Get Well Soon
History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them
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- £10.99
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- £10.99
Publisher Description
A witty, irreverent tour of history's worst plagues—from the Antonine Plague, to leprosy, to polio—and a celebration of the heroes who fought them
In 1518, in a small town in Alsace, Frau Troffea began dancing and didn’t stop. She danced until she was carried away six days later, and soon thirty-four more villagers joined her. Then more. In a month more than 400 people had been stricken by the mysterious dancing plague. In late-seventeenth-century England an eccentric gentleman founded the No Nose Club in his gracious townhome—a social club for those who had lost their noses, and other body parts, to the plague of syphilis for which there was then no cure. And in turn-of-the-century New York, an Irish cook caused two lethal outbreaks of typhoid fever, a case that transformed her into the notorious Typhoid Mary.
Throughout time, humans have been terrified and fascinated by the diseases history and circumstance have dropped on them. Some of their responses to those outbreaks are almost too strange to believe in hindsight. Get Well Soon delivers the gruesome, morbid details of some of the worst plagues we’ve suffered as a species, as well as stories of the heroic figures who selflessly fought to ease the suffering of their fellow man. With her signature mix of in-depth research and storytelling, and not a little dark humor, Jennifer Wright explores history’s most gripping and deadly outbreaks, and ultimately looks at the surprising ways they’ve shaped history and humanity for almost as long as anyone can remember.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wright (It Ended Badly) adopts a lighthearted approach with mixed results to delivering sociologically oriented descriptions of history's greatest epidemics, including bubonic plague, smallpox, typhoid, and polio. She expresses sympathy for abused victims of syphilis, who were shunned for having the disease; praises healers such as Father Damien of Molokai, who tended to the residents of Hawaii's leper colony; and heaps scorn upon those who have viewed the symptoms of particular illnesses, such as tuberculosis, as fashionable. Wright treats generously even misguided attempts to ease suffering, as when she describes such superstitious treatments as the "exploding frog cure" for bubonic plague. But she has harsh words for Woodrow Wilson, who suppressed news about the Spanish flu in service of America's WWI effort, and is even harsher to those who cause active harm, such as the anti-vaccine activists sabotaging herd immunity. Wright finds that in fighting epidemics, a strong leader matters; communities must choose compassion over stigma and fight the disease instead of people. Recognizing that something devastating could be right around the corner, Wright urges readers to heed history's lessons and to be thankful for vaccines, hygiene, and antibiotics.
