Reviews for Disease and History

The average rating for Disease and History based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-03-31 00:00:00 B.L. Walker Written by an historian and a medical doctor, this very timely read would fascinate anyone living during the 2020 Pandemic. Disease, no respecter of persons, is nature's great equalizer. This book explores many of the different epidemics throughout history, and how they changed the outcome of today. The book is very well written, intriguing, and easy to read. It was very well researched and I would have been given 5 stars, had the author not shared much of his "anti God" revelations. This one fact was reflected in editorial content throughout the book. It was unnecessary and I found it offensive. When an author is presenting a factual text, his or her opinion on matters religious should be irrelevant. Survival of the fittest applies to viruses as well as our species, and our antibiotic-dependent society is creating new antibiotic resistant strains. History shows that disease decreases down our numbers, as our population grows. That was sort of the philosophy behind all these historical tragedies that changed history. Here are some specifics. The fall of the Roman empire is usually credited with attacking HUNS from the north, or the moral decay of Roman society. Yet it was disease that weakened Rome's hold on its kingdom. First century B.C. malaria killed thousands, followed by the plague of Orosius in 125 AD, the plague of Justinian. These plagues killed up to 10,000 daily; boats were filled with the bodies of the dead and abandoned at sea. The black death, a pneumonic, bubonic plague spread by rat fleas, was a world wide pandemic that resulted in 24 million deaths in the 1300's. The name Black Death came from the swollen glands in the victim's neck, armpits, and inner thigh that turned black as they filled with blood. Syphilis changed history in the 1500's. Russian Czar Ivan the Terrible's cerebral syphilis damaged his brain to the point that he had 1000's of subjects tortured and murdered, affecting the lives of millions. Napoleon's 600,000 man army was decimated to less than 40,000 due to typhus and other factors, and led him to retreat against Russian forces. Smallpox, mumps, and measles killed off native Americans more than the European guns in the 1500's, and allowed Hernando Cortez to defeat them and claim their land for Spain. Queen Victoria contributed to the fall of the Russian Monarchy; her recessive gene of hemophilia became dominant in her granddaughter's son, Alexis. Alexis though heir apparent, could not become Czar causing the Bolshevik's to execute all his Imperial family. (You need to read this in the book to really understand why this happened.) At 68 years old, and I am astounded by this 2020 pandemic and the impact and changes it has had in our lives. My lifetime has seen so many changes the eradication of horrible diseases--smallpox and polio for example. I still have the scar from the scratches the doctor put on my left arm as he injected a smallpox vaccine there. At age nine I remember going with my Campfire Girls group to visit a paralyzed 40 year old man, polio victim in an iron lung machine. Shortly thereafter my parents took me to a high school gymnasium where each of us in our small community was given a sugar cube with polio vaccine on it. No more polio--like that boy I saw in my school walking with leg brace and crutches, etc. Medicine has given humans longer and happier lives--allowing our population to expand, but as history teaches us --the Great Equalizer, disease will sooner or later try to stymie our population growth.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-06-19 00:00:00 Michael Bland This was a riveting read - must have been as it took less than 24 hours to devour cover to cover. The author does a really good job of linking disease with the various twists and turns of history, while posing some thought-provoking questions such as: would Russian history have been different had young Alexi *not* been stricken with haemophilia; how might the history of the US been altered had not mass immigration from Ireland occurred in the wake of the Potato Famine? The author points out how quickly famine, pestilience and war can contribute to one another with devastating results on an affected population, and demonstrates how quickly these threee can be enacted on a population. The edition I read was published in 1972, so predates the world wide eradication of smallpox, and the banning of the use of DDT, which makes it a fascinating window into a world that has been largely forgotten in the West. The one jarring note that I found was the author's clear anti-God stance, which was reflected in editorial content throughout the book. It was unnecessary and I found it very off-putting. When an author is presenting a factual text, his or her opinion on matters religious is irrelevant. Other than that I found it a truly interesting and intriguing read, with much to ponder upon.