Customer Reviews

Viruses, Plagues, and History

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This interesting book gives an introduction to virology and explains how infectious disease, in particular viral epidemic diseases, has changed human history. It describes the often heroic efforts of scientists and virologists who pioneered their identification, pathogenesis, and prevention through vaccination. The next few paragraphs will give some perspective on the importance of these efforts and the effect infectious disease has had upon human history (mostly based on the content of this book).

Small pox killed 300-500 million people in the twentieth century alone. That is about 7-12% of everyone who died in the 20th century and more than four times more deaths than caused by all the wars during the 20th century. Since 1979 not a single person has died from small pox. Small pox is an example of a success story. Other amazing success stories are the conquest over poliomyelitis, yellow fever, and measles.

Hygiene and modern medicine have together with other technological and scientific progress enabled the human population on this planet to grow from half a billion to six and a half billion people in a few hundred years, at the same time as it has improved the human condition immensely. It used to be the world wide norm that more than half of the kids died before adulthood and the average life span was 30 years or less. Not even the worst countries in the world today are that miserable. It is clear that the fight against infectious disease has greatly altered the human condition and history. It is also the major reason why we worry so much about heart disease and cancer today.

In the past migrations and conquests often resulted in plagues that changed the course of history. The great Islamic expansion across North Africa and into the Iberian Peninsula in the sixth to eight centuries spread smallpox across Africa and into Europe. The bubonic plague that killed 75 million people world wide and 25 million people in Europe was carried east from central Asia and west along the Silk Road, by Mongol armies and traders making use of the opportunities of free passage within the Mongol Empire offered by the Pax Mongolica. It was reportedly first introduced to Europe at the trading city of Caffa in the Crimea in 1347. 20-40 million people died from influenza during and soon after World War I, and the flu probably aided the allies in defeating the Germans.

The inadvertent arrival of small pox played a crucial role in the Spanish conquest of Mexico and Peru, the Portuguese colonization of Brazil, the settlement of North America by English and French, as well as the settlements of Australia. As many as 50-100 million native Americans may have died from small pox and other diseases over a few hundred years, which essentially decimated the native population. With so much of the native Indian labor force lost, the impetus grew to bring slaves from West Africa. African slaves in turn brought Yellow fever to the Americas. It should be noted that Africans had better resistance against yellow fever, and the peoples of the old world had better resistance against measles and small pox than the Native Americans had. Infectious disease often assisted conquerors, changed the outcome of battles, and changed history time and time again.

However, the fight against infectious disease continues. Malaria killed 250 million people during the 20th century, and still kills between one and three million people every year. Tuberculosis kills one to two million people every year, pneumonia kills millions of people every year, and Aids kills about two million people every year.

This book begins with an introduction to virology and the principles of immunology, and then continues by describing a few success stories (smallpox, yellow fever, measles and poliomyelitis), and next the current challenges (Lassa fever, Ebola, Hantavirus, HIV, Spongiform Encephalopathies, and Influenza), and finally it provides some future predictions. In each chapter the book describes the disease and gives an overview of the effect the various epidemics has had on history and how the fight against the disease was carried on or is carried on. The topic of the book is very interesting and important; however, the writing is a little dry. Another book on this topic that I can recommend is Man and Microbes: Disease and Plagues in History and Modern Times.

This is an good book that unfortunately starts out in a very forbidding manner with a difficult (at least for me) introduction to the principles of virology in Chapter 1 followed by the principles of immunology in Chapter 2, but then gets very readable. The material on smallpox and yellow fever is fascinating. Oldstone leaves it unclear whether mad cow disease is caused by a miss-manufactured prion protein or by a virus: Others books, including Richard Rhodes' Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague (1997), clearly cite the cause as being faulty prion protein production in the brain.

This is not for the squeamish. I confess that there were twenty or so pages on polio that I skipped, not wanting to relive that sadness, although of course the defeat of polio is one of the great triumphs in the history of medicine. Incidentally, the title owes something to the classic Rats, Lice and History, by Hans Zinsser, first published in 1934, a book that has enjoyed a well-deserved and remarkable commercial success not easily duplicated.

