Deadly Companions: How Microbes Shaped Our History

5 Responses to “Deadly Companions: How Microbes Shaped Our History”

1. Erin C. Howland says:

   July 16, 2010 at 7:07 am

   Dorothy H. Crawford’s “Dealy Companions” is a facinating read for anyone interested in microbiology or history. The book may possibly easily be used as a supplement for a introductory microbiology course, but the non-student may find Crawford’s style to some extent dry and sober, as she tends to downplay some of the most facinating theme matter and dissapointingly barrows many thoughts and tables from Jared Diamond’s work. Specifically the beginning of chapter 5, which seems nearly verbatum from “Guns, Germs and Steel.” Even as the first three chapters are full of descriptions by the time you get through chapters four, five and six it feels as though Crawford has abandoned the storytelling. In spite of being to some extent dull in the middle, Crawford’s work has several redeeming qualities. Crawford is not worried to challenge the reader to comptenplate huge thoughts, such as our intimate and complex relationship with microbes that both help us and hurt us.
   
   Refreshingly Crawford does not attempt to incite the reader in a war hostile to microbes as many authors on the theme do, but presents an elegant argument for accepting our mutual past and future. Crawford guides the reader through our co evolution with “deadly companions” from the beginning of time to the bestow leaving the reader with both a sense of dread and serenity, and certinly a fantastic deal of respect for microbes. The opening chapter “How It All Started” is espcially inspired. Crawford paints a vivid picture of the emergence of microorganisms and in some way manages to pack 4.6 billion years of evolution into an enjoyable and readable narrative. Crawford’s book is a honestly simple read and well worth slogging through a few dull parts in the middle for the sense of worder you will be left with after reading this eye-opening work.
   Rating: 4 / 5
2. J. Phelps says:

   July 16, 2010 at 7:11 am

   After reading Deadly Companions I feel like I should be bathing in that germ killing gel that everybody carries in their pocket or purse. And after I meet somebody new, or who has recently traveled, I have this sudden urge to wash my hands, face, and take more Zicam. Excellent job telling us how we developed alongside microbes; how they impacted our development in helpful and detrimental ways. But she seems to have written at a quick pace. This may possibly have been fleshed out a bit better, reaching a wider audience, if only she had taken her time and added more history and storytelling to the too small chapters. Not a book I would urge to my college students. Perhaps something high-schoolers should read as part of biology class. A much better book to read is Bug! about the 1918 Spanish Flu.
   Rating: 3 / 5
3. Michael Mecredy says:

   July 16, 2010 at 9:55 am

   In Deadly Companions: How Microbes Shaped Our History, Dr. Dorothy Crawford tells the tale of how microbes have impacted human society throughout the ages. She starts with a basic description of the life cycle of bacteria and viruses and then proceeds to discuss the methods of transmission to the early hunter-gatherer societies. From there, she traces the evolution of microbes in conjunction with the growth of human civilization. Dr. Crawford’s main purpose in this investigation is to evaluate mankind’s future in relation to the microbes that have plagued us for centuries. Even as history has shown man fighting desperately to survive, modern technology has given us the tools to alter this war. But, even tools such as antibiotics, antiviral drugs, and vaccines have, on occasion, been rendered ineffective as microbes evolve and mutate far quicker than we do. With that in mind, Dr. Crawford proposes that we find a solution in which we live in harmony with, rather than at odds to, the multitude of microbes.
   
   Structurally, Dr. Crawford progresses chronologically starting with the infection of hunter-gatherers by malaria and ending with the recent epidemics of SARS and H5N1 Avian Flu. During each era of history, certain microbes were more prevalent and Dr. Crawford highlights these microbes in their historical context.
   
   I would highly urge Deadly Companions to all readers. Even as the theme matter may seem to be quite “academic,” Dr. Crawford does an brilliant job of formatting the material for the general audience even as still remaining objective and factual and attractive the mind through the last page.
   Rating: 5 / 5
4. P. Alther says:

   July 16, 2010 at 10:02 am

   First, I want to come forth forth that I am giving this book 5 stars as it was a very excellent read (if one can tolerate an academic book), delving into both the historical and scientific side of our deadly friends. I do have problems with the book, the main top being that it was too small. Judging by the cover, I plotting it would delve more into the plague doctors of the 17th century and into some of the medieval lore surrounding plagues. This was not so, as it took a very broad look at it, spanning over several millennium, only lightly touch the plague doctors, as well as other topics. It should be mentioned that, for the most part, it was a look at how these disease infected and affected Europeans and N. Americans, but she did get into the very depressing downfall of the fantastic civilizations of South America, with some detail.

