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When Germs Travel
- Six Major Epidemics That Have Invaded America and the Fears They Have Unleashed
- Narrated by: Steven Jay Cohen
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
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When Germs Travel
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In Phantom Plague, Vidya Krishnan, traces the history of tuberculosis from the slums of 19th-century New York to modern Mumbai. In a narrative spanning century, Krishnan shows how superstition and folk remedies made way for scientific understanding of TB, such that it was controlled and cured in the West.
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An inside account of the fight to contain the world's deadliest diseases - and the panic and corruption that make them worse. The Next Pandemic is a firsthand account of disasters like anthrax, bird flu, and others - and how we could do more to prevent their return. It is both a gripping story of our brushes with fate and an urgent lesson on how we can keep ourselves safe from the inevitable next pandemic.
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Many Outstanding Stories about Many Scary Microbes
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Publisher's summary
The struggle against deadly microbes is endless. Diseases that have plagued human beings since ancient times still exist, new maladies make their way into the headlines, we are faced with vaccine shortages, and the threat of germ warfare has reemerged as a worldwide threat.
In this riveting account, medical historian Howard Markel takes an eye-opening look at the fragility of the American public health system. He tells the distinctive stories of six epidemics - tuberculosis, bubonic plague, trachoma, typhus, cholera, and AIDS - to show how our chief defense against diseases from outside the United States has been to attempt to deny entry to carriers. He explains why this approach never worked, and makes clear that it is useless in today's world of bustling international travel and porous borders.
Illuminating our foolhardy attempts at isolation and showing that globalization renders us all potential inhabitants of the so-called Hot Zone, Markel makes a compelling case for a globally funded public health program that could stop the spread of epidemics and safeguard the health of everyone on the planet.
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- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 768
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 657
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 654
In this gripping narrative history, Laura Spinney traces the overlooked pandemic to reveal how the virus travelled across the globe, exposing mankind's vulnerability and putting our ingenuity to the test. As socially significant as both world wars, the Spanish flu dramatically disrupted - and often permanently altered - global politics, race relations, and family structures while spurring innovation in medicine, religion, and the arts.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Predilection for Those in the Prime of Life
- By Cynthia on 02-12-18
By: Laura Spinney
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The Pandemic Century
- One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria, and Hubris
- By: Mark Honigsbaum
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 110
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 92
Ever since the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic, scientists have dreamed of preventing catastrophic outbreaks of infectious disease. Yet despite a century of medical progress, viral and bacterial disasters continue to take us by surprise, inciting panic and dominating news cycles. From the Spanish flu to the 1924 outbreak of pneumonic plague in Los Angeles to the 1930 "parrot fever" pandemic, through the more recent SARS, Ebola, and Zika epidemics, the last one hundred years have been marked by a succession of unanticipated pandemic alarms.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Pretty good
- By Baz 12345 on 04-03-20
By: Mark Honigsbaum
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The Great Influenza
- The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History
- By: John M. Barry
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 19 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,830
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,351
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,335
In the winter of 1918, at the height of World War I, history's most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS has killed in 24 years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision between modern science and epidemic disease.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book but very disturbing...
- By Tim on 01-15-09
By: John M. Barry
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The Moth in the Iron Lung
- A Biography of Polio
- By: Forrest Maready
- Narrated by: Forrest Maready
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 457
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 399
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Story5 out of 5 stars 397
A fascinating account of the world’s most famous disease - polio - told as you have never heard it before. Epidemics of paralysis began to rage in the early 1900s, seemingly out of nowhere. Doctors, parents, and health officials were at a loss to explain why this formerly unheard-of disease began paralyzing so many children. Why did this disease start to become such a horrible problem during the late 1800s? Why did it affect children more often than adults? Why was it originally called teething paralysis by mothers and their doctors?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Root Cause
- By Circlekay1 Gulfport MS on 10-24-19
By: Forrest Maready
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Until Proven Safe
- The History and Future of Quarantine
- By: Nicola Twilley, Geoff Manaugh
- Narrated by: Kristen DiMercurio
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
Quarantine is our most powerful response to uncertainty: it means waiting to see if something hidden inside us will be revealed. It is also one of our most dangerous, operating through an assumption of guilt. In quarantine, we are considered infectious until proven safe. Until Proven Safe tracks the history and future of quarantine around the globe, chasing the story of emergency isolation through time and space - from the crumbling lazarettos of the Mediterranean, built to contain the Black Death, to an experimental Ebola unit in London, and from the hallways of the CDC.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent writing, timely and informative
- By MSE on 07-24-21
By: Nicola Twilley, and others
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Beating Back the Devil
- By: Maryn McKenna
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 197
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 125
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 129
The universal instinct is to run from an outbreak of disease. These doctors run toward it. They always keep a bag packed. They seldom have more than 24 hours before they are dispatched. They are told only their country of destination and the epidemic they will tackle when they get there.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting Stuff - Only criticism is pacing
- By Tim on 07-23-05
By: Maryn McKenna
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Influenza
- The Hundred-Year Hunt to Cure the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic
- By: Dr. Jeremy Brown
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 361
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 309
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 307
On the 100th anniversary of the devastating pandemic of 1918, Jeremy Brown, a veteran ER doctor, explores the troubling, terrifying, and complex history of the flu virus, from the origins of the Great Flu that killed millions, to vexing questions such as: are we prepared for the next epidemic, should you get a flu shot, and how close are we to finding a cure?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Important read
- By Kathryn C. on 12-21-18
By: Dr. Jeremy Brown
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Pandemic
- Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond
- By: Sonia Shah
- Narrated by: Sonia Shah
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 380
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 334
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 333
Interweaving history, original reportage, and personal narrative, Pandemic explores the origin of epidemics, drawing parallels between the story of cholera - one of history's most disruptive and deadly pathogens - and the new pathogens that stalk humankind today, from Ebola and avian influenza to drug-resistant superbugs.
