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, HIV—that combine “Patient Zero” narratives, or the human stories behind outbreaks, with historical examinations of missteps, milestones, scientific theories, and more. Learn the tragic stories of Patient Zeros throughout history, such as Mabalo Lokela, who contracted Ebola while on vacation in 1976, and the Lewis Baby on London’s Broad Street, the first to catch cholera in an 1854 outbreak that led to a major medical breakthrough. Interspersed are origin stories of a different sort—how a rye fungus in 1951 turned a small village in France into a phantasmagoric scene reminiscent of Burning Man. Plus the uneasy history of human autopsy, how the HIV virus has been with us for at least a century, and more.
Author(s): Lydia Kang, Nate Pedersen
Edition: 1
Publisher: Workman Publishing
Year: 2021
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF
Pages: 401
Tags: Epidemics: History; Emerging Infectious Diseases: History
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Copyright Page
Contents
Introduction
INFECTION
Patient ZERO: Ergotism
Zoonoses: Making the Leap
Patient ZERO: Ebola
Germ Theory: From Miasma to Microscopes
Patient ZERO: The Plague
Autopsy: From Humoral Theory to Grave Robbing
Patient ZERO: Mad Cow Disease
Anatomy of an Outbreak: Calling in the Public Health Cavalry
Patient ZERO: Yellow Fever
COVID-19: The Origins of SARS-CoV-2 and the Politicization of Plagues
SPREAD
Patient ZERO: HIV
Indigenous Peoples & the Columbian Exchange: The “Exchange” Was Not Equal
Patient ZERO: Typhus
Patient ZERO: Measles
Patient ZERO: Hansen’s Disease (LEPROSY)
Patient ZERO: Syphilis
Quackery: From Mercury and Bloodletting to Hydroxychloroquine
Patient ZERO: Typhoid Fever
CONTAINMENT
Patient ZERO: 1918 Influenza
Vaccines: From Variolation to Messenger RNA
Patient ZERO: Polio
Patient ZERO: Hepatitis C
The Infection-Disease Link: From Viruses, Bacteria, and Parasites to Cancer
Patient ZERO: Cholera
Anthrax & Biological Warfare: The Weaponization of Disease
Patient ZERO: Rabies
Tuberculosis: The “All Consuming” Disease
Patient ZERO: The Last Smallpox Case
Medical Advances: From Pandemics to Progress
Sources
Acknowledgments
Index
Photo Credits
About the Authors
