It is a heartwarming book about the many viruses, bacteria, and pests that have made life for homo sapiens interesting for thousands of years. Herein you can read all about mumps, measles, and malaria (if you want to read about the pleasant diseases) or plague, anthrax, and rabies (if you want to read about the unpleasant ones). Each has a fascinating story to tell. What can you do with this book? Well, you can read aloud the descriptions of gastrointestinal diseases at the dinner table. You can describe the diseases that cause hives with someone who is itchy. Or you can cheer up an old friend suffering from a disease by describing several diseases that are worse. This book is a barrel of laughs, I tell you. Get yours today.
I wrote a previous review on this great little book earlier, and had a correction to make. I referred to the "malaria trypanosome" in my review, and actually, it is a plasmodium, rather than a trypanosome, since that is the organism for sleeping sickness. Unless youre a real microbiologist, its impossible to track all these little things. I do recall, however, that there are five different phyla of protozoans or unicellular organisms, which consist of the rhizopoda (or amoebas), ciliates, flagellates, sporozoans, and the mastigophorans, if I remember correctly, as Im not a microbiologist myself. But getting back to my previous point. So if from the name you conclude that the scientific name for sleeping sickness is trypanosomiasis, pat yourself on the back. Unfortunately, Ive never heard that malaria is known as plasmodiumiasis. Anyway, this is a fun little book on lots of scary little bugs. Definitely worth your time and money.
Usually, I approach texts such as this with some trepidation, because they have a tendancy of being the authors perception as well as some half-baked theory of a conspiracy. This book is objective, clear-cut, and explains in simple terminology, the story behind our most common "bugs" and the diseases they cause. If you are intrigued by the field of diseases, I suggest you check this one out. Also check out "Killer Germs" (Barry and David Zimmerman) for something more in depth and historical.
