Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

From tapeworms and lice to fungi and down to tiny viruses, we are surrounded by agents of infectious disease which can be caught from other people, animals, and the environment. The variety of such agents is enormous and their methods of infection often ingenious. Some have life cycles that also involve non-human hosts. The discovery of these agents of disease has involved luck and accident as well as dedication, even on occasion to the point of self-experimentation. David Ian Grove brings together here the stories of most of the major infectious agents, describing their nature, how they were discovered, and the lives of their discoverers. The result is an enormously rich and highly readable compendium full of fascinating accounts of the discoveries that have profoundly altered medicine over the past two centuries. -- from dust jacket.

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