That all changed in less than a generation with the discovery and development of a new category of medicine known as antibiotics. By 1955, the age-old evolutionary relationship between humans and microbes had been transformed, trivializing once-deadly infections. William Rosen captures this revolution with all its false starts, lucky surprises, and eccentric characters. He explains why, given the complex nature of bacteria—and their ability to rapidly evolve into new forms—the only way to locate and test potential antibiotic strains is by large-scale, systematic, trial-and-error experimentation. Organizing that research needs large, well-funded organizations and businesses, and so our entire scientific-industrial complex, built around the pharmaceutical company, was born. Timely, engrossing, and eye-opening, Miracle Cure is a must-read science narrative—a drama of enormous range, combining science, technology, politics, and economics to illuminate the reasons behind one of the most dramatic changes in humanity’s relationship with nature since the invention of agriculture ten thousand years ago.

    Mankind's battle to stay alive and healthy for as long as possible is our oldest, most universal struggle. With his characteristic wit and vastly informed historical scope, Roy Porter examines the war fought between disease and doctors on the battleground of the flesh from ancient times to the present. He explores the many ingenious ways in which we have attempted to overcome disease through the ages: the changing role of doctors, from ancient healers, apothecaries, and blood-letters to today's professionals; the array of drugs, from Ayurvedic remedies to the launch of Viagra; the advances in surgery, from amputations performed by barbers without anesthetic to today's sophisticated transplants; and the transformation of hospitals from Christian places of convalescence to modern medical powerhouses. Cleverly illustrated with historic line drawings, the chronic ailments of humanity provide vivid anecdotes for Porter's enlightening story of medicine's efforts to prevail over a formidable and ever-changing adversary.

    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 collision of science and epidemic disease. Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research and now revised to reflect the growing danger of the avian flu, The Great Influenza is ultimately a tale of triumph amid tragedy, which provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon. John M. Barry has written a new afterword for this edition that brings us up to speed on the terrible threat of the avian flu and suggest ways in which we might head off another flu pandemic.

    They are the powerhouses of our cells, essential for the production and management of energy at cell level. Dr Sarah Myhill, together with Dr John McLaren Howard of Acumen Laboratories and Dr Norman Booth of Mansfield College Oxford, has spent many years studying the relationship between their malfunction and the commonest problem seen by GPs in the UK – fatigue. Their research findings have been published in three scientific papers in the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, in 2009, 2012 and 2013. These studies showed that poor functioning of the mitochondria is the central problem in CFS. Patients with the worst mitochondrial function had the worst fatigue and vice versa. This is solid scientific evidence that CFS is a problem with mitochondria and has allowed the objective measurement of fatigue for the first time. With the publication of the third study, which showed that mitochondrial function tests and symptoms improved in patients who took measures to address their mitochondrial problems, Dr Myhill was ready to write this book. Here she explains the importance of healthy mitochondria, how we can measure their functioning and what we can do to keep them healthy, or restore them to health if problems arise. CFS is all in our cells, not in our minds!

    Jonathan B. Tucker traces the history of the smallpox virus from its first recorded outbreak around 3700 B.C. through its use as the first biological warfare agent in human history, and draws some decisively important lessons for the future. In a timely debate, Tucker addresses the ever-growing concerns about the proliferation of the deadly smallpox virus and its use by terrorist organizations. Explaining how the eradication of the disease in the late 1970s encouraged military research and production of the virus, he exposes the failure of the Russian government to secure its remaining cold-war stockpiles, and evaluates the past and present measures undertaken by the United States to counter the existing dangers of a smallpox attack. Ultimately, he passionately argues for the strengthening of the existing legal ban on the development and possession of biological weapons. Impeccably researched, Scourge is as arresting as it is indispensable, and as William Beatty in Booklist raves, Tucker has a sense of ... history that helps him make the story of smallpox as disease and ... weapon fascinating and frightening. Scourge has been acclaimed as a concise, suspenseful and scientifically accurate narrative. -- The New York Times Book Review Tucker's fascinating, revealing book affords the reader a sobering look at this new type of warfare.... -- Chris Patsilelis, Houston Chronicle -- [Tucker] reports the debate evenhandedly and with telling detail. -- David Brown, The Washington Post Book World

    No one can stop him--but he walks away. A miracle? No...dysentery. Microbes saved the Roman Empire. Nearly a millennium later, the microbes of the Black Death ended the Middle Ages, making possible the Renaissance, western democracy, and the scientific revolution. Soon after, microbes ravaged the Americas, paving the way for their European conquest. Again and again, microbes have shaped our health, our genetics, our history, our culture, our politics, even our religion and ethics. This book reveals much that scientists and cultural historians have learned about the pervasive interconnections between infectious microbes and humans. It also considers what our ongoing fundamental relationship with infectious microbes might mean for the future of the human species. The "good side" of history's worst epidemics The surprising debt we owe to killer diseases Where diseases came from... ...and where they may be going Children of pestilence: disease and civilization From Egypt to Mexico, the Romans to Attila the Hun STDs, sexual behavior, and culture How microbes may shape cultural cycles of puritanism and promiscuity

    Based on the latest scientific discoveries, Dr Mosley provides a fascinating and detailed understanding of the secrets of this coronavirus, how it spreads, how it infects your body and how your immune system tries to fight back. With access to leading experts, he reports on the battle to find treatments and a safe and effective vaccine (ultimately, the only way to defeat the virus). Armed with the facts about Covid-19 you'll be in a better position to protect yourself and your family as the world begins to reopen. Eating well, sleeping soundly, exercising and managing stress are all vital for keeping your body and immune system in the best possible shape to fight the virus. These are areas where Dr Mosley, creator of the 5:2 diet, is well known for his science-based and practical approach.

