Patient Zero

In Patient Zero, physician Lydia Kang and historian Nate Pedersen tell the stories of the world's worst diseases. Kang and Pedersen share the symptoms of the diseases as well as stories about the first patients who were diagnosed with the diseases. They provide information about the human battles to fight the diseases. Diseases discussed include Ebola, Covid-19, Bubonic plague, smallpox, polio, HIV, measles, and many more.

I recommend this book highly to others.

Interesting and well-written science book. I did find it to be overly long, some of the diseases discussed could have been cut in order to keep it lean and zesty.

I also have to say that in the chapter about typhoid, I thought it was irresponsible of the author to declare that Mary Mallon (aka Typhoid Mary) had a mental illness when there is no indication that she was ever diagnosed with one - a fact that the author freely admits immediately after asserting the mental illness claim. Just because someone has a disagreeable personality, and sometimes doesn't conform to social norms, doesn't mean they have a mental illness. The willingness of the author to label people as mentally ill, having never met them and coming from an entirely different cultural period, is deeply troubling.