MAN AND MICROBES: Disease and Plagues in History and Modern Times

Rating:
Summary: The Medical History of Mankind
Review: This book is about the new diseases that plague mankind, an epidemic of epidemics. There was a faith in social, scientific, and technological progress dating from the 19th century (p.3). For millennia, diseases killed more people than war and famine. Since the 1960s new diseases appeared, and old ones reappeared as resistant to drugs. One cause was the high-speed travel from airplanes. This is similar to the 19th century spread of cholera by trains and steamboats. Infection and disease are as old as life. Man's modification of his environment affects other life, and his own. Germs and microbes also change. The tsetse fly's presence in ancient North America corresponds roughly with the extinction of horses (p.19).

Karlen suggests that hunting and meat eating allowed humans to progress (p.22). Leaving the tropics for temperated climates avoided the parasites that still hinder development. But eating wild game can cause problems (p.24). Pages 26-28 tell of Neanderthal man, more advanced than cartoon drawings. The Agricultural Revolution produced greater plenty and more infections; these changes are inseparable and still occur together (p.29). Plant and animal foods leave distinctive chemical signatures in human bones, as do proteins from marine and land animals (pp.32-33). Going from hunting to farming brought declining health and increasing diseases (p.34). New diseases arose: occupational, nutritional, and infectious (p.35). Intestinal helminths may have caused more damage than the more dramatic viral and bacterial plagues (p.37). Domesticated animal brought new diseases (p.39). Farming created new breeding grounds for malaria, organic fertilizers spread both old and new diseases (p.41). Helminth diseases and intestinal infections create a population sapped of energy and disease resistance (p.42). [Recall Richard Henry Dana's comments on New Englanders who settled in Spanish California; "laid back" could be a medical condition.] The Mystery Disease of Pudoc should be a warning against food imported from Third World countries like Asia (p.44-45). We already know about Mad Cow Disease in Great Britain. This is another warning against "raw fish" or raw meat. Once one person has this disease, it can be spread by the local fish!

Reading this book will provide a short history of how diseases affected human history. Some of it may be known to you, but the book has it all in 230 pages. The Bibliography has extensive references for each chapter. The Index allows a quick reference to the many topics in this interesting book. Page 140 tells how more abundant proteins from meat and dairy products reduced infections and mortality. [Remember this the next time you read vegetarian propaganda in a newspaper or magazine. They have a hidden agenda for their advertisers.] Measles and smallpox were biological weapons of colonialism (p.59). The Imperialism (or Globalism) of the Roman Empire was followed by new epidemics from the disease pools of Europe, Africa, India, and China (p.65). Will we see this repeated in the 21st century, and be followed by a new Dark Age?