Outbreak!: 50 Tales of Epidemics That Terrorized the World

From ancient scourges to modern-day pandemics

Throughout history--even recent history--highly contagious, deadly, and truly horrible epidemics have swept through cities, countrysides, and even entire countries. Outbreak catalogs fifty of those incidents in gruesome detail, including:

• The Sweating Sickness that killed 15,000, including Henry VIII's older brother
• Syphilis, the "French Disease," which spread throughout Europe in the late fifteenth century
• The romantic disease: tuberculosis, featured in La Boheme, La Traviata, and Les Miserables
• The worldwide outbreak of influenza in 1918, which killed 3 percent of the population
• The mysterious appearance of HIV in the 1980s
• The devastating spread of Ebola in West Africa in 2014

From ancient outbreaks of smallpox and plague to modern epidemics such as SARS and Ebola, the stories capture the mystery and devastation brought on by these diseases. It's a sickeningly fun read that confirms the true definition of going viral.

Author: Beth Skwarecki
Publisher: Adams Media Corporation
Published: 10/01/2016
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.40w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9781440596278
ISBN10: 1440596271
BISAC Categories:
- Medical | History
- Health & Fitness | Diseases | Contagious (incl. Pandemics)
- Medical | Epidemiology

About the Author
Beth Skwarecki is a science writer with a degree in biology. She spent several years crunching data for a bioinformatics project at Cornell. Now, she writes about the life sciences, including molecular biology, human health research, and ecology, for a variety of outlets, including PLOS Public Health Perspectives, Lifehacker, Science magazine, Scientific American, and more. Visit her website at www.bethskw.com. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA.