Pandemic Survival: It’s Why You’re Alive by Ann Love, Jane Drake
My rating: 3/5 cats
i did not realize at first that this was a children’s book. i did the old “wannit!” thing on netgalley when i saw the cover and then felt a inner “whoops!” when i realized what i had committed to. but it’s totally fine—it is well-written for the audience, and even though a lot of it was stuff i already knew (yay! i am more well-informed than a child!), there was still new material and stories that were eye-openers to me. like, this kind of eye-opening:
the terrifying kind.
and it’s not like i haven’t enjoyed other books for children on the same sort of subject matter—i had to read An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 for school, as an adult, and it was also very well-done and appropriate for the age group, while still being interesting to the old and frail like me.
because this stuff is great and makes me all trembly and vow to never ride public transportation again, and move to some remote area where there are no people for miles. and then i remember that that’s where serial killers go first. so i just kind of push my fears to the back of my mind and carry on, trying to forget all that i have learned from books like these.
for example, one in four people in the world today register positive in a skin test for TB. which just means someone has been exposed to TB, and may not be quite in doc holliday-territory yet, and the world is a giant place and they are probably not in the apartment next door to me, but come on! that is terror!
another fact: new york banned public spitting in 1896??? police?? please start arresting people for this. i would love a super-big sting operation featuring undercover detectives with very big guns taking care of these people. so gross. so, so gross.
and did you know you could die from cholera in two hours?? that’s crazy! i could be infected, go to a movie, and die before i even realized i was sick. i mean, the symptoms would probably cause me to leave the theater immediately, if for no other reason than my perfectly developed politeness-sense and not wanting to disturb the other moviegoers, but it could happen.
also, the first name for “penicillin” was “mold juice.” which is a much more fun name, but i could understand it would be difficult to get people to take it. also, while we are here—you people who are so cavalier about vaccinations and are refusing to vaccinate your kids because vaccinations cause autism and are propaganda?? what you believe is also propaganda, and your sick kids are probably going to harvest some weird viral strain and somehow infect not-autistic, vaccinated me, and then you are going to see what an angry karen looks like.
i also learned that scientists are a strange breed. i mean, don’t get me wrong, i am so grateful for the results, but this just seems like someone who should have had an intervention:
…Ffirth set out to demonstrate that yellow fever is not contagious. He’d noticed that caregivers of the sick did not necessarily get sick themselves and reasoned that yellow fever spread in another way. A unique and startling symptom of yellow fever is black vomit. So Ffirth chose to sleep in bed sheets covered in the black vomit of a yellow fever victim. He did not get the disease.
Next, he cut his arms and rubbed black vomit into the wounds. He did not get yellow fever. He dropped black vomit into his eyes – no reaction. Then he heated up some vomit and inhaled the fumes. When that didn’t make him sick, he ate the black vomit. Still healthy, he covered himself in the blood, saliva, and urine of yellow fever victims, and when he continued to remain well, he felt he’d proven the disease is not contagious.
helluva party trick.
also, some doctors are rude:
In 1634, King Charles I of England suspected that a certain old woman who practiced the healing arts was, in fact, a witch. He ordered Dr. William Harvey, his personal physician, to investigate.
The doctor traveled by carriage to her hovel. At first, the old woman wouldn’t let Harvey in, but he cajoled her, explaining that he was a wizard and wanted to meet her familiar, a supernatural being that acts as a witch’s helper. Harvey assumed that her familiar would be a cat. Impressed by the doctor’s charm and courtly wig, she opened her door and directed him to a cupboard—and out hopped a toad. The old woman offered her toad a saucer of cream.
Harvey gave the woman a coin and asked her to walk to a local inn to bring him back some beer. When she left the hovel, Harvey grabbed the toad and cut it open. He examined its heart, lungs, and intestines. He decided it was not supernatural, just a common toad.
that’s just bad manners all around. “thank you for letting me in and now go out and fetch me a beer while i kill your beloved pet.” horrible guest.
another question i have. read the following:
He set up volunteers in three screened areas. In one, volunteers slept in the soiled pajamas of yellow fever victims on black vomit-covered bedding. Into the second, he released mosquitoes that had recently bitten yellow fever victims. In the third enclosed area, volunteers remained without mosquitoes or soiled pajamas.
Only the volunteers exposed to mosquitoes got yellow fever. The volunteers who slept in smeared pajamas on black vomit-covered beds were held there for sixty-three days—and they still didn’t get sick!
my question is with the phrase “held there.” that doesn’t sound voluntary. and who signs up for that? and did they stay in the beds the whole 63 days, or were they allowed to get out of bed and put together jigsaw puzzles or anything? because you would have to pay me a lot of money to “volunteer” to lie in a filth-bed for 63 days with nothing else to do. i would only volunteer for that third group. because i do not like yellow fever, thank you.
and one last extended passage, which made me shudder:
Picture this scenario: It’s your usual morning commute to school. You’re sitting at the back of the near-full bus, watching the other passengers. Twins sitting near the front sneeze in unison. One complains loudly to the other, “Sneeze in your sleeve! You’ve already given me your flu. Think of others!” At the next stop, a mother gets on the bus carrying her small son, his sweaty head slumped on her shoulder. The swollen lymph glands on his neck are clearly visible. He’s got mumps. An elderly gentleman struggles up the stairs behind the mother. He’s using two arm-braced canes. Postpolio syndrome grips his lower limbs, taking another round out of him seventy-five years after he survived a mild case in his youth. At the next stop, a teen flops down on the seat next to you, her face flushed and eyes blurry. She rubs the back of her neck and grimaces with an obvious headache. Diagnosis—meningitis. A few stops later, on gets a young man with oozing, angry, red sores covering his face. He’s visibly sweating despite the cold winter temperature. Could he have smallpox? What could be worse?
no, nothing could be worse. all of that sounds horrible, including the twins, because of my fear, and the bus itself because the bus is jive. just jive. and that scenario is exactly what the bus is like, in my experience. a collection of cootie-people and crying babies. jive.
they close the book with a chilling question.
After reading this book, are you surprised you are alive?
yes. and now i am going to stay that way. no one is ever getting near me again, that’s for sure. i am ordering my bubble as we speak.
$350.00 sounds like a good deal to me!
and for you scatological types, according to the index, these are the number of pages on which the following words can be found:
feces—6
diarrhea—18
excrement—1
it’s a messy little book. and kids love messes!
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