Bitten: True Medical Stories of Bites and Stings [Hardcover]

Pamela Nagami M.D. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2004

We've all been bitten. And we all have stories.

The bite attacks featured in this dramatic book take place in big cities, small towns, and remote villages around the world and throughout history. Some are as familiar and contemporary as encounters with mosquitoes in New York City and snakes in southern California's Hollywood Hills or as exotic and foreign as the tsetse in equatorial Africa, the camel in Riyadh, and the Komodo dragon in Indonesia. While others, such as people biting other people---well, these are in a category of their own.

Among the startling stories and fascinating facts in Bitten.
o A six-year-old girl descends into weeks of extreme lassitude until a surgeon plucks an engorged tick from her scalp.
o A diabetic living in the West Indies awakes one morning to a rat eating his left great and second toes.
o A twenty-eight-year-old man loses a third of his nose to a bite by his wife.
o In San Francisco, after a penile bite, a man develops "flesh-eating strep," which spreads to his lower abdomen.
o Severe bites by rabid animals to the face and digits, because of their rich nerve supply, are the most likely to lead to rabies and have the shortest incubation periods.
o Following the bite of a seal or contact with its tissues, sealers develop such agonizing pain and swelling in their bites that, far from medical care, they sometimes amputate their own fingers.
o Perhaps the most devastating human bite wound injuries are those involving the nose; doctors in Boroko near Papua, New Guinea, reported a series of ninety-five human bites treated in the Division of Surgery from 1986 to 1992---twelve were to the nose, nine in women, and three in men, and in most of the cases, the biter was an angry spouse.

With reports from medical journals, case histories, colleagues, and from her own twenty-eight-year career as a practicing physician and infectious diseases specialist, Pamela Nagami's Bitten offers readers intrigued by human infection and disease and mesmerized by creatures in p0the wild a compulsively readable narrative that is entertaining, sometimes disgusting, and always enjoyable.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this fascinating but frightening book, Nagami presents numerous case studies of infections contracted around the world from ants, spiders, mosquitoes, ticks, and other insects and from such larger animals as snakes, rats, alligators, dogs, cats, horses, monkeys and humans. Culling the research of doctors and scientists, Nagami (The Woman with a Worm in Her Head) describes, in accessible language, the symptoms and conditions. Many of the biters and stingers look harmless—like a sand fly that transmits an infection called leishmaniasis, which can eat away a person's nose. Some have a more frightening appearance, like the Indonesian Komodo dragon, the world's largest lizard, which is known to have eaten humans. But even the most familiar can pose grave threats to human health: mosquitoes, which carry West Nile virus, yellow fever and malaria; dogs, whose bites can transmit rabies; and humans, whose mouths contain a virulent bacterium. Insects also travel across continents, surprising unaware victims—and physicians: for example, the red fire ant, a native of South America, and the hobo spider, a native of Europe, both of which have venomous bites, have spread to large areas of the U.S. As Nagami points out, "despite our technological sophistication and urban sprawl, we can never isolate ourselves from the natural world." She adds to this absorbing read an extensive glossary and bibliography.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Sometimes it's as obvious as a crocodile's steely jaws closing on a limb. Other times, it's a sting that remains undetected until there is observable swelling, redness, fever, or worse. Thousands of different types of creatures bite or sting people millions of times daily, and there is no escape from this predation. From the jungles of Peru to the Alaskan frontier to the streets of New York, humans fall victim to all manner of dental assaults, the vast majority of which are as harmless as the itching welt left by the common mosquito. But the deadly sting of a Portuguese man-of-war, or the infectious bite of a human being, can threaten life and limb. In chapter after grisly chapter, infectious disease specialist Nagami describes the case histories of persons bitten or stung by creatures great and small. The world tour she conducts, which also explores treatments and cures, takes in such diverse perils as the African tsetse fly, the Komodo dragon, fire ants, family pets, garfish, and donkeys. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (July 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312318227
• ISBN-13: 978-0312318222
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #484,083 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Compelling Treatise on Hazards of Being Bitten, May 12, 2005

