Joining the ranks of modern myth busters, Dr. Sharon Moalem turns our current understanding of illness on its head and challenges us to fundamentally change the way we think about our bodies, our health, and our relationship to just about every other living thing on earth, from plants and animals to insects and bacteria. So why does disease exist? Moalem proposes that most common ailments--diabetes, hemochromatosis, cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia--came into existence for very good reasons. At some point they helped our ancestors survive some grand challenge to their existence. Examining the evolution of man, Moalem reveals the role genetic and cultural differences have played in the health and well-being of various races, including their susceptibility to disease. With mesmerizing insight, Moalem offers groundbreaking insight into: - How diabetes may be a biproduct of a mechanism that helped humans survive the Ice Age - Why African Americans living in the north might suffer from vitamin D deficiencies, - Why Asians can't drink as much alcohol as Europeans Revelatory, utterly engaging, and timely--Moalem ponders strongN1, the emerging Avian Flu virus--Why Redheads Feel More Pain and Asians Can't Drink will irrevocably change the way we think about our bodies and ourselves.

Since its publication in 1958, George Rosen's classic treatise has remained the only comprehensive international account of the history of public health. Long available only through antiquarian bookstores, A History of Public Health now returns to print in a paperback edition that supplements the original text with Elizabeth Fee's new introduction and Edward T. Morman's biographical essay and bibliography. George Rosen discusses the evolution of public health in classical Greece, imperial Rome, England, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, the United States, and other countries. He also presents the lives and history-making contributions of the great figures in public health. Approaching the subject from a broad point of view, Rosen considers community health problems of different periods in terms of their political, social, and economic patterns. Among the topics discussed are the prevalence of disease, the water supply and sewage disposal, epidemiological theory, maternal and child health, nutrition, occupational health, health education, public health administration, communicable disease control, medical care, statistics, public policy, and medical geography. A new introduction by Elizabeth Fee places the work in the context of both the earlier and later historiography of public health. Fee identifies Rosen's agenda in relation to trends in medical history and the politics of public health in the 1950s. She also assesses the impact of Rosen's book and identifies new problems in public health that have arisen since its first publication.