Assuming you don’t want fiction:

The great influenza by John Barry.

The greatest killer by Donald Hopkins

And the books by Richard Preston are somewhat historical accounts but describe well how things could go south fast.

Kinda like letting someone beat you up with some kind of martial art

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

I was a medical student in the middle of all that. 88 to 92 in Toronto. My first three years I got assigned to the Wellesley hospital in Toronto. Not much a star hospital but right in the middle of the gay village. For fourth year we could choose which hospital to be assigned to but it was a lottery. I chose the Wellesley and since very few did I got to stay where I was.

For a Christian kid from a Dutch protestant background it was an eye opener. Ten percent of our pts were HIV positive. I remember doing my first spinal tap on an HIV pt and my hands were shaking knowing if I stabbed myself I could die.

We had alot of strange diseases that killed because of suppressed immune systems. Alot of doctors who were real characters. Harley Smythe the very Christian neurosurgeon who used to read William Blake between cases. And insisted on a huge work ethic and being very good at physical exam. Also was on the cutting edge of treating fungal and parasitic brain infections in HIV pts. One day I was doing some kind of walk around at eight pm and encountered one of my staff men hand feeding a sick HIV positive pt because well there was no one else to do it. He was a Hindu.

The great thing about the Wellesley was you got to do alot of stuff that in the prestige hospitals you could only watch.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Your experiences in Wellesley Hospital sound very, very interesting. It must have been such a tremendous learning experience with the strange and sad consequences to patients with HIV and what are typically inconsequential conditions, as well as your learning curve as a young, straight mainstream guy treating patients unlike yourself. Add that HIV/AIDS was still so new and scary. It’s really remarkable— a very valuable, once in a lifetime experience.

My father has talked a lot recently about his mentors at the IHS, tribal elders who politely told him how to act when providing medical care to a non-white, non-mainstream population. The mentors recently died of Covid. Looking back, I had absolutely no idea at the time how valuable my dad’s work was for him or us, the rest of the family.

You may have seen this. He'd have been a contemporary I think.

https://thehospitalleader.org/...-residency-training/

Finished Defoe’s book regarding the plague in London in 1665-1666. It’s a great account based upon Defoe’s observations and discussions with Londoners. Several times he discusses the theory that asymptomatic people may spread the plague, but at no time does he ever discuss the possibility that he himself is spreading the plague. He doesn’t even discuss his own precautions beyond shutting himself up in a house at times.

I read the 40 page preface to The Decameron, written by Giovanni Boccaccio, and it describes the plague in Florence (where Boccaccio’s father died of the plague) in 1349-1353. It describes the same tension between people who resist taking measures to prevent the spread of the disease and the people who use vinegar-soaked masks and distancing. Boccaccio describes revelers who felt doomed and wanted to take their pleasure while they still could. Others had a more religious bent and placed all trust in God and also took no precautions. I didn’t read the remainder of The Decameron, which is a series of stories told by men and women who have fled Florence and the plague. Maybe another time.

Another book with descriptions of a plague in Italy in 1640 is I Promessi Sposi by Manzoni. The storyline of the book is fiction, however the plague portion is supposed to have been fact-based. Interestingly, the words and grammar of this book are believed to have created (intentionally so) the first unified Italian language. Previously, the language was very distinct in the separate regions.

I’m halfway through a 60 page book called An Account of the Plague Which Raged at Moscow in 1771. It sounds like the bubonic plague, but who knows? The symptoms of the plagues in these books include fevers, “tokens” or dark spots, and lumps, “carbuncles,” or buboes. These lumps occur in the groin and armpit, so they sound like infected lymph nodes. The mitigation efforts are very successful in hospitals, prisons, and orphanages. Mitigation efforts fail terribly in the general population, particularly poor, dense areas.

I’m also reading the book about the source of HIV. Totally different science! DNA sequencing provides a method to trace mutations of the virus back to common sources. So far I haven’t read anything regarding the social conditions & responses to HIV/AIDS. I’m only about halfway through.

