Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague - Softcover

Rhodes, Richard

  • 4.01 out of 5 stars
    1,501 ratings by Goodreads
 
9780684819860: Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0684819864 ISBN 13: 9780684819860
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (Trade Division), 1998

Synopsis

The British epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or "mad cow" disease, is only one in a series of mysterious and often fatal afflictions that have baffled scientists for more than 40 years. Deadly Feasts is a compelling account of decades of research into a family of diseases ranging from kuru in primitive human tribes to scrapie in sheep. Richard Rhodes traces the attempts of scientists to understand these strange diseases, which are now known to be transmitted by ingesting the brain or nervous tissue of infected creatures, even though the pathogen itself is an enigma that seems to be neither bacterial nor viral. Deadly Feasts is packed with historical, anthropological, and epidemiological detail, and is graphic and occasionally even alarming in its speculations.

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Review

The British epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or "mad cow" disease, is only one in a series of mysterious and often fatal afflictions that have baffled scientists for more than 40 years. Deadly Feasts is a compelling account of decades of research into a family of diseases ranging from kuru in primitive human tribes to scrapie in sheep. Richard Rhodes traces the attempts of scientists to understand these strange diseases, which are now known to be transmitted by ingesting the brain or nervous tissue of infected creatures, even though the pathogen itself is an enigma that seems to be neither bacterial nor viral. Deadly Feasts is packed with historical, anthropological, and epidemiological detail, and is graphic and occasionally even alarming in its speculations.

About the Author

Richard Rhodes is the author of numerous books and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He graduated from Yale University and has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Appearing as host and correspondent for documentaries on public television’s Frontline and American Experience series, he has also been a visiting scholar at Harvard and MIT and is an affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Visit his website: RichardRhodes.com

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Publisher
Simon & Schuster (Trade Division)
Publication date
1998
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0684819864
ISBN 13 
9780684819860
Binding
Paperback
Number of pages
272
Rating
  • 4.01 out of 5 stars
    1,501 ratings by Goodreads

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780684844251: Deadly Feasts: The "Prion" Controversy and the Public's Health

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  0684844257 ISBN 13:  9780684844251
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1998
Softcover