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3 out of 5 stars
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You will probably enjoy "Spillover" more
- By serine on 03-01-16
By: Sonia Shah
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Bellevue
- Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital
- By: David Oshinsky
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,106
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 981
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 976
David Oshinsky, whose last book, Polio: An American Story, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, chronicles the history of America's oldest hospital and in so doing also charts the rise of New York to the nation's preeminent city, the path of American medicine from butchery and quackery to a professional and scientific endeavor, and the growth of a civic institution.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating
- By Jean on 12-14-16
By: David Oshinsky
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COVID: The Politics of Fear and the Power of Science
- By: Marc Siegel MD
- Narrated by: Peter Van Norden
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
COVID-19 has stolen our security and our nation's peace of mind. There is a pandemic virus as well as a crippling epidemic of fear sweeping America. Why? The answer, according to nationally renowned health commentator Dr. Marc Siegel, is that we already lived in an artificially created culture of fear that was just waiting to be unleashed. In COVID: The Politics of Fear and the Power of Science, Siegel identifies three major catalysts of the culture of fear - government, the media, and our own psyche.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Informative and well sourced
- By A. Powers on 10-12-21
By: Marc Siegel MD
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The Fever
- Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years
- By: Sonia Shah
- Narrated by: Maha Chehlaoui
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 119
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 104
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 104
In recent years, malaria has emerged as a cause célèbre for voguish philanthropists. Bill Gates, Bono, and Laura Bush are only a few of the personalities who have lent their names - and opened their pocketbooks - in hopes of curing the disease. Still, in a time when every emergent disease inspires waves of panic, why aren’t we doing more to eradicate one of our oldest foes? And how does a parasitic disease that we’ve known how to prevent for more than a century still infect 500 million people every year, killing nearly 1 million of them?
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3 out of 5 stars
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Solid but not amazing account of malaria
- By S. Yates on 04-11-16
By: Sonia Shah
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Between Hope and Fear
- A History of Vaccines and Human Immunity
- By: Michael Kinch
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 36
Between Hope and Fear tells the remarkable story of vaccine-preventable infectious diseases and their social and political implications. While detailing the history of vaccine invention, Michael Kinch reveals the ominous reality that our victories against vaccine-preventable diseases are not permanent - and could easily be undone. Between Hope and Fear relates the remarkable intersection of science, technology, and disease that has helped eradicate many of the deadliest plagues known to man.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Enjoyed
- By Minsi Zhang on 05-03-20
By: Michael Kinch
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The Fatal Strain
- On the Trail of Avian Flu and the Coming Pandemic
- By: Alan Sipress
- Narrated by: George K. Wilson
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 37
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
When avian flu began spreading across Asia in the early 2000s, it reawakened fears that had lain dormant for nearly a century. During the outbreak's deadliest years, Alan Sipress chased the virus as it infiltrated remote jungle villages and teeming cities and saw its mysteries elude the world's top scientists. In The Fatal Strain, Sipress details how socioeconomic and political realities in Asia make it the perfect petri dish in which the fast-mutating strain can become easily communicable among humans.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Narrator comments
- By Don on 01-10-10
By: Alan Sipress
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Asleep
- The Forgotten Epidemic That Became Medicine’s Greatest Mystery
- By: Molly Caldwell Crosby
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 392
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 352
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 355
In 1918, a world war raged, and a lethal strain of influenza circled the globe. In the midst of all this death, a bizarre disease appeared in Europe. Eventually known as encephalitis lethargica, or sleeping sickness, it spread worldwide, leaving millions dead or locked in institutions. Then, in 1927, it disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. Asleep, set in 1920s and '30s New York, follows a group of neurologists through hospitals and asylums as they try to solve this epidemic and treat its victims - who learned the worst fate was not dying of it, but surviving it.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Scary, and still unsolved, medical mystery
- By joyce on 12-14-14
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The Ghost Map
- By: Steven Johnson
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,365
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 980
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 975
This is a thrilling historical account of the worst cholera outbreak in Victorian London and a brilliant exploration of how Dr. John Snow's solution revolutionized the way we think about disease, cities, science, and the modern world.
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3 out of 5 stars
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It was okay until the end
- By Matthew Groom on 12-04-08
By: Steven Johnson
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