The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #74507   Message #1301668
Posted By: JohnInKansas
20-Oct-04 - 09:37 AM
Thread Name: BS: Flu Vaccine Shortage
Subject: RE: BS: Flu Vaccine Shortage
Mary in Kentucky -

If you are really really interested in epidemiology, an interesting(???) book might be Armies of Pestilence: The Impact of Disease on History by R. S. Bray, Barnes and Noble Books, ©1996 by Bray, ISBN 0-7607-1915-2 (paperback). It carries a cover price of $9.95, but I believe I picked it up off a Barnes sale table for about $3.50 a while back.

Bray takes the view that most of the great armies had little to do with the "campaigns of empire." The actual battles were mostly decided by the bugs. He gives a very lengthy (and somewhat repetitive) enumeration of the "great plagues" in history, with some comment on how they affected events. About 211 pages of text, 2 chapters on Influenze, 10 or so pages of "Chapter Notes" and a 15 page bibliography.

The discussion of "current problems" is rather brief (but only compared to the rest of the book). It does present a rather complete picture of "who's the enemies" now - amongst the vermin.

For a "cheap" but reasonably scholarly book it's not a bad resource.

John