Rats, Lice and History » (New Edition)

When Rats, Lice and History appeared in 1935, Hans Zinsser was a highly regarded Harvard biologist who had never written about historical events. Although he had published under a pseudonym, virtually all of his previous writings had dealt with infections and immunity and had appeared either in medical and scientific journals or in book format. Today he is best remembered as the author of Rats, Lice and History, which gone through multiple editions and remains a masterpiece of science writing for a general readership.

To Zinsser, scientific research was high adventure and the investigation of infectious disease, a field of battle. Yet at the same time he maintained a love of literature and philosophy. His goal in Rats, Lice and History was to bring science, philosophy, and literature together to establish the importance of disease, and especially epidemic infectious disease, as a major force in human affairs. Zinsser cast his work as the "biography" of a disease. In his view, infectious disease simply represented an attempt of a living organism to survive. From a human perspective, an invading pathogen was abnormal; from the perspective of the pathogen it was perfectly normal.

This book is devoted to a discussion of the biology of typhus and history of typhus fever in human affairs. Zinsser begins by pointing out that the louse was the constant companion of human beings. Under certain conditions-failure to wash or to change clothing-lice proliferated. The typhus pathogen was transmitted by rat fleas to human beings, who then transmitted it to other humans and in some strains from human to human. Rats, Lice and History is a tour de force. It combines Zinsser's expertise in biologywith his broad knowledge of the humanities.

About the Author:
Hans Zinsser (1878-1940) was an instructor of bacteriology at Columbia University

Introduction to the Transaction Edition     ix
Preface     xxix
In the nature of an explanation and an apology     3
Being a discussion of the relationship between science and art     15
Leading up to the definition of bacteria and other parasites, and digressing briefly into the question of the origin of life     34
On parasitism in general, and on the necessity of considering the changing nature of infectious diseases in the historical study of epidemics     57
Being a continuation of Chapter IV, but dealing more particularly with so-called new diseases and with some that have disappeared     77
Diseases of the ancient world: a consideration of the epidemic diseases which afflicted the ancient world     105
A continuation of the consideration of diseases of the ancients, with particular attention to epidemics and the fall of Rome     128
On the influence of epidemic diseases on political and military history, and on the relative unimportance of generals     150
On the louse: we are now ready to consider the environment which has helped to form the character of our subject     166
More about the louse: the need for this chapter will be apparent to those who have entered into the spirit of this biography     179
Much about rats - a little about mice     189
We are at last arriving at the point at which we can approach the subjectof this biography directly     212
In which we consider the birth, childhood, and adolescence of typhus     229
In which we follow the earliest epidemic exploits of our disease     240
Young manhood: the period of early vigor and wild oats     265
Appraisal of a contemporary and prospects of future education and discipline     282