Man and Microbes: Disease and Plagues in History and Modern Times [Paperback]

Arno Karlen (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0684822709 | ISBN-13: 978-0684822709 | Publication Date: May 22, 1996 | Edition: Touchstone ed

AIDS, Lyme disease, and the deadly hantavirus are just a few of the dozens of new diseases to arrive in recent years. Old ones such as TB and cholera have returned with sharper virulence. Where do new diseases come from? Why are old ones back as vicious changelings? Why now? We created this epidemic of epidemics by transforming our environment and behavior - our landscape, technology, and sex lives. Thus we hasten microbes' evolution and our own, making the world a global village for diseases. In Man and Microbes, respected science writer Arno Karlen presents a dramatic panorama of the natural history of disease. Drawing on case studies and tales of medical detection, he uncovers the ills of ancient hunter-gatherers, relates the rise of diseases that came with each domesticated species, and exposes the origins of modern urban epidemics. Citing original sources and extensive research, Karlen recounts the terror of measles and smallpox that raked the ancient empires of Rome and China; the intertwined stories of leprosy and tuberculosis throughout thousands of years of history; the onslaught of European microbes that devastated the peoples of the Americas far more than did the firearms of their conquerors; and the much-forgotten influenza pandemic of 1918 that killed tens of millions. He also analyzes the most recent medical reports of mysterious new diseases from around the world and provides a view of how they have arisen and what they bode for the future. Man and Microbes makes clear that infection is a natural and necessary part of life. It shows how the search for food, shelter, and a safer, more prosperous life has altered the environment, changed the dance of adaptation betweenhumans and microbes, and generated new diseases. The means to surmount the growing public health crisis in our ever-accelerating global society lie in the same ingenuity that created it. Understanding the complex and vital relationships between man and microbe can help us tame or mak

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Whereas many popular books on microbes focus on contemporary pathogens and emerging epidemics, Arno Karlen's Man and Microbes provides a historical look at the coevolution of humans and microorganisms. Karlen speculates that infections are integral to the process of life itself, that the mitochondria in every animal cell, for instance, are likely descendants of infectious agents. He then traces the development of man from primitive hunter-gatherer to urban dweller to world traveler, pointedly analyzing how socio-ecological changes have contributed to the changing incidence of disease. With amazing detail, Karlen describes the origins of historical plagues (smallpox, cholera, influenza, polio, and others) as well as the emergence of scourges such as hemorrhagic fever (Ebola and its cousins), Lyme disease, Legionnaires' disease, and even the deep mysteries of retroviruses such as HIV.

From Publishers Weekly

Karlen (Napoleon's Glands) has produced a disturbing, succinct, compelling report on the current global crisis of new and resurgent diseases. Covering cholera, leprosy, cancer, AIDS, viral encephalitis, lethal Ebola fever, streptococcal "flesh-eating" infections and a host of other killers, he shows how the present wave of diseases arose with drastic environmental change, wars, acceleration of travel, the breakdown of public health measures, and microbial adaptation. In the book's first half, he entertainingly charts humanity's relationship with microbes, from the earliest hominids' probable encounters with bubonic plague to hunter-gatherers' comparative good health, the explosion of sickness in Bronze Age cities and the spread of infections with trade, conquest and empire. Karlen concludes that today's epidemics are part of an ancient pattern-whenever people make radical changes in their lifestyle and environment, disease flourishes. He suggests that improved surveillance could help defuse the crisis we face now.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; Touchstone ed edition (May 22, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684822709
• ISBN-13: 978-0684822709
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #159,385 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "In the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him", February 25, 2002

By 

Roger McEvilly (the guilty bystander) (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Man and Microbes: Disease and Plagues in History and Modern Times (Paperback)

So the author of revelation saw the lethal side of cities (quoted on page 48), or as Mr Arno Karlen better describes-"as farmers and villagers began crowding into cities, this immunologically virgin mass offered a feast to germs lurking in domesticated animals, wastes, filth, and scavengers" (page 48).

