Beasts of the Earth: Animals, Humans, and Disease

According to infectious disease specialists Torrey and Yolken, ""in the ongoing war between microbes and humans, microbes have a definite advantage"": they're more adaptable, they reproduce faster and they have easy access to us through our pets. The authors' highly informative and well-written book about the animal origins of human diseases will thrill and horrify readers, partly because its tone is so inflammatory and partly because its facts are so startling. Some readers may already know that bacteria appeared on Earth two billion years before humans did and that diseases are simply the way microbes try to ""get ahead in life."" But many will be surprised to learn that approximately 10% of a person's body weight is made up of microbes and that 61% of the microbes that cause disease in humans are transmitted to homo sapiens by animals. Torrey and Yolken do an excellent job addressing the origins of specific diseases (who knew that cold sores may have come from dinosaurs?), and they offer interesting details about the manifestations of disease in various cultures throughout world history. Historic events, including the fall of the Roman empire, are carefully examined, as are the illnesses of Keats, Poe and other famous artists. Even biblical myths fall before Torrey's and Yolken's keen analysis. The authors' tone can be dryly amusing (i.e., ""From the point of view of bacteria, viruses and protozoa, village life offered many advantages""). And though they often slip into dire, doomsday predictions, their volume is nonetheless intelligent and exciting.