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2. Steven Johnson: ''The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic'' – This book is a super fun, quick read that examines a particular outbreak of cholera in London in 1854, and a doctor named John Snow who helped put an end to it. Johnson's work explains how theories of contagion evolved from blaming sickness on "bad air" (miasma), to blaming attributing sickness on to bacteria that arose from unsanitary conditions. Dr. John Snow's findings changed the nature of epidemiology and medical science, in general, forever -- one cannot overemphasize the importance of this work.
3. Bill Wasik & Monica Murphy: ''Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus'' – Rabies is still, in modern times, an incurable, deadly disease. If a creature, human or otherwise, is bitten by a rabid animal, that person will most certainly die – and death from rabies remains, even to this day, horrifying to witness. This book examines rabies from a couple of different standpoints -- the actual threat of the disease to public health, and the perception of the disease among individuals.
4. Deborah Hayden: ''Pox: The Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis'' – Ah, syphilis, the STD that affected so many popular figures of past centuries – from William Shakespeare to Al Capone. Also know as the “French Pox”, the legacy of syphilis traces back from Christopher Columbus’s voyage to the Americas, to the 40-year Tuskegee syphilis study that began in 1932. The latter is known as one of the most racist, unethical studies ever done in the western world. Hayden argues that syphilis is too often disregarded as an element behind the motivations of important historical figures.
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5. Jennifer Lee Carrell: ''The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox'' -- Smallpox is a disease that has been around for approximately 2000 years. Carrell’s study tells the tale of Edward Jenner, the English physician who developed the first version of an inoculation in 1796. Inoculation, which means the introduction of a antigenic substance in an effort to boost immunity to a certain disease, eventually became known as vaccination. Carrell also includes crucial discoveries prior to Jenner’s – including the Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who contracted the disease and was among the first to have her child inoculated. Due to her high societal standing, and later spread the Lady Montagu played a crucial role in spreading the word about the efficacy of inoculation.
4. Ruth Richardson: ''Death, Dissection, and the Destitute'' – This book falls a bit outside the “popular medical history” category due to its academic prose, but it is, nonetheless, a highly readable, fascinating work for anyone interested in medical history and the poor. In the 1830s, the field of medicine was burgeoning, and dissectible corpses were perhaps the most crucial teaching mechanism for future doctors. The problem was, most nineteenth-century people were not amenable to having their corpses used for medical purposes. This meant that other means of obtaining fresh bodies must be considered…
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7. Nadja Durbach: ''Bodily Matters: The Anti-Vaccination Movement in England, 1853-1907'' – This work explores the science and social history of smallpox. Durbach's work is perhaps one of the most relevant on this list in these modern times when anti-vaccination activists are opposing such important medical discoveries. In England, the Compulosry Vaccionatiion Compulsory Vaccination Act made smallpox vaccines mandatory for all children, beginning in 1853 -- such an act was considered by many working-class Englishmen and women as an infringement upon their natural rights, and was met with fierce indignation.
8. W.F. Bynum & Roy Porter: ''Medical Fringe and Medical Orthodoxy 1750-1850'' – During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there was no consensus as to what constituted “accepted” medicine, and what constituted “alternative” medicine – they simply blended together. This work studies this important time when demarcations between scientifically-validated medicine, and holistic/alternative medicine were being made.