This book provides a reasonable overview of germs and social history. Mr Karlen traces the development of agriculture and cities to the development of 'crowd diseases', jumping ship from previous group species such as horses, pigs, ducks, rats, etc, or mutating from previously benign forms, or appearing and diappearing from nowhere, leaving little trace. As far as other species influence goes-that old friend the dog is suggested to have contributed no less than 65 diseases to homo sapien (page 39), with 45 from cattle, and 35 fom horses.

The reader will find discussion on the likely origins and developments of eg measles (possibly from distemper in dogs, although Diamond in the book "Guns Germs and Steel" suggests cattle), smallpox (dogs or cattle), influenza (pigs and ducks), common cold (horses?), scarlet fever, typhus, bubonic plague (fleas), syphilis, gonorrhea, cholera (lives in water), AIDS (probably chimps), malaria (mosquito), tuberculosis, leprosy, legionaires disease, and a host of others. Various historical calamities are described such as:

- Athens which lost 1 in 3 people in 430 BC, (unknown- possibly measles, typhoid, scarlet fever, smallpox), and which ended the so-called 'golden age' of Greece.
-AD 164-180+ Roman empire-4-7 million deaths, (probably smallpox),
-540 AD+ bubonic plague-halving Europes population over the next 150 years,
-200 BC to 200 AD smallpox and measles ravaged China and Japan (many other times also),
-several waves-657-1551 AD-"sweating sickness" (appears to have gone extinct),
-AD 125- 1 million deaths in north Africa alone (?measles)
-AD 79 Rome-Anthrax, or possibly malaria
-later 20 century-present-AIDS, -millions and climbing,
-1348-1352 AD bubonic plague, with several waves- 25 million plus in Europe, more in the east,
-1800s- several waves-cholera and yellow fever in Europe,
-1492-1800s+-Americas estimated 90 million deaths of indigenous populations,
-1918, influenza-around 40 million.
-many others.

Older calamities are often less well documented in eg Africa, India, China, etc. 20th century examples are many, often small, and often a 'new' disease-eg page 6 lists a partial list of around 20 'new' diseases in latter 20 century outbreaks, including ebola and legionaires.

Readers will be interested to read of the social changes which were influenced by many of these outbreaks, such as the tragic conquest of the Europeans into the Americas, and the decline of the Roman Empire-partly due to successive ravages of various plagues. As the empire expanded it brought back numerous germs, something which was forgotten by the time partly immune explorers brought them again to other lands in the second millenium AD.

Modern examples and resurgences are also discussed such as Lyme disease, mad cow disease, AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, legionaires, etc. Most diseases tend to decline over time as a population becomes immune, (eg Syphilis, since about 1492) but a few seem to go the other way-eg polio and tuberculosis-ie they increase in severity. Modern examples which make medical specialists nervous in the modern age are also described, such as hantaviruses, ebola, TB, hepatitus, AIDS -especially of mutation, and malaria, but there are a host of others.

The thing I find fascinating, and sad about this book, is the complexity of the immune system, and how these diseases originate and proliferate. Many have jumped from other species, some have always been with us- but ocassionally mutate into a virulent form. Some have always been around in water or elsewhere, and mutute/evolve occassionally -like Legionaires disease. It is an ever-present war, and one which has greatly influenced history.

The book provides a stark analysis of human history and the ruthlessness of life with germs, but despite the general negativity of this book, one must also appreciate how far we have come, and in how many ways we succeed against these diseases, and continue to succeed. New diseases are inevitable, but Ridley suggests in the book "Disease" that the future may well be in DNA vaccines. One can only hope.

One disapppointment is the lack of deeper medical explanation on eg how diseases function, and why some are more effective than others, and various aspects of the immune system etc. There is a distinct lack of deeper medical analysis, for those like myself who want a deeper medical investigation.

