Pandemic Survival: It's Why You're Alive
by
Ann Love, Jane Drake & Bill Slavin
Order:
USA
Can
Tundra, 2013 (2013)
Hardcover
Reviewed by Hilary Williamson
P
andemic Survival: It's Why You're Alive
, written by Ann Love and Jane Drake, and illustrated by Bill Slavin, takes a detailed look at the world's pandemic past, and our pandemic future.
C
hapters address
Prevention and Cure
('
Everyone alive now is a descendant of survivors
');
Ancient Stories, Modern Diagnoses
;
The Middle Ages (600-1500)
;
The Age of Discovery (1500-1800)
;
The Industrial Age (1800-1900)
;
Antibiotics Before and After
; and
Global Village
. In each, sidebars provide interesting details like
Bacteria Fact-eria
and
Connecting the Bites
.
T
he authors tell us about pandemics in history - what we know and what we guess - and how early cultures and physicians reacted to them. We read about outbreaks of bubonic plague; about the smallpox pandemic in the New World; about key innovators like the world's first epidemiologist, John Snow, who showed that cholera was carried by drinking water; about the Spanish flu, '
the worst flu pandemic in history
'; and the modern plague, AIDS.
F
inally, the last chapter,
Global Village
, addresses more recent pandemic panics like the SARS one in 2003; biological warfare; and three big lessons to be learned from pandemics. The book ends with a Glossary of terms like
pathogen
and
vector
. Though this informative volume is aimed at ages 9 to 12, older teens and adults will also be intrigued by it, particularly by its historical vignettes.
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