Ending Epidemics

A History of Escape from Contagion

Richard Conniff

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English

MIT Press
15 April 2025

Medicine: general issues

How scientists saved humanity from the deadliest infectious diseases-and what we can do to prepare ourselves for future epidemics.

How scientists saved humanity from the deadliest infectious diseases-and what we can do to prepare ourselves for future epidemics.

After the unprecedented events of the COVID-19 pandemic, it may be hard to imagine a time not so long ago when deadly diseases were a routine part of life. It is harder still to fathom that the best medical thinking at that time blamed these diseases on noxious miasmas, bodily humors, and divine dyspepsia. This all began to change on a day in April 1676, when a little-known Dutch merchant described bacteria for the first time. Beginning on that day in Delft and ending on the day in 1978 when the smallpox virus claimed its last known victim, Ending Epidemics explains how we came to understand and prevent many of our worst infectious diseases-and double average life expectancy.

Ending Epidemics tells the story behind ""the mortality revolution,"" the dramatic transformation not just in our longevity, but in the character of childhood, family life, and human society. Richard Conniff recounts the moments of inspiration and innovation, decades of dogged persistence, and, of course, periods of terrible suffering that stir individuals, institutions, and governments to act in the name of public health. Stars of medical science feature in this drama, but lesser-known figures also play a critical role. And while the history of germ theory is central to this story, Ending Epidemics also describes the importance of everything from sanitation improvements and the discovery of antibiotics to the development of the microscope and the syringe-technologies we now take for granted.

By: Richard Conniff
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 369g
ISBN: 9780262552974
ISBN 10: 0262552973
Pages: 376
Publication Date: 15 April 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Preface: The Healing 1: What the Draper Saw 2: Deadly Preconceptions 3: Foreign Bodies 4: Precursors 5: Ridiculous Diseases, Inconceivable Ideas 6: Buying the Pox 7: Slaying the Speckled Monster 8: An Angel’s Trumpet 9: The Great Sanitary Awakening 10: Finding Pathogens 11: The Semmelweis Reflex 12: Making Sense of Cholera 13: The Broad Street Pump 14: Louis Pasteur: The Rising 15: The Subtle Foe 16: The Mystery of the Cursed Meadows 17: A New Vaccine 18: The Bible of Bacteriology 19: Defining the Indefinable Something 20: (Re)Discovering Cholera 21: A Sacred Delirium 22: Immunity and the Strangling Angel 23: Deadly Carriers 24: The Beast in the Mosquito 25: Fit for Duty 26: A Pathogen Too Far 27: Midnight Work 28: The Anti-Bacterial Revolution 29: Penicillin 30: Race to the Vaccine 31: Zero Pox Epilogue Acknowledgments Endnotes Index

Richard Conniff is a National Magazine Award-winning writer for Smithsonian magazine, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and other publications, and a past Guggenheim Fellow. Among his many books are The Species Seekers- Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth; Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time- My Life Doing Dumb Stuff with Animals; The Natural History of the Rich- A Field Guide; and, most recently, House of Lost Worlds- Dinosaurs, Dynasties, and the Story of Life on Earth. Conniff has been a commentator on NPR's Marketplace and a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times.

Reviews for Ending Epidemics: A History of Escape from Contagion

""[A] highly readable history of epidemic diseases and vaccinologists, from the first description of bacteria in 1676 to the eradication of smallpox in 1978."" —Nature “Conniff gives us the development of immunology and antibiotics —famously the work of Louis Pasteur, Alexander Fleming, Robert Koch and Paul Ehrlich—in easy-to-swallow chunks.” —TLS