The Top Ten Diseases of All Time
- Publisher
- Les Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa/University of Ottawa Press
- Initial publish date
- Oct 2023
- Category
- History, Social History, Infectious Diseases
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9780776640617
- Publish Date
- Oct 2023
- List Price
- $8.99
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Where to buy it
Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels
- Age: 14 to 18
- Grade: 9 to 12
Description
Infectious diseases have been with us for millennia and continue to pose a threat, from the irritation of flu season to the potential extinction of our species.
We instinctively fear them and alter our behaviour as a result. The reason we bury bodies six feet deep is because that was the depth that stopped plague transmission from the dead in the Middle Ages. Many religious practices, such as avoiding certain meats, were established because of foodborne disease transmission.
In The Top Ten Diseases of All Time, Stacey Smith? presents the top ten deadliest diseases and their effects on society, providing a wealth of information about the trajectory and terrible impact of each disease, and humanity’s reaction to these diseases throughout the millennia.
Did you know, for example, that:
-The medical symbol evolved from the worms wrapped around a stick, because that was the only way to remove Guinea worms from the body, so having a stick meant you were a doctor.
-Smallpox is the third-worst disease ever, yet it remains the only successfully eradicated human disease (but not for long!), thanks in part to a successful vaccine, in part to photographic recognition cards and in part due to helicopter-led forced vaccinations of whole villages in the former Yugoslavia. This brings up issues of individual rights versus public good that remain relevant today.
-Four diseases were targeted for eradication in the 20th century; the failure to do so led directly to the creation of the environmental movement.
-The inability of priests to explain how to stop the plague in the Middle Ages broke the back of the church as an all-powerful and all-knowing institution and led to colonialism and slavery.
The Top Ten Diseases of All Time offers a fascinating overview of the deadliest diseases to spread throughout the world, including HIV/AIDS, Spanish Flu, Measles, The Black Death, Smallpox and others.
About the author
Contributor Notes
Stacey Smith? est professeure titulaire à l’Université d’Ottawa.
Non, le point d’interrogation n’est pas une faute de frappe, mais plutôt la façon dont Stacey Smith? se distingue dans le monde des recherches Google. Bien que le nom soit unique en soi, ce sont les recherches de Stacey qui font d’elle une mathématicienne créative et innovante.
La professeure Smith? est connue pour ses recherches dans un domaine imaginaire : les zombies. « En modélisant les zombies, nous en apprenons davantage sur le processus de traitement d’une biologie inconnue », explique Stacey. Stacey approfondit le sujet dans ses livres Braaaiiinnnsss: From Academics to Zombies, et dans Mathematical Modelling of Zombies, tous deux publiés aux Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa.
Excerpt: The Top Ten Diseases of All Time (series edited by Stacey Smith?)
One of the big fears around disease is just how random it is. You can be going about your business, not doing anything wrong, and simply be cut down. This is a supremely uncomfortable feeling for most humans, so we expend a lot of energy attempting to impose control—or at least the illusion of control—over infectious diseases and our role in them. A great many religious practices evolved to combat diseases: pork was verboten in many religions for the very sensible reason that pigs carried diseases, so we needed to spread the message that pigs should not be eaten. Religion is a very good way to both spread and enforce a message to a vast number of people, including distant descendants. Our funeral practices—burying bodies six feet underground—are the result of the black plague, because six feet was determined to be the depth at which the virus could no longer be transmitted from a dead body. Monogamy was a great way of avoiding sexually transmitted diseases in a time before STI testing or antibiotics.