I love Steven Johnson. He’s one of my favorite authors. He writes mainly about the history of science and technology.
This book is about the history of how we began to live longer. The average lifespan has gone up so much in the last couple of centuries, and what caused that?
Here’s the list:
Vaccines
Epidemiology
Pasteurization and chlorination
Antibiotics
Automobile and industrial safety
Increased food production
He goes deep into each one and explains the history, what led to it, and how it changed the world. Along the way, he paints the picture of a society slowly moving forward and resolving “the catalog of evils” that plagued us for thousands of years.
No one writes science as well as Johnson. Each chapter is clear and compelling. (I highly recommend all his other books.)
Today, we truly don’t know how good we have it. There was so much that could have killed us in the past. And we slowly resolved each one.
This book made me hopeful for the future, despite the insanity that COVID has visited upon us.
Book Info
Author
Steven Johnson
Year
Pages
320
Acquired
I have read this book. According to my records, I completed it on .
A hardcover copy of this book is currently in my home library.
A special type of needle used specifically to deliver smallpox vaccine. It has two small prongs on the end, and it’s just deep enough to puncture the skin multiple times and deliver the vaccine to the correct depth. It was used heavily in the worldwide campaign to eradicate smallpox in the 1960s...
This was originally a book written in 1928 about the gangs operating in New York during the 1800s, prior to the Italian Mafia. Most people of this generation know this as the 2002 movie Gangs of New York starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Cameron Diaz. That film was loosely based on...
This was an era of medicine in the 1700s and 1800s where physicians performed extreme treatments on their patients in an attempt to “shock” them out of whatever condition ailed them. Treatments such as bloodletting, purging, and sweating were common. These very likely caused more deaths than they...
Used to describe diseases or health conditions. Morbidity is the rate of people who have a condition. Mortality is the rate that the condition kills people. Something with a high morbidity means it’s very prevalent through a population. Things like: Heart disease Diabetes Hypertension Something...