By 

G. Poirier (Orleans, ON, Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bitten: True Medical Stories of Bites and Stings (Hardcover)

This well-written and most informative book is a real eye-opener. It made me wonder how it is that the human race has managed to survive this long, given the dangers that lurk out in nature. The author, a physician specializing in infection disease, has done an excellent job in describing the various hazards of being bitten or stung. She discusses the "dangerous" creatures themselves, the biological effects on humans of their bites, stings, etc., and, most importantly, several real life cases - these add a powerful element of reality to the potential dangers involved. Creatures discussed vary from ants, spiders and snails, all the way to monkeys and humans. This book is written in an engaging and authoritative style, and is very difficult to put down. All humans should read it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good read - but not right before you go to bed., April 3, 2009

By 

Reginauld Thurston Powers III "Regi" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bitten: True Medical Stories of Bites and Stings (Paperback)

This is a very well written and well documented book which discusses many stories in which people have been bitten by bugs, animals, and even humans. The first few chapters focus on the many kinds of insects that live among humans, biting them if they get the chance; including red fire ants, black widow and brown recluse spiders, scorpions and more. Other chapters focus on snake bites, jellyfish stings, parasitism by ticks, and more. Some of the chapters talk about bites from different kinds of insects, such as the tsetse fly which then transfers a protozoan which causes a horrible disease to the people which these tiny organisms infest. Many of the chapters after that focus on bites from larger animals, crocodiles, komodo dragons, rabid wild animals, ferrets, dogs, cats, horses, etc. Many of these all carry disease causing bacteria which can infest and kill the human host to which they are transferred. The final chapter focuses on humans in which the author tells stories of accidental bites which can cause in some cases life-threatening diseases; as well as purposeful bites from people wanting to inflict pain and spread deadly diseases to others out of vengeance and rage.

When I first started reading this book I thought that no scary movie could give me the chills the same way this book did when I read it at night right before going to bed. There were a couple of nights when I just lay in bed thinking about all the little creepy crawlies that could potentially come and bite me. It gave me the shudders. Then as I read about all the bacteria and diseases that could be spread by animals, even healthy animals, and that most of the diseases are preventable as long as you get your bite looked at right away I was glad to have read such an informative book.

This book is not for the faint of heart. It is not a book for light bedside reading. However, this is a very informative book with many stories of people who overcame serious bites and infections, and also many stories of those unfortunate people who very sadly passed away because of causes related to the bite they received. I would recommend this book to someone who is interested in learning more about life, and some of its pains. Although the author is a Medical Doctor and often refers to treatment of bites and prescriptions given for certain bacteria and diseases, this book is not recommended as a primary source of medical help after one has been bitten. One who has received a bite should go to a doctor to get it checked out and to receive the proper medical attention.

The author includes a glossary of terms in the end of the book, as well as a long list of references, and finally ending with an index.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Part natural history work, part medical thriller, very interesting book, June 3, 2007

By 

Tim F. Martin (Madison, AL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bitten: True Medical Stories of Bites and Stings (Paperback)

_Bitten_ by Pamela Nagami, is a very interesting and well-researched popular science compilation of information and stories about just about every animal that stings, bites, or can carry infectious disease. Though a few are left out (notably sharks), a great many are included, each chapter often opening up with an interesting case history of a person afflicted by one of the animals in question, followed up by information on the organism, details on the disease that they may spread, and generally several other case histories of various patients throughout the world (some of which are from the author's own experiences as a practicing physician specialized in infectious disease). I found riveting not only some of the case histories but also the incredible medical detective stories, both those relating to saving patient's lives and in other instances the struggle to develop an anti-venom or to find the animal spreading a disease. Several chapters included information on what the reader should do when confronted by this animal (for example tips on safe tick removal and effective treatment for cat and dog bites). A helpful glossary and extensive bibliography are included.

The first several animals included in the book are dangerous mainly because of their venomous bites or stings, namely fire ants, several spider species, Portuguese man-of-war and various jellyfish species, cone snails, and a number of venomous snakes.

