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Tapeworms, Lice, and Prions: A compendium of unpleasant infections
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About Tapeworms, Lice, And Prions: A Compendium Of
Product Description An extraordinary array of infectious agents affects humans; from worms, arthopods, and fungi to bacteria, viruses, and prions. In this compendium of the curious and fascinating organisms that cause disease, including Legionnaire's disease, mumps, CJD, and chlamydia, David I. Grove provides a lively, fact-filled account of the nature of each organism, their life cycle, the ingenious ways in which they infect humans, and the human stories behind their discovery. Review "All of us, from the most common to the most mighty, can get a ... thrill from this lovely book with its pleasingly macabre title... David Grove, a world expert in infectious diseases, is our host, and like many such doctors, a surprisingly jocular one. He reveres his little critters, but far more than that, he reveres the long line of medical heroes who have enabled us to take revenge on them... It is their stories ... that light up this book" - Helen Rumbelow, The Times, 8 March 2014 Humans might be the dominant species on the planet, but boy, how they are afflicted by a whole range of organisms from viruses and bacteria to fungi and small parasite animals... Grove documents the stories of many of these agents of disease which have been the curse of mankind for millenia and it makes for unpleasant if fascinating reading. The Northern Echo (UK) 24 March 2014 Inside this 600-page tome there are intriguing chapters on subjects such as "The pus-forming streptococcus", "the Itch (Scabies)" and "Syphilis (The Pox)"... This ... is clearly a must-read for medical students and those working in the field of medicine. Lindsay Buckland, The Scotsman, 3 April 2014 It is a kind of historical textbook.. with major sections grouped by the kinds of organisms that can infect us... Grove is most interested in the historical figures who got it "right" or nearly right, since scientific knowledge is cumulative. He also has a good eye for powerful figures who got it "wrong" and thereby hindered others. If this sounds like oldfashioned history of the kind historians decry as "Whiggish", that is because it is. It is also very well done and no doubt avant-garde relativists will need to crib from it surreptitiously. WF Bynum, The Times Literary Supplement 23 May 2014 Grove has read many of the original papers and summarizes them succinctly and accurately... Bacteria (and) viruses occupy the lion's share of Grove's book. He shows that he can write synthetic history with a fine introductory essay on the development of the germ theory, before turning to the major bacteriological diseases. WF Bynum, The Times Literary Supplement, 23 May 2014 From the Inside Flap From tapeworms and lice to fungi and down to the viruses, we are surrounded by agents of infectious disease which can be caught from other people, animals, and the environment. The variety of such agents is enormous and their methods of infection often ingenious. Some have life cycles that also involve non-human hosts. The discovery of these agents of disease has involved luck and accident as well as dedication, even on occasion to the point of self-experimentation. David Ian Grove brings together here the stores of most the major infectious agents, describing their nature, how they were discovered, and the lives of their discoverers. The result is an enormously rich and highly readable compendium full of fascinating accounts of the discoveries that have profoundly altered medicine over the past two centuries. We have come a long way, but surprises have come even very recently, with the discovery of the rogue proteins known as prions, which are infectious agents that are not living and do not even contain DNA or RNA, unlike viruses. And antibiotic resistance is proving an urgent problem. As the arms race continues against rapidly evolving viruses and bacteria, the stories of our battles with infectious diseases are far from over. From the Back Cover When Lieutenant Forbes Tulloch of the Royal Arm
