Plague's Progress: A Social History of Man and Disease

Quite a bit of research went into writing this book. He sites many interesting historical orgins of human disease and the fact that much of it originates from us altering our environment and our behaviors. Many illnesses made the leap from animal to man. "The measles virus probably evolved from the one that causes distemper in dogs. Eventually the virus adapted to humans, in a variant that could no longer survive in dogs. This new human disease, with no animal reservoit, needed a constant supply of new human susceptibles to keep from burning out - probably 7,000 at any given time. In recent centuries, measles had died out on islands with fewer than 500,000 people unless reintroduced from the outside. The Greek physician Galen, who spent much of his life in Rome and witnessed that first plague... At the height of the second plague, as many as 5,000 people died in Rome day day." If you enjoy reading about illnesses, their origins, and you like history, you will definitely like this book.