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Yellow fever, black goddess : the coevolution of people and plagues

Author: Christopher Wills; Helix book.
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : Perseus Pub., ©1996.
Edition/Format:   Book : EnglishView all editions and formats
Summary:
Yellow Fever, Black Goddess turns the tables on past accounts, focusing not on the microbe hunters but on the microbes themselves, putting these exotic life-forms at center stage, telling their story as they fight to live at the very edge of the possible. Humans acknowledge the existence of our planet's primitive coinhabitants only when they do their worst - emerging to strike down whole populations through rampaging
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Details

Document Type: Book
All Authors / Contributors: Christopher Wills; Helix book.
ISBN: 0201328186 9780201328189
OCLC Number: 48991638
Notes: "Helix books."
"First published in the United Kingdom by HarperCollins Publishers under the title Plagues : their origins, history and future"--T.p. verso.
Description: xii, 324 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
Contents: pt. 1. The anatomy of plagues --
1. The delicate balance between life and death --
2. The penumbra of disease --
3. The worst of times --
pt. 2. Chief monster that has plagued the nations yet --
4. Four tales from the new decameron --
5. Was the Indian plague actually plague, and if not why not? --
pt. 3. Naïve and cunning diseases --
6. Cholera, the black one --
7. A cleaver pathogen --
pt. 4. The challenge of the temperate zones --
8. An ague very violent --
9. syphilis and the Faustian bargain --
pt. 5. Plagues, populations and the biosphere --
10. AIDS and the future of plagues --
11. Safety in diversity --
12. Why so many diseases?
Other Titles: Coevolution of people and plagues
Responsibility: Christopher Wills.

Abstract:

Yellow Fever, Black Goddess turns the tables on past accounts, focusing not on the microbe hunters but on the microbes themselves, putting these exotic life-forms at center stage, telling their story as they fight to live at the very edge of the possible. Humans acknowledge the existence of our planet's primitive coinhabitants only when they do their worst - emerging to strike down whole populations through rampaging epidemics. But in fact, the protozoa, bacteria, and viruses that cause such diseases as yellow fever and cholera - which is symbolized by the black goddess - lead complex lives in their own right, struggling ever further out on their evolutionary limbs.

In order to deal with these microbes we must understand the entire evolutionary environment in which they function - from tropical breeding grounds to the resistant temperate zones, from insect viruses to human plagues - and through this alone can we hope to control them. By giving these organisms their due in this remarkable account, Christopher Wills points the way toward gaining that mastery.

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