    You see the smokers, the overeaters, the bottle-feeders, and affirm your own health in the process. In these and countless other instances, the perception of your own health depends in part on your value judgments about others, and appealing to health allows for a set of moral assumptions to fly stealthily under the radar.Against Health argues that health is a concept, a norm, and a set of bodily practices whose ideological work is often rendered invisible by the assumption that it is a monolithic, universal good. And, that disparities in the incidence and prevalence of disease are closely linked to disparities in income and social support. To be clear, the book's stand against health is not a stand against the authenticity of people's attempts to ward off suffering. Against Health instead claims that individual strivings for health are, in some instances, rendered more difficult by the ways in which health is culturally configured and socially sustained.The book intervenes into current political debates about health in two ways. First, Against Health compellingly unpacks the divergent cultural meanings of health and explores the ideologies involved in its construction. Second, the authors present strategies for moving forward. They ask, what new possibilities and alliances arise? What new forms of activism or coalition can we create? What are our prospects for well-being? In short, what have we got if we ain't got health? Against Health ultimately argues that the conversations doctors, patients, politicians, activists, consumers, and policymakers have about health are enriched by recognizing that, when talking about health, they are not all talking about the same thing. And, that articulating the disparate valences of "health" can lead to deeper, more productive, and indeed more healthy interactions about our bodies.

    Includes timelines, boxed features on significant medical breakthroughs, fascinating case histories, anecdotes and medical curiosities. Contains 150 color photographs.

    Arthur Allen reveals a history of vaccination that is both illuminated with hope and shrouded by controversy - covering Jenner's discovery to Pasteur's vaccines for rabies and cholera, to those that safeguarded the children of the 20th century.

    This fully updated edition of 'Disease & History' examines diseases such as the plagues which brought down ancient Greece and Rome, the Black Death which devastated 13th century Europe and, more recently, AIDS and the SARS epidemic.

    But how does virality actually work? In The Rules of Contagion, epidemiologist Adam Kucharski explores topics including gun violence, online manipulation, and, of course, outbreaks of disease to show how much we get wrong about contagion, and how astonishing the real science is.Why did the president retweet a Mussolini quote as his own? Why do financial bubbles take off so quickly? And why are disinformation campaigns so effective? By uncovering the crucial factors driving outbreaks, we can see how things really spread -- and what we can do about it.Whether you are an author seeking an audience, a defender of truth, or simply someone interested in human social behavior, The Rules of Contagion is an essential guide to modern life.

    But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about.Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’s taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.The characters you will meet in these pages are as fascinating as they are unexpected. A thirteen-year-old girl’s science project on transmission of an airborne pathogen develops into a very grown-up model of disease control. A local public-health officer uses her worm’s-eye view to see what the CDC misses, and reveals great truths about American society. A secret team of dissenting doctors, nicknamed the Wolverines, has everything necessary to fight the pandemic: brilliant backgrounds, world-class labs, prior experience with the pandemic scares of bird flu and swine flu…everything, that is, except official permission to implement their work.Michael Lewis is not shy about calling these people heroes for their refusal to follow directives that they know to be based on misinformation and bad science. Even the internet, as crucial as it is to their exchange of ideas, poses a risk to them. They never know for sure who else might be listening in.

    In this sensational and macabre story, we meet the surgeon who counted not only luminaries Benjamin Franklin, Lord Byron, Adam Smith, and Thomas Gainsborough among his patients but also “resurrection men” among his close acquaintances. A captivating portrait of his ruthless devotion to uncovering the secrets of the human body, and the extraordinary lengths to which he went to do so—including body snatching, performing pioneering medical experiments, and infecting himself with venereal disease—this rich historical narrative at last acknowledges this fascinating man and the debt we owe him today.

    Full of advice on how surgeons should use their heads as well as their hands - how to think, plan, and improvise - when, for example, operating on a massively bleeding trauma patient. Starts with general principles, continues with specific injuries to abdomen, chest, neck, and peripheral vessels. Generously illustrated throughout, with drawings produced specifically for this book. For residents, general surgeons with an interest in trauma, and for surgeons operating on badly wounded patients in isolated military, rural, or humanitarian settings. Asher Hirshberg and Kenneth L Mattox are trauma surgeons at the Ben Taub General Hospital, Houston, and professors at the Michael E DeBakey Department of Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA. Kenneth L Maddox is famous as the lead editor of McGraw Hill's classic text, Trauma, now in its fifth edition. This is going to be a GREAT book!