That is all.

It was a good read. Fortunately I never stabbed myself as a medical student. I did once as a family practice resident. I was putting freezing in to repair a vaginal tear after childbirth. Stabbed myself in the left hand with my other hand holding the needle. Fortunately very low risk pt.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

I finished the book about the plague in Moscow in 1771. Overall, it matches up with the accounts of the plagues in London and Florence.

Of note, the book about Moscow plague states “Not only those among the poor who are ill of the plague, but those also who are suspected of having the contagion, should be quarantined, fed and maintained at the public expense; humanity, as well as the safety of the rest of the inhabitants, requires that this should be done... If everything is arranged in this manner from the first appearance of the plague, the expenses will not be very heavy, the contagion will be easily stopped...”

This Moscow plague book was published in 1799. The pandemic playbook was being developed way back then! Similar recommendations were made in the other books I’ve recently read.

I just found a book called A History of Epidemics in Britain (Volumes 1& 2.) So many pestilences! Some are related to famine; some are related to invasions.

In Volume 1, for instance, the plague of 664-684, was probably related to Justinian’s reign. Invasion by Danes brought an epidemic in 897. The “Great Fever in London” was in 962. The “Great Mortality of Men & Cattle” was in 1048. “Wasting Disease of York” 1069.

Leprosy in medieval Britain was a big deal. The Black Death of 1348-1349. Epidemics continued in the 14th & 15th centuries. The Sweating Sickness occurred between 1485-1551. There were intermittent outbreaks of the Plague in and around London between 1485-1665.

The Great Plague struck London, Eyam, Colchester and other areas in 1665. Thus ends Volume 1 of the history of epidemics in Britain. I’m going to pass on reading Volume 2 for now.

i may have had ye old sweating sickness from 2016-18, at least at night

seriously this town has been shaped by its plagues. The Thames was pretty much an open sewer until Joseph Bazalgette came along and civil engineered the cholera out. They say he saved more lives than any other Victorian going.


it's also meant the city is incredibly green, meaning filled with parks and open spaces that are essentially untouchable. Those have been blessed things when the only activity you've got is a long walk to break up the day.


We're fresh out of lockdown and this weekend is going to be a zoo. It may mean one more big surge in early January but hopefully the inoculations will meet that halfway . . .

😂 Calling menopause the sweating sickness is funny, but then you remember that your doctor will likely recommend drinking a certain tea made from bark to fix that ailment. Oh— that’s right. Women’s healthcare is still kind of medieval. In the US, at least. 😂

Did you learn the history of all the plagues and fevers and pestilences in the course of your education? Maybe your entire population has known since 1665 that effluvia and vapors spread disease. We just learned that fact last April. Some of us are still trying to learn it. 😂

i've only been in the UK for 25 years, which makes me jumped up immigrant.

I think real Brits do learn it bone deep, if you know what I mean. My part of London was founded as a retreat from bad vapours. It's a nation of ramblers, even better with a dog. In times of trouble people escaped to green places, if they could, and I think that's in social memory. I'm not sure the States is old enough, or plague ridden enough, to have those same kind of instincts.

a couple more fiction suggestions - Robin Cook has one or two medical thrillers about pandemics. Chris Bohjalian's latest book is also about a pandemic.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

About 2/3 of the way through this book and wow does it seem to echo a lot of what is going on now. Of you can take out the whole world war thing and technology it would be like your writing About current events.

What is interesting was the worst off were the strongest in general, young 20 somethings. But old and young were able to survive.

Yes, I noticed that too.

I clearly need to read Pale Rider. I don’t think I ordered it yet. I will now.

I noticed the London Plague book & Moscow Plague book (even the Florence epidemic book from ~1335) describe emotional responses and behaviors similar to what we see today.

Which makes me think a good pandemic response plan looks to history. It’s like reinventing the wheel to ignore lessons from all these epidemics.

one more - Laurie Halse Anderson has a book about the 1918 flu. It was her first publication, prior to Speak, I believe.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD