The War Against Germs

Infectious disease has the terrifying power to disrupt everyday life on a global scale, overwhelming public and private resources and bringing trade and transportation to a halt. In today's world, it's easier than ever to move people, animals, and materials around the planet, but the same advances that make modern infrastructure so efficient have made epidemics and even pandemics nearly inevitable. So what can -- and must -- we do in order to protect ourselves? Drawing on the latest medical science, case studies, and policy research, Deadliest enemy explores the resources and programs we need to develop if we are to keep ourselves safe from infectious disease.--

A leading epidemiologist shares his "powerful and necessary" (Richard Preston, author of The Hot Zone) stories from the front lines of our war on infectious diseases and explains how to prepare for global epidemics -- featuring a new preface on COVID-19. Unlike natural disasters, whose destruction is concentrated in a limited area over a period of days, and illnesses, which have devastating effects but are limited to individuals and their families, infectious disease has the terrifying power to disrupt everyday life on a global scale, overwhelming public and private resources and bringing trade and transportation to a grinding halt. In today's world, it's easier than ever to move people, animals, and materials around the planet, but the same advances that make modern infrastructure so efficient have made epidemics and even pandemics nearly inevitable. And as outbreaks of COVID-19, Ebola, MERS, and Zika have demonstrated, we are woefully underprepared to deal with the fallout. So what can -- and must -- we do in order to protect ourselves from mankind's deadliest enemy? Drawing on the latest medical science, case studies, policy research, and hard-earned epidemiological lessons, Deadliest Enemy explores the resources and programs we need to develop if we are to keep ourselves safe from infectious disease. The authors show how we could wake up to a reality in which many antibiotics no longer cure, bioterror is a certainty, and the threat of a disastrous influenza or coronavirus pandemic looms ever larger. Only by understanding the challenges we face can we prevent the unthinkable from becoming the inevitable. Deadliest Enemy is high scientific drama, a chronicle of medical mystery and discovery, a reality check, and a practical plan of action.

Explains what germs are and discusses the history of how germs have been fought up until the current time and how germs will be fought in the future.

The information contained in War Against the Germs: Epidemics, Microorganisms, and Biowarfare, will interest the medical, nursing, and PA clinical practitioners, as well as the knowledgeable public who would like a broad overview of the problems and ways to overcome pandemics. The prospects for pandemics have increased with rising population, closeness, travel, and the real possibility of laboratory leaks or purposeful attack. War Against the Germs discusses the kinds of microorganisms, including COVID, that have caused past epidemics and may take part in future ones (whether naturally or artificially created), the strengths and weaknesses of the microorganisms in causing disease, and our potential weapons against them―the immune system, antimicrobial drugs, immunizations, isolation, testing, and government and social measures.

From the dawn of history, individuals and civilizations have battled disease. The struggle shifted once epidemiologists, medical professionals, and other specialists identified the microscopic organisms often to blame for much of humanity’s illnesses over time. This book examines both the history of battling disease and the ever-shifting frontlines of the modern struggle against germs, as well as possible future developments. From cutting-edge medical treatments to common-sense measures to prevent and address the insidious effects of germs (measures that have changed remarkably little through the centuries), this work documents how the fight against germs helps the human race to survive and thrive.

“By playing with notions of collecting and cataloging, this anthology offers a range of investigations into detritus and forgotten ephemera.”—Colin Dickey, coeditor of The Morbid Anatomy Anthology The modern age is no stranger to the cabinet of curiosities, the freak show, or a drawer full of odds and ends. These collections of oddities engagingly work against the rationality and order of the conventional archive found in a university, a corporation, or a governmental holding. In form, methodology, and content, The Year’s Work in the Oddball Archive offers a counterargument to a more reasoned form of storing and recording the avant-garde (or the post-avant-garde), the perverse, the off, the bent, the absurd, the quirky, the weird, and the queer. To do so, it positions itself within the history of mirabilia launched by curiosity cabinets starting in the mid-fifteenth century and continuing to the present day. These archives (or are they counter-archives?) are located in unexpected places—the doorways of Katrina homes, the cavity of a cow, the remnants of extinct animals, an Internet site—and they offer up “alternate modes of knowing” to the traditional archive. “An unruly―and much-needed―model for how to do the archive differently.”—Scott Herring, author of The Hoarders: Material Deviance in Modern American Culture “It was a pleasure to read through this collection, and I suspect some of the essays, if not the entire book, will find itself on the syllabus for my Archive and Ephemera graduate course.”—Museum Anthropology Review “A finely wrought collection of curiosities . . . A vital intervention into how we talk about the stuff that surrounds us.”—Colin Dickey, coeditor of The Morbid Anatomy Anthology