World Epidemics: A Cultural Chronology of Disease from Prehistory to the Era of SARS (review)

This work is another in a series of historical encyclopedias by Mary Ellen Snodgrass on such varied topics as nursing, the kitchen, individuals in the Middle Ages, world scriptures, and coins and currency. In this one she has industriously amassed a considerable amount of epidemiological and literary information presented as (1) a list of epidemic events ranging from 1,500,000 BCE to 15 August 2003; (2) a glossary of medical terms and health organizations; and (3) a series of appendices. The first appendix provides the names of every epidemic disease mentioned in the text, along with details on the ailment's early incidence and cause. The next three appendices give bibliographic information dealing with historical writings on disease, in three different forms: first, alphabetically by title; second, in chronological order by publication date; and third, alphabetically by author. These are followed by the author's own bibliography of general works; another bibliography divided by disease rubrics; and a lengthy index. The index indicates the dates under which individuals and organizations mentioned in the text can be found; shows the location in the work of all diseases occurring in a country or during a particular war; and contains entries on epidemic disease appearances that are tracked over time.

The chronology itself begins with paleopathological findings of possible yaws, polio, osteosarcoma (an epidemic?), schistosomiasis, and dracunculiasis among early humans, interspersed with literary evidence from the Bible and Vedic literature and from the writings of individuals such as Homer, Herodotus, and Livy. It does not take the reader long, however, to become uneasy with speculation reported as fact, such as smallpox killing humans in northeastern Africa some 12,000 years ago and malaria doing the same about 2,000 years later (p. 9). In these cases the reader is not given the evidence (could any exist?) to help adjust the prevailing view that the human experience with both of these illnesses did not become widespread and deadly until long after the onset of agriculture—not before.

There also is misinformation, such as the assertion that Aesculapius was the "first Greek doctor" (p. 14), as well as misleading information; death rates from the plague, for example, are given over wide geographic areas with a pinpoint precision that would be impossible even today (pp. 33-44). Most insidious, however, are the author's bland declarations of what she apparently believes to be established fact. Just a couple of examples: Under the year 1494, "syphilis was introduced to Europe by Indian captives aboard Christopher Columbus's ships" (p. 51). Under 1495, Africans brought smallpox to the Caribbean, and "[s]imultaneously yellow fever imported by the expeditionary force of Christopher Columbus flourished in virgin soil territory" (p. 52). Experts still disagree on whether syphilis reached the Old World from the New—it is an unfinished debate, whereas most agree that the first appearance of smallpox in the Americas came in 1518, and that of yellow fever (because of the complicated synergy between virus, vector, and hosts) not until 1647.

Encyclopedias are looked to as sources of facts, and although error is bound to creep in on occasion, it should not occur with regularity. Therefore, shame on those who published this work without vetting it first. In fairness, it should be noted that the author has compiled an amazing amount of epidemiological data, and the work becomes less flawed as it draws nearer to the present. Nonetheless, although this is a mine of information, it is also a minefield for the unwary.