The fire ant chapter was illuminating. I was fascinated to learn that fire ants are even more trouble than I had imagined; livestock have been known to starve when fire ants render their food inaccessible, thousands of trout have been found that died from venom poisoning after eating swarms of winged males and queens that had flown into lakes, and fire ants, attracted to the warmth of heated asphalt, have caused rural roads to collapse as they built mounds beneath them, the undermined soil eventually subsiding and causing the road to collapse.

The chapter on spiders was also quite interesting. The reasons why small spider bites can cause such huge problems for victims is still incompletely understood, but may have to do with an enzyme found in some spider venom (such as that of the brown recluse) that attacks and dissolves cell membranes. This enzyme sets a victim's defenses against his or her own tissue, leading white blood cells to dissolve a victim's flesh. This necrotic arachnidism is a worldwide problem and there isn't any consensus on best treatment.

The next group of animals was largely included for the ability to transmit infectious disease. Included in this section are ticks, tsetse flies (with the emphasis being largely on sleeping sickness), and the sandfly (which spread leishmaniasis, parasitic diseases of the skin, moist membranes of the mouth and airway, liver, spleen, and bone marrow, caused by protozoa of the genus _Leishmania_ ). Also included was a chapter on the West Nile virus, a chapter which read like a medical thriller.

Tick paralysis was very interesting to read about. At first a rather mysterious paralytic illness, physicians discovered that an attached tick could cause a type of spreading paralysis in a person or in livestock, a completely debilitating and even potentially fatal paralysis yet one that can be stopped and completely reversed when the tick is found and removed (viewers of the show _House_ will remember a case of tick paralysis from the series; indeed many of the case histories sound like the opening segments of a _House_ episode, minus of course the misanthropic doctor).

It was sad to learn that human African trypanosomiasis (East African and West African sleeping sickness) was present on the continent since prehistoric times but only became widely disseminated when Africans left their ancestral homelands thanks to roads and railways brought by the Europeans during the colonial period, a problem exacerbated when what measure of disease control maintained by the empires collapsed during the civil wars and chaos left in the wake of the European withdrawal.

Massive efforts were made to control sleeping sickness, including for a time the draconian method of wholesale destruction of wild game. In addition to "being repugnant to practically everyone," these efforts were doomed to fail because the tsetse fly, when deprived of lions, hartebeests, and bushbucks, simply moved to smaller game, and in areas cleared of wildlife, humans and their livestock moved in, becoming replacement hosts themselves for the parasites. Nagami quoted from Dr. Robert Desowitz, the author of an essay on sleeping sickness ("The Fly Who Would Be King"), who noted that "the tsetse and the trypanosome are the most stalwart guardians of the African ecosystem and its magnificent wild fauna."

The final section looked at animals that pose a danger from the damage caused by their teeth and claws and from the infection of those wounds. Included in this section where chapters on the komodo dragon, alligators, crocodiles, dogs, cats, ferrets, rats, horses, donkeys, camels, garfish, seals, roosters, owls, monkeys, the wildlife that spreads rabies, and surprisingly humans (human bite injuries, particularly to the knuckle joint, can become infected with the bacterium _Eikenella corrodens_ which can cause irreversible damage).

I was surprised to read how vicious ferrets can be. In 1988 alone physicians in Denver, Colorado reported three cases of severe facial injuries to infants from attacks by pet ferrets. In one instance a three-month-old girl, placed in her crib with her bottle, was attacked by the family ferret which managed to climb in and a few minutes chew off forty percent of both her ears. Another patient, a baby girl, lost her nose to a ferret attack.

A very interesting series of chapters, the squeamish reader is warned about "seal finger" (a bacterial infection caused by seal bites, one that can cause swollen and stiff fingers and joints and pain so agonizing that sealers once amputated their own fingers for relief) and rats eating the flesh of sleeping people (those with nerve damage, such from diabetes and leprosy, are quite susceptible to rat attacks at night).