It is a shame that the decisive impact of communicable diseases on history are typically underplayed in school books. This information needs to be known by every educated person. Dr. Oldstone's book provides both an account of medical progress and its context in social and cultural history. In meeting these goals, this book succeeds admirably. Dr. Oldstone writes well. His expertise shines in his understanding of critical events in scientific development, and his knowledge of the contributions of both well-known and obscure scientists indicates a mastery of the breadth of the field. This scholarship is enhanced by his personal interactions with many of the 20th Century's great virologists, many of them familiar names, including Salk, Sabin, Montagnier, Gallo and Enders, among others. Some of the best illustrations in the books come from Dr. Oldstone's own research.
The discussion of the impact of viral disease on wars and public life are both factual and pointed. Having recently read, Jared Diamond's important book, "Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies", I find Dr. Oldstone's exposition of many of the same stories support Diamond's conclusions while providing important additional information. I have read many other discussions of the disastrous impact of smallpox virus on Native Americans, but Oldstone goes beyond reporting victimization to point out that the Chiefs of the Five Nations were astute enough to be among the first to adopt Edward Jenner's discovery and vaccinate their own people, while in Europe resistance to this new approach continued. The Chiefs sent Jenner a letter and a ceremonial belt in thanks for his discovery.
It is fascinating how the social responses to lethal epidemics have not changed over the centuries, even into the 1990's (panic, cover-up, attempts to turn away fleeing refugees). The horrendous yellow fever epidemic of 1878 in my home town, Memphis, Tennessee, is described in some detail, particularly pointing out the selfless devotion of the physicians, nurses and religious orders who chose to stay, 60% of whom did not survive.
There are, however, some weaknesses. The third chapter, on immunology, is written very densely. Unlike the other chapters, there is no historical development, just a statement of the facts. Since this chapter contains information important for understanding later chapters, it should have been better developed with historical anecdotes to increase interest. The book is limited to a selection of viruses, but the reason for their inclusion and not others is unstated. Some very poorly-understood (but very dangerous) viruses are included, while others of great interest to a general audience (rhinoviruses = cold viruses) are absent. Research on many of these viruses and the eradication of poliovirus continues to advance, so that the information in this book should already be supplemented with readings from current science news. The editing by Oxford University Press is erratic and flawed. There are many typos and omissions. For example, in Chapter 13 the work of Zigas and Gajdusek on Kuru is first located in New Zealand, later (correctly) in New Guinea. In the same chapter I read that meat contaminated with Mad Cow disease was mislabeled and sold in St. Petersburg, but that turns out to be St. Petersburg, Russia, not Florida, as I first guessed. Many dates are absent, which makes it hard to get a sense of the rate of progress. The index is very sparse. For example, although rabies is mentioned in the text, there is no index entry for that virus. The description and explanation of ultrafiltration devices and other material is repeated several times in various chapters. The Works Cited contains numerous identical references to the same papers, for example the historic 1989 paper of Loeffler and Frosch on hoof and mouth disease.
Overall, the problems amount to an irritation. I recommend this book as an introduction to the field.

I ordered three books on similar subjects, "Viruses, Plagues, and History", "Man and Microbes", and "Plagues and Peoples" at the same time. Each book has something different to recommend it. My least favorite was "Plagues and Peoples". The writing was pompous and cumbersome, and while the thesis of the book, that man's relationship to society and our planet is pathogenic, is interesting, it can be conveyed in one sentence. There is not a lot of readable material about the actual history of disease in the book. I got a lot more by far out of both "Man and Microbes" and "Viruses, Plagues, and History". Both of these books are filled with interesting facts and stories of how disease has impacted human history. I will definitely keep and re-read both books. As an earlier reviewer noted, the first section of "Viruses, Plagues, and History", entitled "Introduction to the Principles of Virology" is pretty intimidating. If the science bothers the reader too much, it really doesn't hurt to skip this chapter. Maybe the rest of the book will interest the non-scientific reader enough so he will go back and read this section later. Part Two of the book is entitled "Success Stories". It contains fascinating and very graphic descriptions of some very bad diseases and interesting stories about the effects these diseases have had on the course of history. Part Three is "Present and Future Challenges", about some of the newly emerging diseases that are making headlines today. The author is a true professional in the biomedical field, and in his preface, he tells about reading "Microbe Hunters" in junior high and how it inspired him in his education and career to meet many of the foremost experts on viral diseases and become one himself. I think this is a very, very interesting book.

I love history and science and I thought this book was a good mix of the two. The first couple chapters are a little technical but informative and understandable. I loved reading how diseases altered the histories of empires, info that you might not necessarily read in just a straight up history book.I also really enjoyed the look at work that is presently underway to prevent future pandemics such as the avian flu and the work being put in to curb the continued spread of HIV and find an eventual cure. The stories contained in these pages makes you appreciate the period we live in and all the contributions and sacrifices made by the researchers that came before us.

this is more of a historical book than a scientific book. It tells how viruses have changed history and talks about how history might have been if a plague did not happen. It is for a reader with a nonscientific background, as it has two chapters on basic immunology and viral characteristics. Overall, it has been an informative and well written book, although at some times dry.

Pros
The book gives us introduction about the different kinds of viruses and plagues that we are encountering that helps the reader to communicate about it. It is very interesting about how the book talks on the cause and effects to the people and also on its relationship to different countries and cultures. I like the book on how it refreshes my memory. In addition, this book reminds about the virulence of the viruses. Good book for reading interest or references.
Cons
I did not like some of the chapters because you need to have knowledge on their topic in order to really understand what the author wants to say. For instance, one chapter has plenty of terms that needed to understand for a novice person. Figures should be more colorful especially if they are trying to show the viruses on a microscopic view. In addition, the author should also balance of each chapter that some of the chapter tell us only small amount of information.

I was not impressed by this book. I admit I have, so far, only glanced at it. What I found was:

- one factual error: Sherlock Holemns was based on Prof Joeseph Bell not Dr Charles Bell

- a very cursory description of the history and recent outbreak of the Ebola virus. I would expect Time magazine to have a better article;

- an exetremely cursory description of Hantaviruses. The Field Guide to Germs by Wayne Biddle does it better;

- avarege descriptions of the histories of "classic" infectious diseases such as yellow fever. I recommend Plague, Pox & Pestilence by Kenneth F. Kipple (Ed.) for an excellent lay introduction to the topic.