Rats, Lice, and History: Being a Study in Biography, Which, After Twelve Preliminary Chapters Indispensable for the Preparation of the Lay Reader, Deals With the Life History of Typhus Fever (Hardcover)

by Hans Zinsser (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
There are few topics more distressing than disease, yet there are few books more darkly delightful than this timeless classic about the histories of microbial diseases, rats, and lice, and the scientists and doctors who combatted them. First published in 1934 and still in print, this book combines science, history, biography, literature, and other fields into an elegant but grim package of broad erudition and darker humor. Here are two representative passages.

...[I]nfectious disease is merely a disagreeable instance of a widely prevalent tendency of all living creatures to save themselves the bother of building, by their own efforts, the things they require. Whenever they find it possible to take advantage of the constructive labors of others, this is the path of least resistance. The plant does the work with its roots and its green leaves. The cow eats the plant. Man eats both of them; and bacteria (or investment bankers) eat the man....

...[T]he natural history of the rat is tragically similar to that of man ... some of the more obvious qualities in which rats resemble men--ferocity, omnivorousness, and adaptability to all climates ... the irresponsible fecundity with which both species breed at all seasons of the year with a heedlessness of consequences, which subjects them to wholesale disaster on the inevitable, occasional failure of the food supply.... [G]radually, these two have spread across the earth, keeping pace with each other and unable to destroy each other, though continually hostile. They have wandered from East to West, driven by their physical needs, and--unlike any other species of living things--have made war upon their own kind. The gradual, relentless, progressive extermination of the black rat by the brown has no parallel in nature so close as that of the similar extermination of one race of man by another...

Elsewhere in the book, Zinsser is the equal of our greatest contemporary popular science writers, but as the above passages prove, he has a rather unique style. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Zinsser's raffiné account of lice and men remains a delight. Written in 1935 as a latter-day variation on Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Zinsser's book gives a picaresque account of how the history of the world has been shaped by epidemics of louseborne typhus.....Zinnser's romp through the ancient and modern worlds describes how epidemics devastated the Byzantines under Justinian, put Charles V atop the Holy Roman Empire, stopped the Turks at the Carpathians, and turned Napolean's Grand Armée back from Moscow." -- Gerald Weissmann, New York University --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 301 pages
• Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers (January 3, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1884822479
• ISBN-13: 978-1884822476
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #774,092 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best Biographies of the 20th Century, February 27, 2001

By	E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Rats, Lice, and History (Paperback)

The copy of "Rats, Lice, and History" that I own was published in 1963, and this was the 33rd time it had been reissued since first appearing in 1934. I can't imagine Dr. Zinsser's grumpily discursive, masterfully written, and ultimately profound biography of typhus fever ever going completely out of print. Stylistically the only work I can compare it to is Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". Where Gibbon occasionally dipped his pen in vinegar and excoriated the Christians, Zinsser dips his pen in hydrochloric acid and savages all of the quaint human customs that have kept Typhus alive and thriving. He shows much more affectionate sympathy for the louse than he does for the General or the Politician. Witness:

"The louse shares with us the misfortune of being prey to the typhus virus. If lice can dread, the nightmare of their lives is the fear of some day inhabiting an infected rat or human being. For the host may survive; but the ill-starred louse that sticks his haustellum through an infected skin, and imbibes the loathsome virus with his nourishment, is doomed beyond succor. In eight days he sickens, in ten days he is 'in extremis', on the eleventh or twelfth his tiny body turns red with blood extravasated from his bowel, and he gives up his little ghost."

In the interests of research, Zinsser carried pill boxes of lice under his socks for weeks at a time before taking "advantage of them for scientific purposes." He is not able to tear himself away from these little creatures and address the true subject of his biography, i.e. the typhus virus, until Chapter 12!

However, the journey to Chapter 12 is well worth taking because along the way, Zinsser wittily savages modern biographers, psychoanalysis, astronomers and physicists who "scamper back to God" (Biologists evidently are much less prone to being 'born again'), and of course, all of the wars that have given Typhus countless opportunities to murder lice and humans alike.

"Rats, Lice, and History" should be required reading for would-be writers for its style, would-be Generals for its lessons on how soldiers really die, and for anyone else who is interested in a passionate, eminently witty, one-of-a-kind history of medicine.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most fun you can have reading about typhus!, November 9, 2003

By	R. Kelly Wagner "[e-mail]" (MD, United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Rats, Lice, and History (Paperback)

First let me say that after you read this book, you should then read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, which is its logical successor.

Second: this book was written in the 1930's. This is before much of what we know about modern antibiotics was discovered - but that's one of the reasons you should read it: a reminder of just how recent modern medicine is, and how much power disease still has over us. This book is a stark reminder of how much hygiene has done to lengthen our lifespan, too - improving water supplies and eliminating rats from most households has done as much or more to extend the human lifespan as all the antibiotics we've invented.

Zinsser's list of what historical battles would have ended completely differently had not epidemic disease swept through one or another army is also chilling reading. Much of what we think of as inevitable human superiority was actually the work of bacteria, who didn't really care about our affairs. But despite the gloomy topic, as my title says, this book is the most fun you can possibly have while reading about epidemics. His humor is dry and biting - the deadpan recital of damages here, of misguided so-called scientists there... the editorial review above gives a couple such examples. The entire book is a fascinating read.

Some of the writing assumes that all readers were educated under an aristocratic university system, so that there are bits thrown in in Latin and Greek, not to mention French and other modern languages. The book can be read despite those, however. It might be tough going for high school students or even university undergrads, but would be a terrific addition to a history research paper, worth the slog for anyone willing to try it. And for those who have medicine and/or biology as an amateur interest, this is must reading.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Zinsser gave me a lifetime love for biology because of this., October 22, 1999

By A Customer

The book is a private conversation between the reader and the author. Zinsser presents a whole world in his seemingly unrelated first chapters' musings, but lays the groundwork for understanding his view of a world laid to waste by a humble bacterium. I have loved this book for at least 25 years, and have loaned and lost any number of copies to dear thieving friends.