Cholera: The Biography

• Cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe has again brought this disease to wide attention, highly topical
• Fascinating mixture of social and cultural history and the development of medicine
• Includes the dramatic story of the discovery of the cause of cholera by John Snow
• Part of the Biographies of Diseases series, edited by William and Helen Bynum

Readership: Readers of popular science and those interested in the history of medicine and science.

Christopher Hamlin, University of Notre Dame and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

"It is a masterly fusion of history and contemporary research."

"Fascinating stuff." - The Scotsman

"The stories they tell are often fascinating and alarming - pitched somewhere between farce, genius, horror and a lab report." - The Scotsman

"These four 'biographies' of diseases go far beyond questions of biology or medical practice; they talk politics, sex and class, faith." - The Scotsman

"The notion of an ailment having a birth, a lifespan, and - ideally - a demise...is an illuminating and useful concept." - Wendy Moore, British Medical Journal

1: Cholera - the very idea
2: Cholera finds itself
3: Citizen cholera
4: Cholera confuses
5: Cholera goes into analysis, and dies
6: Cholera's last laugh
Prologue
Further reading