Title: Get Well Soon: History’s Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them
Author: Jennifer Wright
Narrator: Gabra Zackman
Length: 7 hrs 44 mins
“Diseases are the most fundamental enemy of the human race, and we must be at constant war against them.”
This was a fascinating book about thirteen different plagues and how they were handled. I have only heard about most of these but never done deeper research into them. This book provided a great introduction to these plagues and some of the people who helped fight them.
Of the thirteen plagues covered, I found Dancing plague, Cholera, Leprosy, Typhoid, Encephalitis Lethargica, lobotomies and Polio to be the most fascinating because I knew very little about these. If you are reading this list, you probably think lobotomies are not a plague but it is a human made plague that was widespread because of Walter Jackson Freeman who pushed hard on its usefulness. After learning about it, I can easily see how it can be considered a plague, but a human caused one.
The dancing plague was one I had never heard of before but know from fairy tale stories. It sounds like it was terrible and I really want to know what caused so many people to dance until they collapsed. Encephalitis Lethargica is the sleeping disease and sounds so heartbreaking because you lose years of your life or you don’t ever recover from it. I knew that Typhoid was referred to as Typhoid Mary, but I never realized it was a real person and that she caused a lot of deaths for being a carrier of typhoid but never suffering from it.
“Vaccination is one of the best things that has happened to civilization. Empires toppled like sandcastles in the wake of diseases we do not give a second thought to today.“
Like I said, I learned a lot about these diseases and how they were fought. Wright does a great job at presenting this information in an easy way, and also her sprinkling of humor and fun helped too. I want to learn more about some of these diseases now and about some of the people who fought them, like John Snow’s cholera investigation and Father Damien of Molokai’s helping people with leprosy.
TW: animal and human experimentation discussed; Harry Potter referenced once
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Red-Haired Ash Reads 