Chrissie's Books

3 stars
This book is in-depth. The focus is on history, detailed facts and what we can do to prevent and cope with new maladies. Even if the book is no longer new, it still teaches a lot. We can learn from past mistakes. For me, parts read as a horror story. Then I calmed down. It first came out in 1994, and hey, we are still here! Did I become immune to the horror?! Or did it finally put me to sleep? In places, it sort of felt like a text book. My education was not adequate for a complete understanding of some of the medical discussions. It is heavily footnoted and has an index too. It is no sensational, quick read. It is both scary and deadening. Yes, the pun was intended. The book is directed toward serious readers who want the complete history of the new plagues that have confronted us in the last century, think the Bolivian hemorrhagic fever, the Marbug virus, Yellow fever, the Brazilian meningitis epidemic, Lassa fever, Ebola, swine flu, Legionnaires’ disease, sexually transmitted diseases and injecting drug users, AIDS, toxic shock syndrome and what can be done to stop this trend. Elimination of a disease threat is inextricably bound to economics, development and politics. The fight against disease is inextricably a fight against world poverty.

Here is the truth: to complete this book I forced myself to read one chapter a day.

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After Chapter 5: Definitely interesting but hard to read. I am no hypochondriac; I tend to treat pains with nonchalance in fact, but when you read this book you start worrying. You certainly get scared of traveling to Africa, and you wash your hands a lot.

Have decided to read a chapter a day, which is about all I can handle, due only to my own fears. So far I have learned about Yellow fever, Ebola, Lassa fever, Marburg virus.....