   I cannot hold shortness hostile to the book as it is not meant to delve too deeply into any one topic and is calculated to cover a wide range of issues, which it did very well, and giving the reader a provoking taste into this weird history. I found it a quick read (but not just so light), and it did make me sad when I learned just how severe many of these diseases were, that I only knew by name.

   All in all, this is a fine book and worthy of anyone reading it that holds an interest in medicine, history, or both (as I do). Delight in!
   Rating: 5 / 5
5. R. Hardy says:

   July 16, 2010 at 11:52 am

   Bacteria have a terrible reputation. We reckon of them as causing illness, and that’s right, of course, but overwhelmingly they do not cause us harm. Without them, indeed, we may possibly not digest our food, and elements may possibly not be recycled into the environment. They have been performing this sort of vital service for nearly 600 million years. There are a million or so microbes we know about, and of them, only 1,415 are known to cause disease in humans, with the rest steadily chugging away to keep the world in balance. Those pathogenic ones are the main theme in _Deadly Companions: How Microbes Shaped Our History_ (Oxford University Press) by Dorothy H. Crawford. A microbiologist, Crawford has written bounty of scientific papers, but here (as in a previous book about viruses) she writes for a well loved audience to show how microbes, especially the ones that bother and kill us, have affected the humans that are interlopers in their world. We must never forget that most microbes are our companions and are not deadly, and that we live in a mutually beneficial partnership with millions of them. But it is their world: “We relative newcomers to the earth,” ominously writes Crawford, “emerge from the safe environment of our mother’s womb pristine, untouched by the infectious microbes, but within hours our bodies are colonised by swarms of them, all intent on living off this new food source.”

   Microbes don’t mean to hurt us, of course, and despite the upsurge of religious feeling that accompanies any plague, there is no reason to reckon that they are doing anything but their natural cycles without any supernatural tinkering to deliver lessons to afflicted humans. The fantastic problem with infective microbes is that they can exchange quicker than we can. Resistance to the antibiotics we have had for only a few decades is merely the most recent manifestation of their evolutionary adaptability, and there is no reason to reckon that any new generation of antibiotics is going to exchange this pattern. Crawford shows how different microbes afflicted us when we were hunter gatherers than did so when we changed to living in farming communities. Diseases have changed history. The ruler Crawford mentions that seems to have been most affected by them was Napoleon. He sought after to extend his empire into the New World, but mosquito-borne yellow fever decimated the troops within the Caribbean, and prevented his plot to go on to New Orleans and points north. It was not just the cold and starvation that kept Napoleon’s troops from taking Russia. Louse-borne typhus took its toll, and without it, many historians reckon Napoleon may possibly have gone on to conquer Europe.

   Crawford takes up bubonic plague, the potato blight fungus, cholera, smallpox and many more, explaining the natural cycle of each microbe, its vectors (mosquitoes, fleas, lice) and its reservoirs in the wild (snails, birds, cattle). It isn’t all biology; Crawford points out that _the_ major cause of microbe-correlated deaths is poverty, with a hugely disproportionate toll on poorer nations. The science she writes about, all with clarity and enthusiasm, is something new, especially compared to how long we have been going about with these microbial companions. Dealing with diseases scientifically has been regarded as impious; she quotes a 1722 sermon balustrade hostile to smallpox vaccination “… because inoculation opposes the will of God, who sends disease (including smallpox) either to try our faith or to punish us for our sins.” Science, but, is not going to keep us out of distress; we have headlines these days about microbes that are resistant to our miracle drugs, and our own misuse of drugs hostile to tuberculosis has resulted not in “multiply drug resistant” TB, but in “extensively drug resistant” TB, with “absolutely drug resistant” TB looming in the future. Even if we were to invent the superdrug researchers jokingly call “gorillacillin”, it would kill off our aide microbes as well as the villains, and history shows that even such a drug would be overcome by resistance eventually. It isn’t hopeless, and Crawford has written a sobering but not a pessimistic book. We have won battles, and that’s something to be proud of. But we will have to content ourselves with winning battles, for we will never win the war.
   
   Rating: 5 / 5