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Book
Author Wills, Christopher.

Title Yellow fever, black goddess : the coevolution of people and plagues / Christopher Wills
Published Reading, MA : Addison-Wesley Pub., 1996

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 MELB  614.49 Wil/Yfb  AVAILABLE
Description xii, 324 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Series Helix book
Helix book.
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 plagued actually plague, and if not why not? -- Pt. 3. Naive and Cunning Diseases. 6. Cholera, the Black One. 7. A cleverer 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?
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
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 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
Notes "First published in the United Kingdom by HarperCollins Publishers under the title: Plagues : their origins, history, and future"--T.p. verso
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 304-317) and index
Subject Epidemics -- History.
LC no. 96023934
ISBN 0201328186 (paperback)
0201442353 (alk. paper)
Other Titles Plagues