Plagues, Pandemics And Viruses: From The Plague Of Athens To Covid 19

✍ Scribed by Heather E. Quinlan Plagues

• Publisher: Visible Ink Press
• Year: 2020
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 417
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Pandemics can come in waves—like tidal waves! They change societies. They disrupt life. They end lives. As far back as 3000 B.C.E. (the Bronze Age), plagues have stricken mankind. COVID-19 is just the latest example, but history shows that life continues. It shows that knowledge and social cooperation can save lives. Viruses are neither alive nor dead and are the closest thing we have to zombies. Their only known function is to replicate themselves, which can have devastating consequences on their hosts. Most, but not all, bacteria are good for us. Some are truly horrific, including those that caused the bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic plagues. And viruses and bacteria are always morphing, evolving, and changing, making them hard to treat. Plagues, Pandemics, and Viruses: From the Plague of Athens to Covid 19 is an enlightening, and sometimes frightening, recounting of the destruction wrought by disease, but it also looks at what man has done and can do to overcome even the deadliest and bleakest of contagions. From the plague of Athens to the COVID-19 pandemic, this fascinating tome covers the history, causes, medical treatments, human responses, and aftermath of the world’s biggest pandemics as well as several modern diseases of note and those that are making a comeback. It chronicles the diseases that have inflicted man throughout the millennia, including ...
• The differences (and similarities) between COVID-19 and other coronaviruses
• The bubonic plague/black plague, which wiped out 30% to 60% of Europe's population
• The devastation to the indigenous population during the European colonization of the Americas
• The 1918 Spanish Flu, which did not come from Spain
• How disease "inspired" The Canterbury Tales, Wuthering Heights, the pop art of Keith Haring, and other art and literature
• AIDS' "patient zero"
• How climate change will affect future pandemics
• The aftermath of various pandemics
• Several modern diseases making a comeback
• ... and much, much more.
Along with investigating some of history's most notorious pandemics and diseases, Plagues, Pandemics, and Viruses takes a look at human resilience and what we've learned from the past. It looks at how science, the medical community, and governments have conquered or mitigated most epidemics even before they can turn into pandemics. It reviews the science of pandemics, preventative measures, and medical interventions and it includes an exclusive interview with Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as well as other experts in the medical community. Richly illustrated, it also has a helpful bibliography and extensive index. This invaluable resource is designed to help you understand, and protect you from, plagues, pandemics, epidemics, viruses, and disease!

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
......Page 1
Half Title......Page 2
About the Author......Page 4
Title Page
......Page 6
Copyright......Page 10
Contents......Page 12
Photo Sources......Page 14
Acknowledgments
......Page 16
Dedication......Page 18
Chapter 1: The Beginning of the End......Page 20
A Preface to the Black Death ......Page 21
Bacteria and Viruses ......Page 22
Your Immune System ......Page 25
Vaccines and Antibiotics ......Page 30
Resistance Is Not Futile ......Page 34
Paging Dr. Paleo ......Page 36
Hippocrates and the First Physicians ......Page 37
Medicine from the Middle East ......Page 41
The Plague of Athens ......Page 42
The Plague of Justinian ......Page 48
Chapter 3: The Black Death......Page 56
A Sense of Humor ......Page 59
Where It Began ......Page 62
Italy During the Plague ......Page 66
The Plague in Florence ......Page 70
Florence’s Book of the Dead ......Page 72
Is God Hiding from the Plague? ......Page 73
Giovanni Boccaccio ......Page 77
England During the Plague ......Page 81
The Death of a Princess ......Page 82
Geoffrey Chaucer ......Page 83
The Jewish Persecution ......Page 86
Who Is Death? ......Page 88
The Flagellants ......Page 90
The End? ......Page 93
What We Gained and What We Lost ......Page 94
Chapter 4: The Plagues of London......Page 98
The Healing Hands of Father Morse ......Page 103
Down with the Papists ......Page 104
After the Plague ......Page 108
The Great Plague of London ......Page 109
The Searchers ......Page 114
Isolation Is the Mother of Invention ......Page 119
Blame the Poor ......Page 120
Hot Off the Presses ......Page 122
The Great Fire of London ......Page 124
The Lemon That Saved Paris ......Page 126
Yellow Fever ......Page 128
Ebola ......Page 137
Zika Virus ......Page 147
Chapter 6: Smallpox in the New World......Page 152
Chapter 7: Sexually Transmitted Infections......Page 186
Herpes Simplex 1 and 2 ......Page 187
Gonorrhea ......Page 189
Syphilis ......Page 192
HIV/Aids......Page 200
Chapter 8: Addiction......Page 218
Alcoholism ......Page 220
The Crack Epidemic ......Page 225
The Opioid Epidemic ......Page 232
Rabies ......Page 240
Cholera: The Blue Death......Page 251
Tuberculosis ......Page 262
Polio ......Page 271
Chapter 10: The 1918 Flu......Page 282
The 1918 Flu and World War I ......Page 286
A Flu by Any Other Name ......Page 288
A New World Order ......Page 291
The Hidden Enemy ......Page 294
The Phases of the Flu ......Page 297
What We Lost and What We Gained ......Page 299
Chapter 11: Coronaviruses......Page 304
MERS
......Page 306
SARS
......Page 309
Covid-19 ......Page 314
Like It or Not, We Need Viruses ......Page 386
Good Bacteria ......Page 387
The Last Word ......Page 390
Further Reading......Page 392
Index......Page 408

✦ Subjects

Communicable Diseases, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Epidemics