Deadly companions : how microbes shaped our history / Dorothy H. Crawford.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Crawford, Dorothy H.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Epidemics--History.

Epidemics.

Infection--History.

Infection.

Communicable diseases--History.

Communicable diseases.

Diseases and history.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 250 pages) : illustrations, maps

Edition:

New updated edition, second edition

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2007

Summary:

Beginning with a dramatic account of the SARS pandemic at the start of the 21st century, Crawford takes us back in time to follow the interlinked history of microbes and man, taking an up-to-date look at ancient plagues and epidemics and exploring how changes in the way humans have lived throughout history have made us vulnerable to microbe attack. As we moved from hunter-gatherers to farmers to city-dwellers, microbes like malaria and smallpox moved with us, changing and evolving to spread between us and cause disease with ever more efficiency. Trade and conquest brought new opportunities. With the power to decimate populations, the diseases spread by microbes shaped the course of human history in a way that few other factors could. Today, despite decades of success fighting microbial disease, we find ourselves once again at risk. As modern culture, with its overcrowded cities, air travel, and widespread use of antibiotics, faces threats from new microbes such as bird flu, and virulent drug-resistant strains of familiar foes, Crawford points out that the idea of a world free of dangerous microbes is an illusion: we can use our understanding of their opportunistic behaviour to tame them, even to make them into allies in some cases, but their existence and evolution is intertwined with ours, and we will never fully shake off our deadly companions.-- Source other than Library of Congress.

Contents:

How it all began

Our microbial inheritance

Microbes jump species

Crowds, filth and poverty

Microbes go global

Famine and devastation

Deadly companions revealed

The fight back.

Notes:

Originally published: 2007

Includes bibliographical references (p. 238-240) and index.

Description based on metadata supplied by the publisher and other sources.

ISBN:

0-19-255298-8

0-19-255297-X

OCLC:

153553790