From tapeworms and lice to fungi and down to tiny viruses, we are surrounded by agents of infectious disease which can be caught from other people, animals, and the environment. The variety of such agents is enormous and their methods of infection often ingenious. Some have life cycles that also involve non-human hosts. The discovery of these agents of disease has involvede luck and accident as well as didication, even on occasion to the point of self-experimentation. David Ian Grove brings together here the stories of most of the major infectious agents, describing their nature, how they were discovered, and the lives of their discoverers. The result is an enormously rich and highly readable compendium full of fascinating accounts of the discoveries that have profoundly altered medicine over the past two centuries.

Formerly CIP.

I. Infection : the search for its causes -- II. Worms -- 1. Ascaris : the giant intestinal roundworm -- 2. Tapeworms -- 3. Hookworm anaemia -- 4. Schistosomiasis (sometimes called Bilharziasis) -- 5. Filariasis (elephantiasis) -- III. Arthropods -- 6. Lice (pediculosis) -- 7. The itch (scabies) -- IV. Fungi -- 8. Tinea (ringworm, etc.) -- 9. Candidiasis (thrush) -- V. Protozoa -- 10. Giardiasis -- 11. Amoebic dysentery and liver abscess -- 12. Malaria -- 13. Sleeping sickness (African trypanosomiasis) -- 14. Cutaneous leishmaniasis (Oriental sore) and visceral leishmaniasis (kala azar) -- 15. Chagas disease (South American trypanosomiasis) -- VI. Bacteria -- 16. The germ theory of disease -- 17. Anthranx -- 18. Tuberculosis (consumption) -- 19. Leprosy (Hansen's disease) -- 20. The golden staphylococcus -- 21. The pus-forming streptococcus -- 22. The pneumococcus and pneumonia -- 23. Gonorrhoea (the clap) -- 24. Syphilis (the pox) -- 25. The meningococcus and meningitis -- 26. Diphtheria -- 27. Whooping cough (pertussis) -- 28. Cholera -- 29. Typhoid fever -- 30. Escherichia coli -- 31. Bacillary dysentery (shigellosis) -- 32. Tetanus (lockjaw) -- 33. Plague (the Black Death) -- 34. Brucellosis (undulant fever) -- 35. Legionnaires' disease -- 36. Helicobacter pylori and peptic ulcers -- 37. Typhus -- 38. Chlamydia, trachoma, and urethritis -- VII. Viruses -- 39. The discovery of viruses and determination of their nature -- 40. Smallpox (variola) -- 41. Rabies (hydrophobia) -- 42. Yellow fever -- 43. Dengue fever (break bone fever) -- 44. Poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis) -- 45. Measles (rubeola) -- 46. German measles (rubella) -- 47. Mumps -- 48. Varicella (chickenpox and shingles) -- 49. Herpes simplex (cold sores and more) -- 50. Glandular fever (infectious mononucleosis) -- 51. Influenza (the flu) -- 52. Viral hepatitis(A, B, and C) -- 53. Human immunodeficiency virus and the acquired immune deficiency syndrome -- VIII. Prions -- 54. Kuru, mad cows, and variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease -- IX. Unde venis et quo vadis? -- Glossary -- Notes on pronunciation.