The narrative arc of each described illness shows all of those aspects, the ideologies that fostered the wrong ideas and the brave doctors and scientists who tried to find real cures instead while facing scorn and occupational problems. that made the illnesses even worse, because by combining stupid or no healing options with ostracizing, stigmatizing and persecuting the suffering humans, it got spread wider than necessary. It was a combination of ignorance, stupidity, prudery, faith. The key element here is Big History and that makes it an eyeopener because the medical books are just talking about the strange cures, the history books about the consequences on politics and warfare, the biology books about how the critters scuttle from victim to victim, but nobody puzzled the elements together until know. I know that it´s totally wrong to be amused or even laugh while reading books with such topics, but the author does such a great, entertaining, science-education job by combining the worst nightmares of plague history with wit and satire that it´s difficult to stay serious.

With her signature mix of in-depth research and upbeat storytelling, and not a little dark humor, Jennifer Wright explores history’s most gripping and deadly outbreaks. Get Well Soon delivers the gruesome, morbid details of some of the worst plagues in human history, as well as stories of the heroic figures who fought to ease their suffering. Throughout time, humans have been terrified and fascinated by the plagues they've suffered from. And in turn-of-the-century New York, an Irish cook caused two lethal outbreaks of typhoid fever, a case that transformed her into the notorious Typhoid Mary and led to historic medical breakthroughs.

In late-nineteenth-century England an eccentric gentleman founded the No Nose Club in his gracious townhome-a social club for those who had lost their noses, and other body parts, to the plague of syphilis for which there was then no cure. In a month more than 400 people had died from the mysterious dancing plague. She danced herself to her death six days later, and soon thirty-four more villagers joined her.

In 1518, in a small town in France, Frau Troffea began dancing and didn’t stop.

A humorous book about history's worst plagues-from the Antonine Plague, to leprosy, to polio-and the heroes who fought them

Get Well Soon by Jennifer Wright