After the unprecedented events of the COVID-19 pandemic, it may be hard to imagine a time not so long ago when deadly diseases were a routine part of life. It is harder still to fathom that the best medical thinking at that time blamed these diseases on noxious miasmas, bodily humors, and divine dyspepsia. This all began to change on a day in April 1676, when a little-known Dutch merchant described bacteria for the first time. Beginning on that day in Delft and ending on the day in 1978 when the smallpox virus claimed its last known victim, Ending Epidemics explains how we came to understand and prevent many of our worst infectious diseases—and double average life expectancy.
Ending Epidemics tells the story behind "the mortality revolution," the dramatic transformation not just in our longevity, but in the character of childhood, family life, and human society. Richard Conniff recounts the moments of inspiration and innovation, decades of dogged persistence, and, of course, periods of terrible suffering that stir individuals, institutions, and governments to act in the name of public health. Stars of medical science feature in this drama, but lesser-known figures also play a critical role. And while the history of germ theory is central to this story, Ending Epidemics also describes the importance of everything from sanitation improvements and the discovery of antibiotics to the development of the microscope and the syringe—technologies we now take for granted.
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
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Information
Topic
MedicineSubtopic
EpidemiologyTable of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface: The Healing
- 1. What the Draper Saw
- 2. Deadly Preconceptions
- 3. Foreign Bodies
- 4. Precursors
- 5. Ridiculous Diseases, Inconceivable Ideas
- 6. Buying the Pox
- 7. Slaying the Speckled Monster
- 8. An Angel’s Trumpet
- 9. The Great Sanitary Awakening
- 10. Finding Pathogens
- 11. The Semmelweis Reflex
- 12. Making Sense of Cholera
- 13. The Broad Street Pump
- 14. Louis Pasteur: The Rising
- 15. The Subtle Foe
- 16. The Mystery of the Cursed Meadows
- 17. A New Vaccine
- 18. The Bible of Bacteriology
- 19. Defining the Indefinable Something
- 20. (Re)discovering Cholera
- 21. A Sacred Delirium
- 22. Immunity and the Strangling Angel
- 23. Deadly Carriers
- 24. The Beast in the Mosquito
- 25. Fit for Duty
- 26. A Pathogen Too Far
- 27. Midnight Work
- 28. The Antibacterial Revolution
- 29. Penicillin
- 30. Race to the Vaccine
- 31. Zero Pox
- Epilogue: The Plague Next Time
- Acknowledgments
- Index
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Yes, you can access Ending Epidemics by Richard Conniff in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Medicine & Epidemiology. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.