses throughout history, including scurvy, yellow fever, measles, typhoid, and polio.