
Ending Epidemics
A History of Escape from Contagion
Richard Conniff(Author)
MIT Press
Published on 11. March 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
376 pages
978-0-262-55297-4 (ISBN)
Description
How scientists saved humanity from the deadliest infectious diseases and what we can do to prepare ourselves for future epidemics. After the unprecedented events of the COVID-19 pandemic, it may be hard to imagine a time not so long ago when deadly diseases were a routine part of life. It is harder still to fathom that the best medical thinking at that time blamed these diseases on noxious miasmas, bodily humors, and divine dyspepsia. This all began to change on a day in April 1676, when a little-known Dutch merchant described bacteria for the first time. Beginning on that day in Delft and ending on the day in 1978 when the smallpox virus claimed its last known victim, Ending Epidemics explains how we came to understand and prevent many of our worst infectious diseases and double average life expectancy. Ending Epidemics tells the story behind the mortality revolution, the dramatic transformation not just in our longevity, but in the character of childhood, family life, and human society. Richard Conniff recounts the moments of inspiration and innovation, decades of dogged persistence, and, of course, periods of terrible suffering that stir individuals, institutions, and governments to act in the name of public health. Stars of medical science feature in this drama, but lesser-known figures also play a critical role. And while the history of germ theory is central to this story, Ending Epidemics also describes the importance of everything from sanitation improvements and the discovery of antibiotics to the development of the microscope and the syringe technologies we now take for granted.
Reviews / Votes
"[A] highly readable history of epidemic diseases and vaccinologists, from the first description of bacteria in 1676 to the eradication of smallpox in 1978."-Nature
"Conniff gives us the development of immunology and antibiotics -famously the work of Louis Pasteur, Alexander Fleming, Robert Koch and Paul Ehrlich-in easy-to-swallow chunks."
-TLS
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge (Massachusetts)
United States
Publishing group
MIT Press Ltd
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
25 BLACK AND WHITE ILLUS.
Dimensions
Height: 221 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
454 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-262-55297-4 (9780262552974)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
04/2023
MIT Press
€27.49
Available for download
Person
Richard Conniff is a National Magazine Award-winning writer for Smithsonian magazine, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and other publications, and a past Guggenheim Fellow. Among his many books are The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth; Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time: My Life Doing Dumb Stuff with Animals; The Natural History of the Rich: A Field Guide; and, most recently, House of Lost Worlds: Dinosaurs, Dynasties, and the Story of Life on Earth. Conniff has been a commentator on NPR's Marketplace and a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times.
Content
Preface: The Healing
1: What the Draper Saw
2: Deadly Preconceptions
3: Foreign Bodies
4: Precursors
5: Ridiculous Diseases, Inconceivable Ideas
6: Buying the Pox
7: Slaying the Speckled Monster
8: An Angel's Trumpet
9: The Great Sanitary Awakening
10: Finding Pathogens
11: The Semmelweis Reflex
12: Making Sense of Cholera
13: The Broad Street Pump
14: Louis Pasteur: The Rising
15: The Subtle Foe
16: The Mystery of the Cursed Meadows
17: A New Vaccine
18: The Bible of Bacteriology
19: Defining the Indefinable Something
20: (Re)Discovering Cholera
21: A Sacred Delirium
22: Immunity and the Strangling Angel
23: Deadly Carriers
24: The Beast in the Mosquito
25: Fit for Duty
26: A Pathogen Too Far
27: Midnight Work
28: The Anti-Bacterial Revolution
29: Penicillin
30: Race to the Vaccine
31: Zero Pox
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Endnotes
Index
1: What the Draper Saw
2: Deadly Preconceptions
3: Foreign Bodies
4: Precursors
5: Ridiculous Diseases, Inconceivable Ideas
6: Buying the Pox
7: Slaying the Speckled Monster
8: An Angel's Trumpet
9: The Great Sanitary Awakening
10: Finding Pathogens
11: The Semmelweis Reflex
12: Making Sense of Cholera
13: The Broad Street Pump
14: Louis Pasteur: The Rising
15: The Subtle Foe
16: The Mystery of the Cursed Meadows
17: A New Vaccine
18: The Bible of Bacteriology
19: Defining the Indefinable Something
20: (Re)Discovering Cholera
21: A Sacred Delirium
22: Immunity and the Strangling Angel
23: Deadly Carriers
24: The Beast in the Mosquito
25: Fit for Duty
26: A Pathogen Too Far
27: Midnight Work
28: The Anti-Bacterial Revolution
29: Penicillin
30: Race to the Vaccine
31: Zero Pox
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Endnotes
Index