Recommended for those who are interested in how sickness has affected history, but not so much *why* we get sick, in any great detail.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A disease progress report at the end of the 20th Century, May 3, 2000

By 

Anthony R. Dickinson (WashU Med School, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Man and Microbes: Disease and Plagues in History and Modern Times (Paperback)

Published in the UK as `Plague's Progress: A Social History of Man and Disease', Karlen provides the reader here with an excellent introduction to the topic of the natural, as well as social history of the most common human life-threatening diseases. Covered here are all the usual (as well as some more unusual) suspects, from mediaeval plagues to AIDS and CJD; from soldiers not warring due to disease outbreak, to war outbreak being signalled by disease. Although there are some one-liners for conspiracy theorists with regards man-made disease vectors, the principal thesis of this book is that new pandemic and epidemic outbreaks of disease result from changes in human and other microbe host behaviours and the situated environment(s) in which these changes take place. For example, changes in land usage, habitat (as much in the `home' as in the field), species interactions, development & redevelopment, etc.., necessarily give rise to novel ecological niches available for exploitation by any number of host/pathogenic organisms and disease vector transmission pathways. Karlen is correct to further emphasise the point that such opportunist developments and novel disease situations arise from constructive events (aircraft transportation of secondary hosts, air-conditioner habitats and overuse of antibiotics) as much as from destructive events (deforestation and animal extintions give rise to traditional host-parasite species shifts). A useful summary table is provided of the time-line of recent life-threatening contagious diseases, but I found myself annotating the margin with a few more details concerning each (e.g., secondary host - rodent, cattle, insect; virus/bacteria/protozoan organism etc) - all of which was nonetheless available in the text of the book. Although a delicate subject for those suffering from any of the conditions described here (both directly and by atives/carers nearby), Karlen presents both an informative and entertaining dialogue for the newcomer to the topic of disease - clearly accessible and in non-technical language for the lay reader looking for a clearer understanding of a life-threatening phenomena that is likely to always be with us in some form. If I were to have any grumbles, they would relate solely to a few of my own particular interests in a couple of theories given short thrift here. Such might include exposures to man-made/altered disease vectors (cf: Moreno; whether they be designed for plant, insect or human control via innoculation) and the theories put forward by writers such as Lyn Margulis (symbiotic evolution) and the more esoteric writings of Hoyle & Wickramasinge or Francis Crick. So much better informed concerning the role of natural, political and historical events influencing pandemic and epidemic disease evolution, following our reading of this Kaplan book one might be in a better position to explain our forgetting of the 1918 flu pandemic, the last widespread disease within living memory, taking a total number of lives far greater than the toll of the last century's World Wars combined. How, and whether, such information will be used to manage the future of our social behaviour, demography, medical practice, and our continuing scientific research culture, we must await the coming years to find out.

References:

Crick: Life Itself.

Hoyle & Wickramasinge: Diseases from Space; Evolution from Space.

Margulis & Fester: Symbiosis as a source of Evolutionary Innovation.

Margulis & Sagan: Microcosmos.

Moreno: Undue Risk.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Microbe Primer!, February 14, 2001

By 

Kevin Spoering (Buffalo, Missouri United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Man and Microbes: Disease and Plagues in History and Modern Times (Paperback)

This book briefly sketches plagues and infectious diseases, from ancient times and of earliest recorded writings, to the present day (1995). Some terrible times for humanity are included in this book, such as when 5000 people a day were dying in Rome around A.D. 251-266 from perhaps measles or smallpox plague, to present day AIDS.

Arno Karlen writes in a style very easy to read. The science in this book seems to be excellent, you can learn a lot about how diseases are spread, from animals and insects to us, and between people, and how diseases mutate over time and people adapt to them so they are sometimes less virulent later than when first encountered. Also covered is how diseases are spread thru behavior and when man alters his environment, two examples being cities and agriculture.

Many diseases are covered in this volume, if you are interested in reading more about any individual disease there are books on just about any one of them to learn more.