Beating Back the Devil: On the Front Lines with the Disease Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service

Flu: The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It

Gina Kolata · 338 pages

The fascinating, true story of the world's deadliest disease. In 1918, the Great Flu Epidemic felled the young and healthy virtually overnight. An estimated forty million people died as the epidemic raged. Children were left orphaned and families were devastated. As many American soldiers were killed by the 1918 flu as were killed in battle during World War I. And no area of the globe was safe. Es

The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

Laurie Garrett · 750 pages

This is an amazing book that Laura Garrett wrote back in the 90's. For anyone that has read the more popular book by Richard Preston "The Hot Zone" this is a must read. It is a much tighter more informative book. She takes us through the history of viruses in a journalistic/story approach. She breaks down the emergence of Ebola and the other emerging viruses and what it could mean in a brilliantl

The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus

Richard Preston · 384 pages

This interesting books talks about the author doing an investigation about several viruses in africa, including ebola. He explains the different strains and tells us their stories.

Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus

Bill Wasik, Monica Murphy · 288 pages

Charts the history, science, and cultural mythology of rabies, documenting how before its vaccine the disease caused fatal brain infections and sparked the creations of monsters, including werewolves, vampires and zombies.

Virus X: Tracking the New Killer Plagues

Frank Ryan · 448 pages

Dr. Frank Ryan takes us into the "hot zones" of today's most dangerous outbreaks, then into the research laboratories and hospitals, where he spotlights the scientists and doctors who are risking their lives to contain them. In telling this global story, he uncovers a frightening pattern - and concludes that new, deadlier diseases are even now waiting to emerge. Why do such plagues arise? Where do

The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years

Sonia Shah · 307 pages

Traces the centuries-long battle to treat and prevent malaria in numerous regions of the world while revealing how hundreds of millions of people are infected annually in spite of available preventions.

Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague

Richard Rhodes · 259 pages

It lurks in the meat we eat. Undetectable, it incubates for years. It kills by eating holes in people's brains, so that they stagger and collapse and lose their minds. It's one hundred percent fatal. And it's already abroad in America. Deadly Feasts reads like a Michael Crichton thriller - but it's documented fact, bringing sober early warning of a new threat to our very lives that every one of us

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History

John M. Barry · 546 pages

At the height of WWI, history's most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collisio

Killer Germs: Microbes and Diseases That Threaten Humanity

Barry E. Zimmerman, David J. Zimmerman · 272 pages

The book goes on a fascinating journey into the amazing world of viruses, bacteria, protozoa, fungi, and worms and explores the roles they have played in shaping the course of human history. From biblical plagues, to the AIDS crisis, to supergerms of the future, this updated and revised edition of the original covers the whole gamut of diseases that have threatened humanity since its origins. It a

Polio: An American Story

David M. Oshinsky · 342 pages

[This book] tells the ... story of the polio terror and of the intense effort to find a cure, from the March of Dimes to the discovery of the Salk and Sabin vaccines--and beyond.-Dust jacket.

Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic

David Quammen · 592 pages

This work examines the emergence and causes of new diseases all over the world, describing a process called "spillover" where illness originates in wild animals before being passed to humans and discusses the potential for the next huge pandemic. The emergence of strange new diseases is a frightening problem that seems to be getting worse. In this age of speedy travel, it threatens a worldwide pan

The Remedy: Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest to Cure Tuberculosis

Thomas Goetz · 298 pages

"The riveting history of tuberculosis, the world's most lethal disease, the two men whose lives it tragically intertwined, and the birth of medical science. In 1875, tuberculosis was the deadliest disease in the world, accountable for a third of all deaths. A diagnosis of TB-often called consumption-was a death sentence. Then, in triumph of medical science, a German doctor named Robert Koch deploy

Viruses, Plagues and History

Michael B.A. Oldstone · 305 pages

"Nearly 300 million people were killed by smallpox over the course of the twentieth century. During the years 1918 and 1919, a deadly variant of the influenza strain claimed over 20 million lives. And today we face new viral threats: mad cow disease, the Hantavirus, and of course, AIDS. As Michael Oldstone illustrates here, the story of viruses and the story of humanity have overlapped since the d

No Time to Lose: A Life in Pursuit of Deadly Viruses

Peter Piot · 387 pages

A microbiologist describes his adventure-filled career, discussing his time spent in Central Africa in the 1970s identifying the Ebola virus and his work there again in the 1980s as part of the area's first international AIDS efforts.

How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS

David France · 640 pages

"From the creator of and inspired by the seminal documentary of the same name--an Oscar nominee--the definitive history of the successful battle to halt the AIDS epidemic, and the powerful, heroic stories of the gay activists who refused to die without a fight. Intimately reported, this is the story of the men and women who, watching their friends and lovers fall, ignored by public officials, reli

The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World

Steven Johnson · 299 pages

A thrilling historical account of the worst cholera outbreak in Victorian London-and a brilliant exploration of how Dr. John Snow's solution revolutionized the way we think about disease, cities, science, and the modern world.From the dynamic thinker routinely compared to Malcolm Gladwell, E. O. Wilson, and James Gleick, The Ghost Map is a riveting page-turner with a real-life historical hero that

And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

Randy Shilts · 651 pages

The blueprint of 20th century investigative journalism. Tracing the course of HIV/AIDS through society; from its earliest as then unknown incarnation, to the height of this 1980s hysteria – the death of Rock Hudson: Shilts's book should be in every High School's final academic examinations coursework reading list, as a compulsory item. An unregrettable read.

The American Plague

Molly Caldwell Crosby · 320 pages

In this account, a journalist traces the course of yellow fever, stopping in 1878 Memphis to "vividly [evoke] the Faulkner-meets-'Dawn of the Dead' horrors,"*-and moving on to today's strain of the killer virus.Over the course of history, yellow fever has paralyzed governments, halted commerce, quarantined cities, moved the U.S. capital, and altered the outcome of wars. During a single summer in M

Vaccinated: One Man's Quest to Defeat the World's Deadliest Diseases

Paul A. Offit · 254 pages

Maurice Hilleman's mother died a day after he was born and his twin sister stillborn. As an adult, he said that he felt he had escaped an appointment with death. He made it his life's work to see that others could do the same. Born into the life of a Montana chicken farmer, Hilleman ran off to the University of Chicago to become a microbiologist, and eventually joined Merck, the pharmaceutical com

The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS

Helen C. Epstein · 352 pages

"The Invisible Cure will change the way we think about AIDS, a disease without precedent; and it will change the way we think about Africa and Africans, whose insight, wisdom, and care for the stranger will be as crucial as money and medical know-how if they are to overcome this terrible health crisis."--Jacket.

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race

Walter Isaacson · 560 pages

A scientific biography of Jennifer Doudna, a founder and co-developer of the CRISPR gene-editing mechanism, and an examination of what happened after CRISPR hit the marketplace.

The Medical Detectives

Berton Roueche · 432 pages

Three-Letter Plague: A Young Man's Journey Through a Great Epidemic

Jonny Steinberg · 342 pages

In this account, the author seeks to understand the AIDS crisis in South Africa.

The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels, and the Business of AIDS

Elizabeth Pisani · 386 pages

"In this breakneck ride through the red-light districts of East Asia and other hotspots in the flamboyant world of AIDS prevention, writer-scientist Elizabeth Pisani dishes on both friends and enemies in the battles where she has been on the front lines for more than a decade." "Pisani's swashbuckling wit takes no prisoners, as she exposes both those who think AIDS can be prevented by preaching ab