Plague, Pox and Pestilence

lthough disease is a biological phenomenon, there is no doubt that human beings over the centuries have helped fashion perfect environments for growth. Community living and the buildup of urban populations brought with them a host of microbes and pathogens, as overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and poor nutrition became unprecedented health hazards. Itinerants carried deadly diseases across the world, and war brought its own peculiar epidemics: typhus, cholera, scurvy, and syphilis. Teeming with color & b&w reproductions of paintings, engravings, illustrations, and photographs, this fascinating survey shows how various factors in human evolution, as well as man’s eternal urge to rearrange things in the name of “progress,” have resulted in the development and spread of disease–from plague, tuberculosis, and leprosy to smallpox, malaria, and influenza